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ShareApropos good omens, the Gemara cites a statement that Rabbi Ami said: This person who seeks to know if he will complete his year or if he will not, i.e., whether or not he will remain alive in the coming year, let him light a lamp, during the ten days that are between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, in a house in which wind does not blow. If its light continues to burn, he knows that he will complete his year.
And one who seeks to conduct a business venture and wishes to know if he will succeed or if he will not succeed, let him raise a rooster. If the rooster grows fat and healthy, he will succeed.
One who seeks to embark on a journey and wishes to know if he will return and come to his home or if he will not, let him go to a dark [daḥavara] house. If he sees the shadow of a shadow he shall know that he will return and come home. The Sages reject this: This omen is not a significant matter. Perhaps he will be disheartened if the omen fails to appear, and his fortune will suffer and it is this that causes him to fail. Abaye said: Now that you said that an omen is a significant matter, a person should always be accustomed to seeing these on Rosh HaShana: Squash, and fenugreek, leeks, and chard, and dates, as each of these grows quickly and serves as a positive omen for one’s actions during the coming year.
(א) דברים שנוהגים לאכול בליל ר"ה ובו ב"ס:
יהא אדם רגיל לאכול בראש השנה רוביא דהיינו תלתן כרתי סילקא תמרי קרא וכשיאכל רוביא יאמר יהי רצון שירבו זכיותינו כרתי יכרתו שונאינו סלקא יסתלקו אויבינו תמרי יתמו שונאינו קרא יקרע גזר דיננו ויקראו לפניך זכיותינו: הגה ויש נוהגין לאכול תפוח מתוק בדבש (טור) ואומרים תתחדש עלינו שנה מתוקה (אבודרהם) וכן נוהגין ויש אוכלים רימונים ואומרים נרבה זכיות כרמון ונוהגין לאכול בשר שמן וכל מיני מתיקה: (מרדכי דיומא):
(ב) אוכלים ראש כבש לומר נהיה לראש ולא לזנב וזכר לאילו של יצחק: הגה יש מדקדקים שלא לאכול אגוזים שאגוז בגימטריא חט ועוד שהן מרבים כיחה וניעה ומבטלים התפלה (מהרי"ל) והולכין אל הנהר לומר פסוק ותשליך במצולות ים כל חטאתינו וגומר (מנהגים) וגם נוהגים שלא לישן ביום ראש השנה (ירושלמי) ומנהג נכון הוא:
(1) (1) One should eat beans, leeks, beets, dates, and pumpkin. And as one eats the beans (rubiya), they say: God, may our merits increase (yirbu)! Eating leeks (karti), they say: God, may our enemies be wiped out (yekartu)! Eating dates (tamri), say: God, may our enemies disappear (yetamu)! Eating pumpkin (kra), say: God, may our judgement be ripped up (yikra) and may our merits be called out (yikrau) before You! RAMA: Some have a custom of eating a sweet apple in honey, and saying: May a sweet year be renewed on us! This is what we do. Some eat pomegranates, and say: may our merits be as many as pomegranate seeds! And we are accustomed to eat fatty meat and all sorts of sweets.
(2) Eat a head of a lamb saying: Let us be as a head and not a tail. It is also a remembrance of the ram of Isaac. Rema: There are those who are careful not to eat nuts, as the word "egoz" in gematriah [is equal to the value of] chet (sin). They also cause a lot of excess saliva and phloem and cause abrogation of prayers. They also go to a river and say the verse: And Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). There are also those who do not sleep during Rosh Hashana during the day, and this is the correct thing to do.
These ten Sefirot which are, moreover, ineffable, have their end rooted their beginning, conjoined, even as is a flame to a burning coal: for our God is superlative in unity, and does not permit any second one. And who canst thou place before the only one?
In 2014, after two years of studying at a yeshiva in Israel, author, publisher, and teacher Jorian Polis Schutz says he began to experience the movement of time differently. Following the Hebrew calendar more closely, he could see the way in which the shape of time was not a straight line — but rather, a spiral. “When I came around the Jewish year with intention for the second time, I could feel the spiral shape of time,” he explains.
According to Schutz — who happens to be the brother of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is the first Jewish governor of Colorado and the first openly gay man elected as a state governor — circles and cycles are baked into the Hebrew calendar. “The Hebrew calendar is an incomparable marvel of circles within circles, of temporal rhythm and symmetry, of balance between solar and lunar,” he says. “Each month follows the cycle of the moon, beginning and ending with its renewal. The seven-day shabbat cycle is extended into the weeks (sefirat ha’omer), into the years (shmitah), and into groupings of years (yovel).”
In his introduction to the 5779 calendar, Schutz expands on the idea that a circular representation of time allows us a better opportunity for reflection and projection, saying, “Sometimes when we return to a place, it is as if we also return in time, to encounter an earlier version of ourselves. Sometimes our past hits us over the head, and sometimes our future grants us a prophetic hint of what is normally kept hidden.”