The Jewish New Year is upon us. I don’t know about you, but the High Holidays really snuck up on me this year. Perhaps because they came a month earlier than usual (our lunar calendar is due for the solar correction of an extra month next year), or perhaps because this has been such a big year for me full of changes and busyness; I don’t know. They just snuck up on me.
That being said, here are the Top 5 Things On My Mind this Rosh Hashanah. Some are Rosh Hashanah-related, some are not.
1. My first son was born between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and bears the middle name “Rosh” in Hebrew because of that. Every year since I was pregnant with him, I make a plum cobbler with plums from my mother-in-law’s plum tree and freeze it to eat on his birthday. This year, because of the Jewish calendar being so early, his Hebrew birthday falls about five weeks before his secular one.
2. My ex and I are having meals together with our sons and my parents at his house which is really neat. I am contributing, among other things, round peanut butter chocolate truffles which were supposed to be shaped like eggs but came out messy and sort of … rustic. But they are still delicious. (Round foods and sweet foods are customary for the Jewish New Year menu.)
3. Emmy season is in full swing, with the awards falling in the middle of Sukkot, the holiday just after Yom Kippur, which is 10 days after Rosh Hashanah. It feels like the next month will be a series of dominoes of holidays and meals and being “off the grid” from my laptop and parties and fittings and madness and excitement. It’s kind of neat to start off our Emmy and television season–and also the school year–right when Rosh Hashanah arrives so that everything from here on out feels new and full of possibilities.
4. I chose a dress for the Emmys. The very talented and very sweet Oliver Tolentino (OliverTolentino.com) is designing a stunning glamorous dress. Very Old Hollywood, very curve-hugging, but also comfortable. He used words at my fitting last week such as “cascading,” “delicate,” and–possibly stylist Ali’s favorite–“hand stitched.” There is beading involved! Oliver has worked with The Big Bang Theory‘s Melissa Rauch a few times and she always looks radiant in his dresses, and I am very excited to have made a decision and to move forward. In between yontifs (holidays), I will have more fittings to fine-tune the dress to get ready for September 22nd.
5. Rosh Hashanah is a time of renewal and rebirth and also the hint that autumn is approaching, with all of its shedding and rains and break from the heat and intensity of the summer. It is a holy and sacred holiday full of introspection and prayer, and I hope this Rosh Hashanah, no matter how you celebrate it, brings you peace and satisfaction and only the sweetest that life has to offer.
Even if it’s a rustic sweetness. Because that kind of sweetness can still be delicious.
Shana Tovah U’Metukah!
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