Bread Upon the Waters

ROSH HASHANA | TASHLICH CEREMONY

Dozens of people from Congregation Ahavath Achim gathered under cloudy skies Monday evening a few blocks from the synagogue to take part in a Tashlich ceremony as part of Rosh Hashana.

Rosh Hashana is a holiday in the Jewish faith that celebrates the Jewish new year. This Rosh Hashana, which began at sundown Sunday, marks the start of year 5779 on the Jewish calendar. “Le Shanah Tovah Tikatevu” is the Hebrew greeting for “May you be inscribed for a good year.”

Rabbi Alan Learner led those gathered in the Tashlich ceremony, which consisted of a brief service of readings and songs, some in English, others in Hebrew. At the culmination of the readings and songs, people cast bread into the water as a symbolic enactment of a verse in Micah: “And cast your sins upon the water.”

As stated in a reading given to those gathered, the custom of going to a body of water on Rosh Hashana is a symbolic allusion, “for the waters which now seem to be at this place were not here before and will not remain afterward.”

The High Holy Days, a period of introspection and repentance, begin on Rosh Hashana and end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which begins at sundown Sept. 18.

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