Rosh Hashana in China

Rosh Hashana
October 8 2011

Ever since i had that one Shabbat dinner with Amitai and Ariel (mentioned in a couple blogs ago), we say prayers every Friday now at dinner. Yesterday was our Rosh Hashanah dinner. For those who have no clue what Rosh Hashanah is, it is the New Year for the Jewish calendar. Amitai and I have been working out different prayers to say, buying food for the prayers, and I even put in a little work researching the different prayers to put a little spiel together to explain their meaning.

A few friends who weren’t Jewish wanted to go to dinner with us as well. Only problem was we could not do the service in the dinning hall, since it was too noisy. Amitai wanted to ask the Shifu's if we can use their dining room but i said ‘NO WAY!’ I told him we should go to the restaurant down the road, get a private room, and do the service there. It was a great idea. About 8 people were attending the service. The people were me, Amitai, Ariel, Sam my roommate (us four are the only jews here), then Brittany wanted to go, as well as Sam number 2, Bart, and Richard...Diane came late but she just wanted to eat with us.

At 6pm on Wednesday we all met up, nicely dressed, and ready to celebrate the New Year. We walked down to the restaurant and then Amitai began pulling out different fruits and stuff for the service. The first prayer was for the wine. We got a cheap small bottle for the toasting and prayer at the “Everything Shop”. For the people who did not want wine, we got grape juice. We looked everywhere for the dark purple type of grape juice but they only had green clear juice. Amitai said, "Its our service, who cares!" So we bought it.

Before we said the prayer i said a few words. I asked if everyone knew what Rosh Hashanah is. Of course the 4 non jews did not know, so i explained to them that it’s the New year. On this day it’s the time to say sorry to all the loved ones and friends you may have wronged in the past year. You repent for the sins you made so you can start this NEW YEAR fresh and clean. After a few more words about the holiday i explained how the service will work and Amitai took lead from there. He read a prayer book his family sent him for Rosh Hashanah. They also sent a few Kippahs that everyone wore. After he said the prayer we all said Amen and L'cheyim! Then after that we did the prayer for washing out hands. I have only done this prayer once (I believe it was when I was in Israel so it was pretty new to me as well). Then it was time to say the Motzi. We did not have any bread for the 'Blessing of the Bread' so few guys ran to the everything store next door to buy some. When they came back we continued the service. Then we said a prayer for each fruit Amitai bought. I never done Rosh Hashanah like this before. Amitai got dates, peas, pomegranates, and of course apples and honey. He was missing a couple things but we said the prayer anyways.

He wrote the Hebrew prayers out in English letters (transliteration?) so everyone at the table could read a prayer...or try their best to say it. After each prayer Amitai explained why we ate that fruit. I told him i would say the prayer for the apple and honey so I went second to last. When it got to my turn i read the prayer, and everyone ate apples dipped in honey. I explained why we do this crazy thing. I told them that Honey represents the sweet new year to come. Then Ariel was last and read the prayer for the fish head. We say that prayer because we want to be like the head not the tail. Head being the beginning to everything and the tail meaning the end.

After all the prayers have been said, we ate dinner that we ordered at the restaurant. Amitai asked me how i usually spent Rosh Hashanah back home. I told him for the past 14 years i spent it in temple, ditching school, spending all day in temple, and then we do the repenting of our sins at a lake to ask God for forgiveness. At that point everyone went around the room saying ‘sorry’ to one another. I looked around and said, "Sam i am sorry for all the times I picked on you. Bart I am sorry I tease you in class all the time". I went around the room like that and everyone was laughing having a good time. Then i asked how Amitai and Ariel celebrated in Israel. They both said they are not very religious so they never went to temple. Amitai would go to temple on Yom Kippur with his dad for the last two hours but that was it. Rosh Hashanah was a big party in Israel. Richard said, "He never expected to celebrate Jewish New Year in CHINA!" We all agreed to that. Then he said, "Let’s all go to Israel and celebrate Buddhism!" Maybe one day.

When we all came back to the academy, Amitai said we should give Master Guo some apples and honey. So i asked for an extra Kippah, a knife, a apple, and honey. Told Diane to translate for us, and we went into shifu's office. Diane told him it was our new year and a tradition was to eat Apples and Honey. I gave him a Kippah to wear and he laughed. He said it’s a hat that his baby son could wear. Then we asked if he wanted to try apple and honey. He said ok. I cut him a small piece and put a little honey on it. It looked at it like it was an Alien, tried it, and made a weird face. It was hilarious. He said it was a weird taste. Then i asked if we can take a picture all together. Shifu did not want to wear the hat because he felt silly so we said its ok and took a picture.

That night i began thinking about the past year. In 12 days i will have spent a total year here in China. I cannot believe how fast time flies by and how quickly friendships are made. I cannot think how life will be back home, if it will be normal or will it feel weird because I am so used to the life here. Only one thing to do, thank God for the good year we all have had and pray to have another good year.

L'Shana Tova

-Scott