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The Birthday Party for the World

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September 28, 2010 by InterfaithFamily Administrator   Comments (0)

cake, birthday, children, Rosh

Ever since I moved to Newton, Mass., I have found services to be just boring. Maybe it’s because now we go to a bigger, less personal synagogue, or when the rabbi talks, I often find myself dozing off. This year I was determined to make Rosh Hashanah meaningful for my family, especially my three year old little boy, Ariel.

I decided to make a birthday party for the world. By making Rosh Hashanah a birthday for the world, I felt my son would truly understand the meaning of the day or at least think it was really cool that we were all dressed up wearing birthday hats and eating sweet food.

For each of the two days of Rosh Hashanah we invited Ariel’s friends and their parents over to our house. We had a mix of families with guests who originated from New York, Canada, China, Ukraine, and Australia. We started each meal with apples and honey and a new fruit. It is a tradition on this holiday to try an unusual fruit for the first time in the season and recite the Shehecheyanu, a prayer of thanks that is said on many occasions including when something new happens,”.

We then moved on to the typical fare of homemade gefilte fish, brisket, noodle kugel, and carrots but we were all wearing birthday hats. Each meal was finished with birthday cookies; We keep kosher and don’t mix diary and meat, and I had a hard time finding a pareve birthday cake (one that is not dairy) and am not the type to bake it myself!

We also talked about how G-d created the world with all of the animals and plants on Rosh Hashanah. Then we talked about how nice it would be if we did good deeds or mitzvahs all year because G-d was nice enough to create the world for us. (I figured that as Ariel and his little friends are only three, we could include a discussion on evolution a few years down the road.)

It was the best Rosh Hashanah we’d had in a long while and I hope it will continue for many more years.