Skip to content
22 chapters · by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg

Light from the Future: Rosh Hashanah

Published by the Jewish Discovery Center. Every chapter is free to read below.

  1. Rosh Hashanah – A Truly New Year! When the two days of Rosh Hashanah are followed by Shabbos—three consecutive days of holiness—it represents a qualitatively higher form of holiness.…
  2. Rosh Hashanah – All Sevens Are Precious Rosh Hashanah, as the beginning of the seventh month, expresses the need to find meaning and purpose in all that preceded Rosh Hashanah. All of our…
  3. Rosh Hashanah – Breaking Down the Gates The Ba’al Shem Tov once remarked: Liturgy can be compared to a key that opens the gates of heaven for us. However, prayer that is said with sincerity…
  4. Rosh Hashanah – Day of Judgment Rosh Hashanah is more than a solemn day of judgment. It is the day which determines not only the life of nature for the New Year, but the very nature…
  5. Rosh Hashanah – Giving the Year a Head Rosh Hashanah is when we coronate G-d as our King. Without our involvement on Rosh Hashanah to proclaim Him as our King the world will not be the…
  6. Rosh Hashanah – Happy “Two” Year The weekly Sabbath primarily speaks to our relationship with G-d. The Sabbatical year, by contrast, extends to our relationship with others as well.…
  7. Rosh Hashanah – Our Father Our King The shofar was chosen, not in spite of its simplicity, but because of it. The shofar symbolizes and expresses the simple, incorruptible and essential…
  8. Rosh Hashanah – Rosh Hashanah: A Day of Delight Every Rosh Hashanah, our sages tell us, the process of creation comes to an end. G-d’s delight in being the King of the world is no longer a foregone…
  9. Rosh Hashanah – Rosh Hashanah and the Monarchy A true king, by definition, is the most powerful, aloof, detached and exalted being. There can be no greater gap between two entities as the gap that…
  10. Rosh Hashanah – Rosh Hashanah Text for Jewish Meditation “Abraham was one,” means that Abraham popularized the concept of G-d’s unity into the world. This concept was actually introduced on the first day of…
  11. Rosh Hashanah – Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 10b What Happened on Rosh Hashanah? R. Eliezer says “The world was created in Tishrei. In actuality, the creation of the world occurred 6 days earlier on the 25th of Elul. Rosh Hashanah,…
  12. Rosh Hashanah – Teshuvah: The Power of Return True regret involves taking full responsibility for one’s misdeeds. To regret the past and then give excuses for oneself, misses the whole point of…
  13. Rosh Hashanah – The Cry of the Child Many thousands of Jews, even those who had no knowledge of Judaism and no interest in it, would nevertheless choose death rather than abandoning their…
  14. Rosh Hashanah – The Head Rosh Hashanah is more than just a day designated for certain rituals and services. The day itself has a soul and life of its own. And depending on how…
  15. Rosh Hashanah – The Prosecution Rests Sounding the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah, Maimonides writes, is to awaken us from our involvement in worldly pursuits and to alert us to our…
  16. Rosh Hashanah – The Three Questions Joy and Introspection are both imperatives. Torah reveals the secret how they can coexist.
  17. Rosh Hashanah – The Unshofar (2) Shabbos is not only a day of the week, it is also a mindset. There can be two distinct—legitimate—views of life: A weekday perspective and a Shabbos…
  18. Rosh Hashanah – The Unshofar The Shofar works primarily because it jolts us out of our reverie. There are certain times, however, when we need to be awakened not by the jolting…
  19. Rosh Hashanah – The Year of Salvation, Delight and Moshiach The Ba’al Shem Tov would frequently encourage us to break through the internal barriers that prevent us from expressing all of our latent potential,…
  20. Rosh Hashanah – This Is What It's All About! All Jewish holidays occur on the anniversary of some major historical event. What event does Rosh Hashanah immortalize? The answer is: “This is the…
  21. Rosh Hashanah – What’s New? The new opportunity of Rosh Hashanah guarantees that all of the negative experiences of the past year do not impede our ability to turn over a new…
  22. Rosh Hashanah – Where’s My Head? Many of life’s challenges relate to the influence of others. Without realizing it, we follow blindly the fads that have been established by people we…

← All books