Rosh Hashanah

In Jewish communities, honey had become an important component of festive occasions. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, was celebrated with apples dipped in honey, symbolizing a wish for a sweet year to come. Round loaves of challah (a braided yeast bread enriched with eggs) were spread with honey, and the meal ended with slices of spiced honey cake and honey-sweetened fruit compotes. On the first day of a boy s enrollment in chadar, or religious school, letters from the Talmud (the collection of Jewish laws and traditions) would be written in honey on a slate and licked off by the new boys so as to make their learning sweet (Rosenbaum, 2002). 

When I make this cake for the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah),... 

This time I was forty-five years old and in a group in a ritual setting. As I began to feel the effect of the mushrooms, a wonderful feeling of relaxation came over me. I was seeing beautiful patterns synchronized with the music. Some of the patterns appeared like Jewish letters and symbols streaming across in blues, golds, and silvers, colors I associated with Jewishness. This seemed to validate my recent explorations of my roots and my intentions to celebrate the Sabbath and Rosh Hashanah. 

As an example, a few years ago at Alliant, a flashpoint occurred when an important annual gathering of administrators was inadvertently scheduled on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish High Holy day. My office subsequently convened an ad hoc task force on religious observance to consider our existing university policy with respect to religious observances and the available resources to support the diversity of religious or spiritual expression and... 

Typically, firms already offer paid time ofl for traditional Christian holidays such as Christmas. Firms might also want to move toward a PTO (paid time off) program so that people can take time for other religious holidays - or, perhaps, enable employees to have several floating vacation days to celebrate holidays or memorial days that are important to them, such as Rosh Hashanah, Eid-ul-Fitr (the festival at the end of Ramadan fasting), or Martin Luther King Day. 

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