What produces the honey that we celebrate our sweet new year with? The bees.

Every year, my mother brings a theme for the New Year to share with us on Rosh Hashanah; it is my favorite tradition. This year we're talking about the bees. The honey bee is an important part of 1 in 3 foods that we consume and is at risk. The honey bee accounts for eighty percent of all insect pollination. Bees are an important part of the pollination process.   

The honey bees have an interesting system of working together to produce and create. They fly out to gather pollen and come back to the hive to produce honey. No one bee could do this on their own. Their entire lives are built upon the idea of working together to create. An average worker bee produces about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in a lifetime. That may seem like it's not that much honey, but bees are also a part of a much larger process that affects our daily lives.

When thinking about the sweetness of our worker bees of the movement, I think of all the work that goes into the year. The work for the kenim, the work for our machanot, the work for our Israel programs; we work so hard to do these things to keep ourselves relevant, sustainable, and to create as much sweetness in our community as possible. Going into this New Year, I hope that we all feel a part of a much larger working system in which we rely on each other and are able to create something much larger then we think is possible, knowing that what we are all doing is important. I encourage you to think about what makes our New Year sweet. What will we need to do to make this year as sweet as is can be so that the work we do is rich and stays important?

Step one: Walk to the ocean with friends, family and a piece of bread (a loaf on the bad years).

Step two: Remember all the choices that did not reflect the person I was striving to be (okay, easier said than done, but the idea itself was simple enough).

Step three: Imbue pieces of bread with the sins.

Step four: Cast the bread into the sea, reflect and feel motivated to do better in the coming year

So when this article mentioned "the rabbis worried that the custom derived from pagan beliefs in river spirits, and they were concerned that people would substitute tashlich for the more demanding work of teshuvah, repentance," I had to stop and think. Does this simple act give me a sense of relief from guilt that actually stifles my drive to take responsibility for my bad decisions?

The article goes on to say "but the people clung to the practice, and it became a recognized and beloved part of Rosh Hashanah celebration." Now, besides hinting that Jews have forever been the contrarians, the choice of the Jewish people to keep this "beloved" practice alive made me pause again. Does tashlich allow us to dissociate from our sins, or does it allow us to get enough distance from them that we can believe we can do better? For me, tashlich can only allow for the latter if I tie tashlich and teshuvah together and see the act of throwing the bread as an acceptance that I must take my reflections and turn them into action. If I want to create a physical representation of my sins and throw them off, I have to follow through with tangible choices that make me accountable not only to the poor decisions of the past, but to the decisions I will make in the coming year.

Quotes taken from "Celebrate Rosh Hashanah Outside as Well as Inside the Synagogue" http://magazine.discoverjcc.com/celebrate-rosh-hashanah-outside-the-synagogue/

I come from a kibbutz that has been in existence for 83 years, and is the largest kibbutz in the world. My home, Kibbutz Na'an, was the first kibbutz of the Hanoer Haoved Ve'halomed, the Israeli sister movement of Habonim Dror.  

The Jewish calendar and holidays are main focal points of kibbutz life on Na'an, and for many decades they were celebrated in entirely secular ways. Our holidays related the cycle of the year to Israeli history, particularly the land and the agrarian way of living that was typical from the early days until the 1970's. We celebrated with themes that were grounded in the seasons and their agricultural meanings. Festivals marked the time when plants were sown, crops were harvested, and so on throughout the year.

Jewish religious life had no significant part in either the personal or communal aspects of kibbutz life. There was no synagogue on Na'an, although more than 1300 Jews make their homes there. But ten years ago, a gentleman named Yoni felt the urge to create a synagogue on the kibbutz. There was no consensus for creating a synagogue, but Yoni (who had not been born or raised on the kibbutz) went forward with his beliefs. At first, he was joined mostly by people who had religious backgrounds, or who had attended synagogue as children (most of them were outsiders as well). However, as time passed, people who had no previous connection to religious life started to come to synagogue, and within ten years, the congregation on Na'an had to move to a bigger hall. Today, the kibbutz-based opposition to the synagogue has accepted its importance, and the synagogue is a part of kibbutz cultural and religious life. During "Chagei Tishrei", the synagogue is a focal point for the entire community. Synagogue life has not replaced what came before, but it has been added to the existing traditions of celebrating our cultural, historical, and agricultural lives.

I share this story not because I think every community requires a synagogue, or because I espouse religious life above all other expressions of Jewish culture. But for me, this story illuminates two points. First, when you truly believe in something, do not be discouraged by the mainstream; instead, become a leader and create your own path, which just may become the main stream. And second, sometimes a person with a different perspective may be able find a solution for a need, even before the need itself is recognized or even acknowledged.

One of the practices of Rosh Hashanah is to "recite prayers for good tidings" over the foods we customarily eat. The excerpt below not only gives insight into the meaning traditionally given to certain foods, but also gives a great view into the ways Hebrew enriches our culture by adding meaning to even the simplest parts of the Holiday.

In the Responsa of the Geonim it is written that the following was the custom of the Sages; On Rosh Hashanah they would bring to the table a basket containing gourds, dates, and other boiled vegetables. They would then place their hands on each one of them and extract symbolic meaning for the New Year from their names. On the gourd (krah) they would say: "Our bad decrees should be torn up" (yikrah); on the fenugreek (rubya) they would say: "Our merits should be numerous" (yirbu); on the leek (karti) they would say: "Our enemies should be cut off" (yikratu); on dates (tamarim) they would say: "Our sins should be removed" (yitamu). They would then add a pomegranate and say: "Our merits should increase like (the seeds of) a pomegranate."

• For an interesting read about the role of water in tashlich and the "superstitious origins of the custom" check out: http://emanu-el-stage.org/2012/09/30/tashlich-feeding-the-demons-2/  
• For Social Justice texts and Resources for the High Holidays from our friends at Repair the World: http://werepair.org/blog/social-justice-texts-and-resources-for-the-high-holidays/ 
• For a nice video about pomegranates and more about their symbolism from The iCenter: http://www.theicenter.org/resource/low-hanging-fruit-pomegranates-and-rosh-hashanah 
• And look here for this year's great music videos, brought to you by Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/routine-emergencies/.premium-1.544074