Rosh Hashanah Celebration

We Celebrated Rosh Hashanah this week in our studies using My Father's World and the book Celebrating Biblical Feast.
Rosh Hashanah is like the Jewish New Year and celebrates the birth of the world and is the beginning of the holy days.  If you want to know more about it, I found this site that explains it http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday2.htm

 our ceremony began with blowing of the shofar - a ram's horn trumpet(I will also be blowing this to wake the children up for the next 10 days for the 10 days of atonement) I then lit the candles and prayed.

the father prays a blessing on the wine(same as Sabbath)

and the father prays for the bread(same as Sabbath) only this time our bread is round for a round full year ahead.

we then ate our meal, I made meatloaf but traditionally they would have had fish with the head still on and we had green beans and candied carrots(the recipe was in the book so it must have been tradition)

we had apples dipped in honey - a symbol for a wish for a sweet new year

we had a new fruit ( we chose black grapes that we had never had before and are especially sweet) and M said the prayer for this one.

we ended with signing happy birthday to the world and ate honey cake M made.  When we made this it took a lot of honey almost 2 cups and then to make it worse it boiled over on M and made a huge mess all over the stove.  Also we really didn't care for it that much so I wouldn't bother with it unless you have ample supply of honey you don't mind experimenting with, I'd skip it.

Sabbath

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

We have been studying old testament and the Jewish tradition of the Sabbath.  We used the book Celebrating Biblical Feast and other instruction from My Father's world to have our own Sabbath. This is a Christian version because there was some new testament verses used in the ceremony, but many parts were very traditional of a Jewish Sabbath.

 after a day of preparation - house cleaning, baking bread, cooking and preparing Saturday's meal as well, we set the table with our finest for a sabbath celebration.

we had challah bread, candlestick salad and chicken matzo soup

we started with a mother's prayer, lighting of the candles(we read in a couple of books the oldest daughter got to help with this so I lit one and M lit one, the father praying over the children, and the husband reciting part of Proverbs 31 to his wife.  M said her favorite part was the blessing from the father, it made her feel special.  I liked it too and want to do that more often.  I also have to say very convicting when your husband praises you with the virtues of Proverbs 31 when I fail so often there.

Then the father prays for the wine and then hand washing which K helped with and then the bread.  We each broke off a piece and said a prayer. After diner we ended with a prayer and then the idea was to rest for the sabbath, not doing any work, just spending time as a family.  Then on Saturday when you see the first 3 stars of the night you have another ceremony.

we lit the candle again(should be a braided candle but this is what we had) and then the father pours wine overflowing to signify the fullness of the week

and then the candle is extinguished in the overflow and then we spell the spice box, we let K hold it for each of us to smell.

I know I am not giving you all the details, but you can see from the pictures it was a very symbolic ceremony.  I highly rec commend that if you are doing Creation to the Greeks you not skip this, but I can say you could simplify if necessary.  I am planning on continuing this in our home about 4 times a year because it really was beautiful and really what family doesn't need to slow down and rest.  I will make some changes however.
What I learned:  You do not have to make everything authentic or completely traditional.
What we will do in the future:  I believe we will have ours begin on a Saturday  in the future so that we can all pitch in and get things ready, clean the house, mow the lawn anything that needs to be done so that we can enter into the sabbath fully prepared.  And so that Sunday would be our day of sabbath since that is when we traditionally worship.
I will scale the meal down/simplify.  I will make the bread - probably a different recipe that makes smaller loaves and make something nice for dinner but something  I make and my family likes, like Lasagna.  For the make ahead meal for the sabbath day I will stick to something simple - maybe even frozen pizza or something were we are not really cooking or working but easy.