HALACHIC HAPPENINGS - Shulchan Aruch Chapter: 583 - Things Which We are Accustomed to Eat on Rosh Hashanah

Today, in the Clanton Park class, we began thinking and talking about Rosh Hashanah. But before we got too into the subject we wanted to understand the organization of the Hebrew Calendar.

I provided an overview of the Hebrew calendar from Joseph Telushkin's book Jewish Literacy which gives a basic look into all facets of Jewish life. I broke the Students into learning chavrutot (partners) so they could cover the information together.

We then came back together as a group and discussed what we had just read. Mostly, the idea of the Hebrew calendar being 11 days shorter than the Solar/Gregorian calendar was of interest. We calculated that over three years we would be more than a month behind, and eventually Pesach would fall in the winter, which we found in the article that this was a Halachic problem because Pesach needs to be in the spring. One Student remarked, "Oh, of course, it's Chag HaAviv!"

I then showed the Students how we base the calendar on the phases of the moon, thus it is a Lunar calendar. I shows how the New moon is when the sun shines on the side we don't see, the waxing quarter moon is when the sun shines on half the moon we see, the whole moon is when we facd the sunlit side completely and the waning quarter moon is when the sun lights up half the side we can see.
They understood the moon's motion around the earth but to give more clarity I hope to demonstrate this again using flashlights and balls. It's quite effective.

Once we established how Rosh Chodesh is decided, we looked at the first month of the year - Tishrei. (Soon I will teach them how Nissan is the first month of the months, but for now we will use Tishrei).
We also saw how Rosh Hashanah is the Rosh Chodesh of Tishrei.

The lesson ended there and we moved into more specifics, laws that pertain to Rosh Hashanah. I handed out copies of the Shulcha Aruch HaRav, chapter 583 which discusses the various customs of food we should eat on Rosh Hashanah. I found this not only important as a custom, but something tangible, experiential and fun, hey, it's the first day!

We learned as a group the first couple of laws, this learning brought out a discussion about Brachot (blessings) more specifically the order of blessings and if courses like dessert or appetizers were covered by the Hamotzi blessing of a meal. It seemed from the laws we had before us, and our previous knowledge that foods which are not part of the general meal are actually NOT covered by the Hamotzi and require their own blessing. Thus, on Rosh Hashanah, we must make separate brachot on any new fruits or apples dipped in honey we eat during the RH meal. One Student inquired, "do we need to say a brachah on the honey?" another Student added, "yeah, if we are eating it as a special food, we should make a brachah on it?" I did not know if honey requires a brachah, so i challenged them to find out:

QUESTION OF THE DAY: DOES HONEY REQUIRE ITS OWN BRACHAH WHEN WE EAT IT WITH ANOTHER FOOD, LIKE AN APPLE?

Another point we learned from Halachot was that when we eat special food on Rosh Hashanah we are to make a special YEHI RATZON on it. This tefillah should be said after make the brachah on the food and after we eat a little bit from it because we do not want to make a Hefsek (interruption) between the blessing and the eating.

We learned that we eat Pomegranates because they are filled with seeds like we should be filled with Mitzvot. Then, one of the Students stumbled upon today's activity by asking: DO POMEGRANATES REALLY HAVE 613 SEEDS, LIKE THE NUMBER OF MITZVOT IN THE TORAH?

So we found out in a small experiment I called, JEWISH MYTHBUSTERS
The question was: Do Pomegranates have 613 seeds?
For our Hypothesis: One Student said Yes, one Student said No, one Student said Maybe and the fourth Student said Ish (which I think means Maybe). Rabbi B said Yes.

We used a scientific method called counting to find out.
Each Student received a medium sized Pomegranate, Rabbi B also received a Pomegranate.
Thus we used 5 Pomegranates in total.

Here are the results:
POM:    NUM OF SEEDS:
  A                718
  B                724
  C                712
  D                664
  E                525
Average Number of Seeds: 668.6

So, the Myth was Busted!

But we learned that Pomegranates are so full of seeds there is no room for anything else, so too our days should be so filled with good deeds that we don't have time for anything not good.

We also learned never to wear white when counting Pomegranate seeds.