Editor's Note: Tiger Times is pleased to introduce a new section called "Celebrating With..." where a member of our community shares how their family celebrates a holiday. In coming issues, we'd love to feature other Redding families celebrating Diwali, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, etc. If you're interested in sharing your family's festivities, please feel free to email beatrixeriksen@gmail.com
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by Carla Rothberg
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In the midst of the deafening and dizzying static and fear around us all day, every day, Rosh Hashana, the beginning of the new Jewish year, comes at the perfect time - it seems to, every year. How does it know how to do that? Perhaps a year can only hold so much until it’s time to start anew.
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As a child growing up in a mostly Jewish town, Rosh Hashanah was exciting because I could wear my new, autumnal outfits to Temple, perform in the Junior Choir and then run around in the temple hallways after the Youth Service. Temple felt like a second home to me - and I always carried the pride of my parents’ and grandparents’ names who were well-liked and philanthropic
“regulars” at the Temple.
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As I got older, I would never miss the Rabbi’s sermon and would often be asked to read from the Torah. Every year, I agreed. And every year, I cursed myself for putting myself through this nightmare again. The butterflies inside me that felt more like dinosaurs, and the reliable way my right knee would shake the entire time I was up at the podium on the Bima (stage). And then, thank God (literally), I’d be done. Until next year…We’d always stay until the end to hear the Shofar - an instrument made of a ram’s horn that makes wildly amazing sounds when blown with the skill of a rabbi, cantor, or often an elder in the congregation —google shofar blowing if you’ve never heard it. It’s worth it. It’s always made me feel connected to a universal human experience.
We all have hopes and dreams and wonderful memories. And we all have fears, and problems, and uncertainties. Somehow I hear echoes of generations of those shared experiences in the shofar blasts and it soothes me. And I don’t think that feeling is unique to me.​
Celebrating With...
The Rothbergs at Rosh Hashana
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Then we go to a pond or a lake, anywhere with water, with a loaf of stale bread (if you forget, a loaf of bread from the “day old” rack at the store saves you) and, casting off pieces of it into the water, we think about any wrongdoings we have done this past year and cast those sins into the water one by one. Casting away the sins, and silently promising to be better….hoping that we can be better.
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At home, we get into “cozy clothes” (tell me that’s not universal) and we share a blessing over wine and candles to symbolize the transition to a spiritual or holy time, bless and cut a round challah (round to represent the roundness of a year as it comes to a close) and dip some apples in honey for a “sweet new year,” a common refrain as we greet each other this time of year. Then, of course, we eat. The sounds, smells and tastes connect each Rosh Hashana to the last and the next, like one of those paper chains we made in school. They are a constant, and are deeply rooted in family history across generations. They are a reminder of who we are and have always been.
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On our beautifully set tables often strewn with handed down family artifacts, there’s always a relish tray filled with pickles and olives, a savory, starchy side dish (preferably a string bean casserole all from canned goods like our depression era grandparents taught us), delicious chicken with little potatoes with a skin roasted to crispy perfection. But we all know who the star of the show is, who gets treated as if from God himself — not my brother - the brisket. We’re usually talking about a 3 day timeline - it gets cooked in advance - low and slow - and then gets wrapped tightly to keep all the natural juices in - God Forbid we eat a dry brisket. Just, no.
Discussion about the brisket usually starts the morning before the dinner - my parents perseverate on when it should come out of the refrigerator and then when to go into the oven, at what temperature, and will there be enough room for all the other items that need to go in the
oven…
The brisket, in this case, isn’t just about brisket - it’s about tradition of course, but also how we bump up against what we know and what we fear every year and how we forget and have to relearn the same lessons, in life too. Expectations (everyone looks forward to the brisket) Worry (will it be dry? Will there be enough gravy? Should we make more gravy?) Remember what I said about dry brisket - it’s a hereditary thing.
After much perseveration of our own, my husband Mitchell and I finally joined a temple here this year, and as if a moth to a flame, our daughter Ruby immediately joined the junior choir and started running around the temple halls. It makes my heart full of so many feelings - and because guilt and uncertainty are feelings too - I feel a sadness that we didn’t do this earlier in her 11 year old life. I try to quiet that voice - does the brisket need more gravy??
At dinner at our house, we had our classic menu (my mom made the brisket and chicken - we took on the supporting characters). We talked about what we had just heard for the first time - that there is a reason we dip apples (sweet) in honey (also sweet) - why two sweet things? One answer is that apples are always sweet, just sweet, simple, done. Honey is sweet, but it comes from bees which sting. So there are two kinds of sweetness - sweetness that’s simple and sweet from the start, and the other kind which is sometimes first experienced as pain or difficulty - and once you get to the other side of it, there is sweetness. We want both. We all need both. Lots to take in.
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Luckily, the period between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (often called the Days of Awe) is a window for us to think about ways we might have gone astray this year, wrong choices, feelings we might have hurt and, to apologize for them and/or forge a new path forward for ourselves. The idea is that we’re renewing our contracts with what we believe it means to be a good Jew or just a good person, and then committing to doing our best. And each year it repeats, around and around we go. But for tonight, the brisket was excellent. Plenty of gravy.
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Wishing everyone’s a family a sweet season to come - and I look forward to hearing about your family’s celebrations in coming issues of Tiger Times.
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