Members of Isaiah Temple throw bread into the ocean
symbolizing 'casting out sins' at Santa Monica Beach during Rosh Hashanah
Tashlich Service on Tuesday September 30, 2008. Tashlich, the Jewish practice of
symbolically casting our sins out onto the water is derived from verse 7:19 in
the Book of Micah, “And You shall throw their sins into the depths of the
sea.” Rosh
ha-Shanah rŏsh hə-shä'nə [Heb.,=head
of the year], the Jewish New Year, also known as the Feast of the Trumpets. It
is observed on the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, occurring usually in
September. Rosh ha-Shanah is held in great reverence as the Day of Judgment (Yom
ha-Din), the beginning of the 10-day period concluding with Yom Kippur and known
as the Days of Awe, during which, according to
tradition, all the people of the earth pass before the Lord and are marked in
the Book of Life or in the Book of
Death. A distinguishing feature of the New Year is the blowing of the
shofar (a ram's horn), which summons Jews to penitential observance.
Orthodox and Conservative Jews celebrate Rosh ha-Shanah for two days; most
Reform congregations celebrate the first day. See L. Jacobs,
A Guide to Rosh ha-Shanah (1969).