SALISBURY TWP., Pa. – The Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, is this weekend.
Rabbi Moshe Kurtz with Congregation Sons of Israel visited 69 News at Sunrise Thursday to talk about the significance of the high holy days.
Kurtz talked about what this date means to people in the Jewish faith community. He said the faithful spend a lot of time at the synagogue for the Jewish new year.
He said it’s a balance between a celebratory day and a day in which people consider God’s judgement of us and what God will allot us for the upcoming year.
People will be spending a lot of time praying over the next two days, he said.
The holiday starts Friday night and goes through Sunday.
He brought a special horn with him on his visit to 69 News, a shofar. He talked about what it is and what purpose it serves on the holiday. He said a shofar is a ram’s horn.
Kurtz said the shofar hearkens back to the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. God, in an act of compassion, rather than Abraham having to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, there is a ram that is caught in the thicket, and he is able to offer that in lieu of his son, Kurtz said.
Every year, on Rosh Hashanah, people blow the horn to commemorate God’s compassion for us.
On 69 News at Sunrise Thursday, Kurtz demonstrated the shofar’s three basic notes, which include nine mini-notes.
He said the idea of the shofar is that we are crying out to God, and that our prayers should be able to ascend to Heaven and to be answered on Rosh Hashanah.
During the local religious service, Kurtz said, there will be an introductory prayers, with the blowing of the shofar in the middle of the service.
It is blown 100 times throughout the course of Rosh Hashanah, Kurtz said.