Why is Rosh Hashanah The New Year?

This Sunday evening is the start of Rosh Hashanah. It is well-known that this day, the first of the month of Tishrei, is the Jewish New Year. It is also well-known that Rosh Hashanah is “Judgement Day”, when everyone’s merits and sins are placed on a scale and each person is written into the Book of Life, or the Book of Death. What’s amazing is that neither of these ideas are actually recorded in the Torah!

The Torah does not describe the first day of the month of Tishrei as either “Rosh Hashanah”, a new year, or as a “judgement day”. All that the Torah states is that this day is a yom teruah, a day to blow the shofar (Numbers 29:1), and a day of zikhron, “remembrance” (Leviticus 23:24). More puzzling is that Tishrei is the seventh month on the Jewish calendar, and not the first (which is Nisan). So, where does the idea of the first of Tishrei being a new year come from? And why is it a day of judgement?

'Hasidic Jews Performing Tashlich on Rosh Hashanah' by Aleksander Gierymski (1884)

‘Hasidic Jews Performing Tashlich on Rosh Hashanah’ by Aleksander Gierymski (1884)

Four New Years

The Talmudic tractate of Rosh Hashanah begins by stating that there are actually four new years on the Jewish calendar. First of these is Nisan, the first month of the calendar, and “the new year for kings and festivals”. Elul, the sixth month, is the new year for cattle tithes. Tu B’Shvat is the new year for trees. And the first of Tishrei is the “new year for years”, as well as for Jubilees and vegetable tithes.

The Talmud goes on to debate why the first of Tishrei is the new year of years. Some argue that the years should start in Nisan, while others suggest it may even be in Iyar or Sivan (the second and third months of the calendar). Based on an analysis of a number of Torah verses, the conclusion is that the new year should be in Tishrei, for this ensures the best Torah chronology.

The Talmud then suggests that Nisan is the new year for Jews, while Tishrei is the new year for all of mankind. This makes sense in light of the tradition that Adam and Eve were created on the first of Tishrei. As they are the ancestors of all human beings, their birthday is the new year for all of humanity. The new year for Jews specifically, though, is in Nisan, since it is in Nisan that the Jews were taken out of Egypt and headed towards Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah and officially become a nation.

Judgement Day

According to tradition, Adam and Eve ate of the Forbidden Fruit on the very same day that they were created. After partaking of the fruit, they were judged by God, and exiled from Eden. Not surprisingly, then, that same day became associated not just with a new year, but with judgement, too. By consuming the fruit, Adam and Eve brought death into the world (Genesis 2:17). It is therefore appropriate that on Rosh Hashanah, the books of life and death are opened, and each person is inscribed therein.

Based on Deuteronomy 11:12, the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 8a) concludes that one’s entire forthcoming year is set on Rosh Hashanah. The verse states that God’s “eyes”, so to speak, are set mereshit hashanah v’ad acharit hashanah, “from the beginning of the year, and to the end of the year”, and so, the Sages interpret that the entire year is already pre-destined from the start of the year.

The Sages then ask: how do we know that this judgement day is on the first of Tishrei? Psalms 81:4-5 states, “Blow the shofar on the new moon; at the full moon is our festival. For it is a statute for Israel, a sentence of the God of Jacob.” This verse just about ties it all together. It tells us that the day of shofar blowing is on the new moon (the first of the month), and on the full moon is the festival. This festival is Sukkot, which is celebrated on the 15th of Tishrei – a full moon. The Psalm continues by saying it is a mishpat, literally a court ruling or a sentence, a clear allusion to judgement.

[Although the verse in Psalms specifically refers to Israel and Jacob, the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 8b) assures us that all of mankind is judged, and the verse in Psalms simply means that Israel is judged first.]

The Last Piece of Evidence

There is one more verse that can be used to conclude that the first of Tishrei is a new year, and is tied to the day of judgement. The term Rosh Hashanah is, in fact, mentioned in the Tanakh, just once, in the Book of Ezekiel. Chapter 40 begins by stating, “In the twenty-fifth year of our captivity, in the beginning of the year [b’Rosh Hashanah], in the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was smitten, on that day, the hand of Hashem was upon me, and He brought me there…”

Ezekiel writes that on the tenth day into the new year he received a prophecy from God. As explicitly recorded in the Torah, the tenth of Tishrei is Yom Kippur. On this day, and this day alone, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies and receive a divine revelation. Ezekiel himself was a priest, but in his day the Temple was already destroyed (as the verse above tells us, it was fourteen years after Jerusalem’s destruction). If there was ever an auspicious time for a priest to receive a prophecy, it would be Yom Kippur – the tenth of Tishrei. Thus, it is highly probable that the Rosh Hashanah that Ezekiel refers to is the first of Tishrei.

And so, although the Torah does not explicitly say so, a careful analysis of Biblical and Talmudic verses reveals that the first of Tishrei – the day of shofar blowing – is indeed a new year, and a day of judgement.

Wishing You a Shana Tova v’Metuka!

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