Apples and honey serve as key Rosh Hashanah symbols, says rabbi

The traditional foods that are consumed during the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, which began Wednesday at sunset, complement the deeper meaning of the holiday, a rabbi told Fox News Digital. 

"Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the Jewish year," Daniel Rowe, rabbi and senior educator at Aish Jerusalem, said in a video interview. "It's also seen as a day of judgment and it's a celebration – because that judgment sounds very harsh." (See the video at the top of this article.)  

Aish is a Jewish organization dedicated to inspiring "people to live more thoughtful, spiritual and impactful lives," according to its website.

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Rosh Hashanah, Rowe said, "is a time of very deep introspection and reflection, [a] time of really planning forward." 

He added, "Really, it's the belief that God believes in us and that our actions matter. That's significant. And then we can use each year to recreate ourselves and become better people in the year ahead." 

During the two days of Rosh Hashanah, Jewish people "intensely look at the year ahead. It's almost like we're laying the genetic code of who we want to become," Rowe said. 

That includes food. 

"Everything we do on Rosh Hashanah, whether it's the foods that we eat, whether it's the prayers that we utter, is about that deep cry inside us that says, 'This world can be a better place,'" Rowe said. 

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Throughout the holiday, a person thinks about how "everything I do, from the biggest acts to the smallest act of eating with a deeper consciousness," can "help me to become a blessing to others and shine God's light into the world," Rowe said.

There are "quite a lot of food customs" that are associated with the holiday, Rowe said — and many Jewish cultures have their own traditions. 

"The most popular is to dip an apple in honey," Rowe said. 

The apple, he said, "is a simple fruit that grows on a tree" and serves as a symbol of the blessing of the world, producing things throughout the year.

"But we also want it to be sweet, because the apple represents that which is nutritious and good for us," he said. 

Rowe continued, "We don't just want things ‘good.’ We'd also like to be able to appreciate the good in all of them." 

Rosh Hashanah, Rowe said, is a time to consider how "every single item of food could be a blessing and could manifest some kind of goodness." 

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"We should therefore take every opportunity and, just like food, put it inside ourselves, build ourselves and then become a blessing for the year ahead," he said. 

Unlike Passover, which has different definitions of kosher food — during Rosh Hashanah, the standard rules apply. 

Keeping kosher "is following the biblical commandment," Rowe said.

"God asks the Israelites about the certain foods they can and can't eat. So, for example – carnivorous animals, animals that kill other animals – we can't eat," he said. 

Said Rowe, "So if an animal hurts another animal, we don't eat it. We have animal drives. We don't want that to be a part of us." 

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Kosher animals, Rowe said, are those with split hooves that chew their cud – traits that symbolize something a human should want to embody.  

"The split-hoofed animals are typically animals that are easy to domesticate," he said, noting such examples as sheep and cows. 

Conversely, things like horses and camels are not kosher as "those animals aren't tamable." 

Neither are bugs, which can cause issues when parts of beetles are used in animal dyes, he said. 

Chewing cud means that the animal does not waste, Rowe said. 

"The Torah's telling us, 'Make sure our own animal instincts also are things that can be tamed and that don't waste anything,'" he said.  

"Also, food has to be prepared in some ways," Rowe said, with no mixing of meat and dairy products.

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"The biblical command is not to mix meat and milk, which is a bit like life and death," Rowe said. 

"So, in a kitchen, milk products and meat products will be kept separate as food is being prepared, and they'll be eaten separately as well." 

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Following kosher laws, Rowe said, is a way of acknowledging "we are what we eat" and considering the implications of the food consumed. 

"Our bodies are formed of the foods we eat," he said. "And it's almost asking us at least this – how many understand it – that when we put things in our body, we should be thinking, 'What type of being do we want to be?'"