Raboyseyee and Ladies,
JUST IN CASE, PASS THE POMEGRANATE!
Can we eat our way out of the mess we created? Is that even possible? Can a person overcome his issues by eating certain foods? Does eating clean the plate and the slate? We shall explore this below, but let’s start with this.
And here we are; it’s mamish erev Rosh Hashono. We have spent the last several weeks preparing for the annual performance review, this one conducted by the RBSO Himself. The month of Elul came. The shofar started blowing. We were supposed to wake up, look inward, examine our behavior, make some changes, do some teshuva, and prepare ourselves for the great annual meeting with the Boss upstairs. The goal is for us to remain down here and not be called up for a face-to-face meeting; no one I know has ever come back from one of those.
As Rosh Hashono arrives, suddenly the performance review becomes official. The books are open. The files are out. The résumé of our behavior for the past year is sitting on the Boss’s desk. And let’s be honest: some of us were hoping for a computer crash. We do our best. We apologize where necessary. We ask for forgiveness. We promise to do better. Some of us even mean it; at least for a few hours. But this is Rosh Hashono, and we Yiddin have been hedging our bets for thousands of years because apparently teshuva alone wasn’t enough for us. We needed a backup plan. And guess what? Our Sages of the heylige Gemora thought about that issue as well; as you well know, the Gemora thought of everything.
Enter the simanim. What are those? Literally, they are signs or symbols. In this case, they are the traditional Rosh Hashono foods that are eaten as symbolic reminders and accompanied by prayers for the year ahead. Or, what the Ois calls “The Annual Jewish Spiritual Insurance Policy.” We come to the table and start eating our way toward a better year. Apple and honey. Dates. Leeks. Beets. Pomegranate. And, of course, the fish head. Because nothing says, “I’m hoping for a prosperous and successful year” quite like putting an actual fish head on the table. And in recent years, the list seems to have expanded. Depending on your family, your minhag, your grandmother, or perhaps something you or your kids found online five minutes before Yom Tov, you may now encounter carrots, pumpkin, squash, black-eyed peas and various other foods that have somehow been recruited into the annual Jewish spiritual hedging program. At this rate, we’re no longer sitting down for dinner. We’re assembling a spiritual portfolio, one food at a time. Seemingly, teshuva alone is too risky.
Of course, the Ois has questions, at least a few. Are we eating dinner—or negotiating with Heaven? Can we eat our way out of our sins? Is this a religious ritual, or some Jewish superstition with a nice tablecloth? Did we really spend an entire month doing teshuva only to conclude, “Just in case, pass the pomegranate”? What’s pshat here? Is all this real, or were the rabbis of the heylige Gemora having some fun with us? Because let’s think about what we’re doing. We spend Elul examining our lives. We hear the shofar. We contemplate teshuva. We ask forgiveness. We promise to improve. We arrive at Rosh Hashono, stand before the RBSO, and ask to be written into the Book of Life. And then we sit down to dinner and start negotiating through vegetables?! That’s a pretty impressive transition from spiritual introspection to beetroot. What the heck?
Lest you think that we Yiddin are the only ones with some weird relationship with fruits and vegetables, and before we get too comfortable laughing at ourselves, let’s be fair. We are hardly the only people on earth who look at a perfectly innocent piece of food and decide it has a job description for the coming year. The Spanish eat twelve grapes at midnight, one for each month, hoping for twelve months of good fortune. The Italians eat lentils because they look like little coins, apparently hoping the resemblance will somehow encourage the real thing to show up in the bank account. In Japan, long noodles symbolize long life. In Turkey, the pomegranate represents abundance, and some traditions actually involve smashing the thing at the doorway to bring good fortune. And then we have Brazil, where apparently even your underwear can get involved. Certain colors are associated with what you want in the coming year—yellow for prosperity, red for love, white for peace. And no underwear? Ver veyst!? Mishuga? Who’s to say?
We sit down with an apple, honey, dates, leeks, beets, pomegranate and possibly the head of a fish or sheep, mostly based on wordplay and later minhogim (customs), and say, “Yehi ratzon.” Somebody in Spain is standing there at midnight trying to swallow grape number nine before the clock gets to number ten. An Italian is eating lentils and looking at them like they’re a brokerage account. A Japanese person is eating noodles and hoping the longer they are, the longer his life will be. Somebody in Turkey is throwing a pomegranate against the front door. And somewhere in Brazil, a person is standing in front of the mirror thinking, “I want prosperity this year. So apparently, I need yellow underwear.”
And just like that, our fish head doesn’t seem so strange. At least we have a prayer. The fish head isn’t being asked to perform. It’s a reminder. The pomegranate isn’t being asked to manufacture wealth. The dates aren’t being asked to destroy our enemies. The apple isn’t responsible for making the year sweet. It is, however, responsible for that jingle that’s forever stuck in our heads! We eat them, we say the appropriate Yehi Ratzon, and we remind ourselves what we are asking the RBSO for. And efsher that’s the point. Human beings everywhere seem to chap that the beginning of a new year needs something tangible. Something we can see, touch, eat, wear, break, count or otherwise make a big enough production out of that we remember: something is supposed to change. The difference is that we Yiddin don’t tell ourselves that the food itself has magical powers. At least I don’t think that’s what the heylige Gemora had in mind. Because if it did, raboyseyee, we have been doing this all wrong. If the food itself could change our fate, we should have been eating our way through life. Bad year? More pomegranate. Bad business? Extra lentils. Marriage trouble? Apple and honey, double portion. Blood pressure? Forget the cardiologist—bring the dates. Need more money? Somebody get me the Italian lentils. And if the fish head really guarantees leadership, I want two. Maybe three. And if there is a food that makes you younger, thinner and wealthier, forget the Yehi Ratzon—just pass the platter. But that’s not the pshat. The siman is not a bribe to Heaven. It’s a reminder to us. And maybe that is why the custom survived. Because we humanoids forget fast. We can spend an entire month talking about teshuva, hearing the shofar, asking forgiveness and promising that this year will finally be different. Many will also visit the mikveh. Then we sit down to dinner, somebody puts a fish head in front of us, and suddenly we remember: Oh right. I’m supposed to become the head and not the tail. Brilliant. Although if you’ve been married for thirty-plus years, your spouse may look at the fish head and say, “Don’t get carried away.”
And let me be honest with you, raboyseyee. Before I started writing this piece, I never really bought into the whole simanim business. I always viewed them a little askance. An apple dipped in honey? Fine, a nice minhag and the accompanying song is forever emblazoned in our memory banks. Even complete senility will not erase it! A pomegranate for more zechuyos (merits)? Okay. A fish head so we should be the head and not the tail? I always thought, what the hell is this—Jewish spiritual gimmickry? That said, let me tell you something: if you find a fish head sitting on your doorstep on some random Tuesday in January, that’s a whole different siman. At that point, raboyseyee, you’re not asking the RBSO to make you the head—you’re asking who the hell you pissed off. A fish head on Rosh Hashanah? Minhag. A fish head at your front door? Call your lawyer. And if you find a horse head in the bed, forget the rabbi entirely. The mob has already made the decision for you.
We spend an entire month doing teshuva, davening, hearing the shofar and asking the RBSO to forgive us, and then someone puts a piece of food on the table and tells me it has something to do with my future? Give me a break. In my mind, the simanim were always somewhere between a cute family tradition and something our bubbies did because, well, that’s what Yiddin do. I never thought much about the pshat behind them. I certainly never thought there was anything particularly profound going on. Truth be told, I saw them as total nonsense. Ober, the more I dug into the heylige Gemora, the more I realized I may have been looking at this all wrong. Maybe the food isn’t the point at all. Maybe the food is simply the vehicle. Maybe Chazal understood something about us that I had completely missed: we need something physical to remind us of something spiritual. And that changed the way I look at the simanim. I’m still not prepared to tell you that eating a pomegranate will magically increase your zechuyos (merits). I’m not buying stock in fish heads. But I no longer look at the simanim as some silly Jewish gimmick. There may actually be a very deep idea hiding underneath all that food. What that idea is, ver veyst?
Shoin, now that we’ve established that Yiddin are not the only people on earth who try to influence the coming year with food, noodles, grapes, lentils, smashed fruit and even underwear, let’s ask the obvious question: where did our version come from? Who decided that a leek should have anything to do with our enemies? Who looked at a beet and said, “You know what? This looks like a good way to get my enemies out of my life”? And more importantly, where in the heylige Toirah or Gemora does any of this actually come from? The answer is: it’s not in the heylige Toirah. There is no mitzvah in the Toirah telling us to eat an apple with honey on Rosh Hashono, nor does the Toirah tell us to put a fish head on the table and hope for a promotion. Ober, the idea of simanim does come to life in the heylige Gemora (Maseches Kerisus, daf 6a), which records the great Abaye—he, most famous for arguing with Rovo—saying: “אמר אביי השתא דאמרת סימנא מילתא היא”—“Now that you have said that a sign is a meaningful thing.” And because we’re talking about the heylige Gemora, let’s not just quote half a sentence and pretend we’re scholars. Let’s quote the entire sentence: “אמר אביי השתא דאמרת סימנא מילתא היא יהא רגיל איניש למיכל ריש שתא קרא ורוביא כרתי סילקא ותמרי.” In other words, Abaye tells us that at the beginning of the year, a person should be accustomed to eat these foods as simanim. Apparently, after all the teshuva, tefillah and soul-searching, Chazal decided that what we really needed was a menu.
Granted that the original list is not exactly the menu sitting on every Jewish table today. The heylige Gemora lists kera, rubia, karti, silka and tamrei. The foods themselves were selected because their names lend themselves to wordplay connected to the prayers we want to express for the coming year. The apple dipped in honey came along through later Jewish custom, as did other additions. The head tradition also developed through later minhogim, with the classic halachic formulation referring to the head of a lamb. For whatever reason, the fish head became common practice in many communities. In other words, the simanim themselves have been evolving for centuries. Which is also very Jewish. While the heylige Gemora gave us the basic menu, over time, generations of Yiddin apparently said, “very nice, but I think my family has a few new ideas.” What happened next? The spiritual buffet expanded. The heylige Gemora gave us the foundation, the idea that we could attach various fruits and vegetables to specific requests for the coming year. Early Sages and later authorities gave us customs. In more contemporary times, Instagram-ers and TikTokers might be concocting new ones. And once social media has spoken, halocho itself may have to get out of the way. But the original idea is fascinating because the heylige Gemora uses wordplay. The foods aren’t merely chosen because they’re delicious. Their names sound like the things we’re asking for.
Rubia — רוּבְיָא, associated with יִרְבּוּ — yirbu, that our merits should increase: שֶׁיִּרְבּוּ זְכֻיּוֹתֵינוּ — that our merits should increase. Karti — כַּרְתֵּי, associated with יִכָּרְתוּ — yikartu, that our enemies should be cut off: שֶׁיִּכָּרְתוּ שׂוֹנְאֵינוּ — that our enemies should be cut off. Silka — סִילְקָא, associated with יִסְתַּלְּקוּ — yistalku, that our enemies should depart: שֶׁיִּסְתַּלְּקוּ אוֹיְבֵינוּ — that our enemies should depart. Tamrei — תַּמְרֵי, associated with יִתַּמּוּ — yitamu, that our enemies should be finished: שֶׁיִּתַּמּוּ שׂוֹנְאֵינוּ — that our enemies should be finished. And kera — קְרָא, associated with יִקָּרַע — yikarei, that the evil decree should be torn up and our merits proclaimed: שֶׁיִּקָּרַע רוֹעַ גְּזַר דִּינֵנוּ וְיִקָּרְאוּ לְפָנֶיךָ זְכֻיּוֹתֵינוּ.
In other words, we’re not merely eating vegetables! We’re eating Hebrew grammar. Apparently, if you can find a food whose name sounds vaguely like the blessing you want, you’ve got yourself a new Rosh Hashono siman; one day soon enough, you’ll have followers. And that, raboyseyee and ladies, brings us right back to our original question: Is this superstition? Is this kosher? May we Yiddin rely on this? What does the RBSO think? Because Judaism has a complicated relationship with omens. And here’s where the heylige Gemora gets even more interesting. The very sugya (subject) that gives us the simanim also discusses other forms of trying to read signs into the future. People would look at certain things and attempt to determine whether a journey, business venture or other undertaking would succeed. The heylige Gemora pushes back against this kind of behavior. Why? Because a bad sign can discourage a person. A person sees something negative, becomes frightened or loses confidence, and perhaps his own reaction contributes to the failure. So the heylige Gemora is not giving us permission to walk around like ancient Jewish fortune tellers, examining chickens, candles and shadows to determine what tomorrow will bring.
But then Abaye comes along and says: “סִימָנָא מִילְתָּא הִיא.” A sign is a meaningful thing. And he gives us the Rosh Hashono simanim. Excuse me? First you’re telling us not to rely on signs. Then you’re telling us to eat signs. What’s the difference? Perhaps the answer is that there is a fundamental distinction between trying to predict the future and trying to frame the future. The first says, “I saw a sign; therefore, I know what’s going to happen.” The second says, “I am beginning this year by expressing what I hope will happen.” That’s not fortune-telling. That’s prayer. Gishmak! Perhaps that’s the genius of the simanim. The RBSO doesn’t need the apple. He doesn’t need the honey. He certainly doesn’t need the fish head. We do! We need something tangible to remind us of what we’re asking for. Because a person can say a thousand words in shul and forget half of them before he gets home. But put an apple dipped in honey in front of him and suddenly he remembers: I want a sweet year. Put a pomegranate in front of him and he remembers: I want my merits to increase. Put a fish head in front of him and he remembers: I don’t want to spend another year behaving like the tail. That said, some people have been eating fish heads for years and still haven’t figured out their heads from their tails. Veyter.
Shoin, let’s get back to the performance review. We cannot show up before the RBSO and say, “Listen, Boss, we’re good. We ate the apple, dipped it in honey, finished the dates, polished off the pomegranate and even had the fish head. So, we’re covered, right?” Not! The bottom line is that the RBSO does not accept simanim as payment in full. If eating the right foods could erase the wrong behavior, we could likely forget teshuva altogether. We’d just need a really good Jewish grocery store. Because the apple can’t apologize to your spouse. The honey can’t repair a friendship. The pomegranate can’t undo something you did to another person. The fish head can’t make you into a better leader. Those things require you. And that’s the distinction. The simanim don’t replace teshuva; they accompany it. Teshuva says: Change yourself. The siman says: Remember what you’re asking for. Teshuva says: Fix what you broke. The siman says: Remember what you want to become. Teshuva is the work. The siman is the reminder. Gishmak!
The danger comes when the siman becomes a substitute for the substance. When a person thinks he can eat the right foods while continuing to behave the wrong way. When the apple and honey become more important than the apology. When the pomegranate becomes more important than the mitzvah. When the fish head becomes more important than actually becoming a better person. That’s when the ritual becomes empty.
The bottom line: You cannot spend twelve months behaving like a schmuck, then show up on Rosh Hashono with a fish head, and expect to be promoted to CEO. You cannot mistreat people all year, dip an apple into honey, and assume your interpersonal skills have suddenly become sweet. And you certainly cannot eat a pomegranate and expect 613 merits to magically appear on your résumé. That’s not teshuva; that’s fantasy.
The final bottom lines: We still have to do the work. So, we do the teshuva. We say the tefillah. We give the tzedoko. We try to become a little better than the person who walked into the room last year. And then, because we’re Yiddin and apparently one layer of spiritual protection is never enough, we hedge. A little teshuva. A little tefillah. A little tzedakah. And a nice plate of simanim. That’s diversification. That’s risk management. That’s the Jewish spiritual hedge fund. Because when the RBSO Himself is conducting your annual performance review, you don’t want to show up empty-handed. So bring the apple. Bring the honey. Bring the pomegranate. Bring the fish head. Do the teshuva. Say the tefillah. Give the tzedoko. And after all that, raboyseyee, just in case… PASS THE DAMN POMEGRANATE.
Wishing all my readers, and even those who just peruse the shout-outs, all the best for the coming year. May the simanim bring us a year filled with sweetness, abundance, good health, nachas, peace, and plenty of reasons to smile. May our tables be filled with good food, our homes filled with laughter, and our lives filled with blessings. May the RBSO write each and every one of us into the Book of Life for a year of sunshine, simcha, and only good news.
כְּתִיבָה וַחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה
The Heylige Oisvorfer Ruv
Yitz Grossman
