Learn about Rosh Hashanah

 

Rosh Hashanah is about our personal relationship with G-d, it is about him visiting us and it is a time that should be the most special time of the year for us.  Please view the video I have embedded in this page before reading below and remember the love you give always comes back to you.     

                                   

 

Foods, recipes, prayers, all about shofars and bunches of new stuff added daily.

I love Rosh Hashanah It is one of my favorite holidays, Rosh Hashanah it's self means the head of the year.The Mishnah teaches (Masechet Rosh Hashanah 2a) that there are four new years, and Rosh Hashanah is the new year for counting years and calculating shmittah (the sabbatical year), the yovel (the Jubilee year), saplings and vegetables. As such, it is a time of celebration, as are all new years, but unlike some, it is not merely a time for riotous festivity, but is part of a larger Season of Repentance which begins in the beginning of Elul, a month before Rosh Hashanah, with the first blast of the shofar and the first introduction of penitential prayers to the daily liturgy. The season continues through Rosh Hashanah and the Ten Day of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, includes Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and the Sukkot festival which follows five days later, lasting for seven or eight days (depending upon which tradition one follows).  Plus it is the time of the year when we get to eat great food and rethink our lives a bit. 

                           Crowder peas, black eyed peas and other such peas...

                                                     Directions for canning peas using a pressure canner

                              Raw pack peas in quart jars leaving one inch head space, these are fresh peas, not died.

Pour boiling water into jar till you have reached the head space, add one teaspoon of non iodized salt.  I use Utah salt or Dead Sea salt, sometimes Hawaiian salt, Kosher salt would also work.  For some reason iodized salt clouds the water. 

Put you lids on after you wipe each jar top.  Screw the band on hand tight and place in canner.  Follow your canner directions.

 

 

Recommended process time for peas in a weighted-gauge pressure canner.
    Canner Pressure (PSI) at Altitudes:
Jar Size Process Time 0 - 1,000 ft Above 1,000 ft
Pints 30 min 10 lb 15 lb
Quarts 40 10 15

Recommended process time for Peas in a dial-gauge pressure canner.
  Canner Pressure (PSI) at Various Altitudes
Jar Size Process Time 0 - 2,000 ft 2,001 - 4,000 ft 4,001 - 6,000 ft 6,001 - 8,000 ft
Pints 30 min 11 lb 12 lb 13 lb 14 lb
Quarts 40 11 12 13 14

 

 

These will easily keep for twelve months and you will have lovely peas for Rosh Hashanah. 

You can dry these peas as well.  145 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 1/2 hours. 

The tradition of eating black eyed peas or peas like them comes from the Babylonian Talmud, which states, “Abaye said, ‘Now that you have said that an omen is significant, at the beginning of each year, each person should accustom himself to eat gourds, black-eyed peas, fenugreek….” Each of the foods (nine in total) represents something different for the year ahead; the black-eyed peas symbolize good fortune.  

Eating them symbolizes prosperity in these ways: A serving contains  many tiny beans and  pays homage to abundance. Black-eyed peas are rubiyah (in Aramaic and Hebrew) or lubiya (in Arabic), which are cognates of the Hebrew words harbeh, meaning many, and l’harabot, to increase. The idea is to take in prosperity at the start of the year, with the hope that it will serve as a good omen for the year ahead.

There are many special foods that are eaten on Rosh Hashanah. These include Apple & honey for a sweet new year, Carrots – the Hebrew for carrot (gezer) is similar to gzar (decree) and they symbolize the hope that good decrees will be bestowed upon us; Pomegranate – in Israel pomegranates ripen around the time of Rosh Hashanah and are eaten as a new fruit. Other foods that are eaten include fish, beetroot, dates, leeks and gourd or squash, zimmes (sweet potatoes, carrots, and dried fruits baked together) and honey cake. Some people refrain from eating pickles or anything sour, including me...so much yummy food.

 Click on the video below to hear a shofar and to learn a little about them....

WWatch this video to learn how to play one...very cool stuff and so easy, it will knock your socks off...

 

What we read in the Torah for this holiday....Genesis chapter 21

 

On the evening of Rosh Hashanah we caste our sins upon the water...well it's symbolic really and quite sweet as it makes you think about your sins in a different way as a material thing that should be cast off.  What we really do is find live water and empty bread crumbs out of our pockets and out into the water. 

This is why we do it...

Adonai does not retain anger for ever, because God delights in mercy. Adonai will again have compassion upon us; Adonai will suppress our iniquities; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:18-20 You will show truth to Jacob, and loving mercy to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.

So now you know some thing new...

 

Wish some one a new year L'shanah tovah

 

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