Rosh Hashanah
Experience the holiday like never before! Insights, information and more.
Rosh Hashanah 2023: Friday evening, September 15 – Sunday evening, September 17.
We dip apple – and challah – in honey, candying the coming year. And we wish a happy and sweet new year to the entire world. But why do we blow the shofar? Why are these days celebrated as the Rosh, the head, of the year. Why do we crown the King of the universe and how can we best pray and bond with Him? Is there really a Book of Life? Learn about the origins of creation and commit to fulfilling its potential. Invigorate and discover the excitement of the Jewish New Year and reap the rewards in the coming year!
60 Day Journey: FREE DAILY EMAILS
The Universal Message of Rosh Hashanah
The First Rosh Hashanah: Where it All Began
60 Days: A Spiritual Guide to the High Holidays
Prepare for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot with insights from spiritual healer and renowned teacher Rabbi Simon Jacobson. Discover tools to revitalize and invigorate your High Holiday experience.
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60 Days: A Spiritual Guide to the High Holidays
Partake in a Transformative 60 DAY JOURNEY Toward a Better Life
Bring the High Holidays Home: Join our virtual 60 Day Journey and experience transformation on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Discover tools to revitalize and invigorate your High Holidays with daily emails, providing inspirational thoughts and personal exercises.
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A Special New Year Greeting from Rabbi Simon Jacobson
As we prepare to greet and enter the Jewish New Year, let us take a moment to reflect on the strange and unprecedented year now coming to an end.
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A New Year; A New You
Does the new year actually bring a new energy, new possibilities? How can we us this opportunity to create a real difference in our lives and the world around us?
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What a Year It Has Been…
A year like this does not come very often. Disruption on every front. Uncertainty hanging over us like a dark cloud. What will the fall bring? What will the future be like? In this special pre-Rosh Hashana talk, Rabbi Jacobson offers powerful lessons and tools to face our current challenges.
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What a Good and Sweet Year Means
The traditional New Year greeting is to be blessed with a “good and sweet year.” What is the difference between “good” and “sweet’? Why are these specific terms used?
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A Blessing from Simon Jacobson for Renewal
Drawing from extensive knowledge of the 4000-year-old tradition of Kabbalah, Rabbi Jacobson identifies where change starts and offers hope and strength for your journey both inside yourself and out in the world.
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Rosh Hashana Cosmology: The Kabbalah of the Big Bang Theory Part 2
Join this historic journey back to the virtual moment of the Big Bang. Discover the mind blowing fact: the Big Bang isn’t just a thing of the past; it will be renewed this coming Sunday night on the birthday of the first Big Bang, when all of existence reverts to its first moment.
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The First Rosh Hashana: Where it All Began
By understanding the potency of the annual “big bang” which takes place on Rosh Hashana — the collective birthday of the universe and the human race — learn how to tap into this “brain” power to shape and transform your coming year.
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Can The New Year Actually Change You? Pre-Rosh Hashana Workshop
Please join Rabbi Simon Jacobson in this Chai-Elul / pre-Rosh Hashana workshop for a fascinating discussion on the nature of human nature, dissecting the anatomy of our wiring, what shapes us and what it would take to reshape us.
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A Trembling World Waiting to be Reborn – Rosh Hashana Workshop
Reveal how the destiny of the world’s nations are determined on Rosh Hashana and what each of us can do to impact the future of our lives and of the world.
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Living the Never Ending Melody
Experience the unprecedented by tapping into the energy of Rosh Hashana in order to seize each day with focus, purpose, and motivation.
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The Jewish New Year: Renewal, Sanctity, and Joy
The Jewish New Year and High Holiday season is ultra rich with layers of opportunity to peer deeply into our lives, and come out renewed and empowered to take on our life challenges.
Read MoreThe Immaculate Reception: Are Miracles Possible?
The Jets miraculous win, in the days when we prepare to enter a New Year and celebrate the collective birthday of the human race on Rosh Hashana, reminds us of the miracles and angels trapped in our material, distracted lives, and the call of the Shofar awakens us to do our part in unleashing them.
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How to Set Yourself Up for a Great Year
Your new attitude on Rosh Hashana has the power to affect and draw in new energy throughout the entire upcoming year. Here are three ways to start drawing that positive energy down for yourself.
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Give Me Your Soul
It is time to create a revolution – to refocus our priorities and invest our energies into the most premium of all our gifts: Our children. And remember: It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
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A Special New Year Greeting from Rabbi Simon Jacobson
Let us take a moment to reflect on the strange and unprecedented year now coming to an end.
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60 Days Daily Audio Journey
Follow along with the Meaningful Life Center’s NEW daily audio series by Rabbi Simon Jacobson: 60 Day Journey Toward Hope, Renewal, and Joy.
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Slichos Song by Phillip Namanworth
Rosh Hashanah — head of the Year. The control center of our hearts and minds is open to rebuilding.
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New Year Blessings
I want to extend to you my personal blessings for a sweet and healthy year. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have sent me your kind wishes and blessings for the New Year.
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Rosh Hashana: One Request
On this day each year we return to our origins: Not the dust part, but the spirit – the dimensions that makes us uniquely human.
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The Blast of the Shofar
A short explanation of the spiritual meaning of blowing the Shofar, this is an excerpt from best-selling 60 Days by Rabbi Simon Jacobson.
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Chanah’s Prayer
Chana’s prayer taught us how to pray on Rosh Hashanah and throughout the year. This essay is a deep look into Chana’s prayer as the source of Jewish prayer as we understand it.
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The Coronation
The cry of the shofar resounds: an utterly simple cry, reflecting not the fear of the subject, not the love of the child or the sophistication of the student’s understanding, but the simple trumpet blast of a people’s coronation of their king.
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Rosh Hashanah Stories
Four Hasidic stories. Rosh Hashanah stories from Hasidic masters including the Baal Shem Tov and Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev.
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The Seven Weeks of Comfort
Learn about the Seven Weeks of Comfort that follow the Three Weeks of Affliction. In these weeks we are comforted over the destruction and loss of the Holy Temple, and they prepare us for rebirth and renewal in the upcoming New Year.
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Cholent: The Purpose of Exile
The purpose of exile as explained through the metaphor of cholent, a stew eaten on the Jewish Sabbath. What cholent teaches us about the meaning of exile.
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Totalitarianism Today
The connection between accepting the yoke of Heaven and Rosh Hashanah. What kind of person can accept the yoke of heaven? Can you?
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Family Loyalty
A discussion of family loyalty illustrates the idea of forgiveness in Judaism. A story of the Seer of Lublin.
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The Materialistic Spiritualist
Is materialistic spirituality an oxymoron? When striving to carry out the will of his Creator, is man justified in requesting the fulfillment of his personal desires? A discussion of Rosh Hashanah and the nature of man’s soul.
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Vayelech: A Year In Perspective
As we enter the new year, this essay reflects on the past year, the lessons learned, challenges encountered and meaning made…
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What is the Calling of Our Time?
As we approach Rosh Hashana: Here is a good question to ask yourself:
If you were able to have a glimpse of G-d’s thoughts,how would they look?
Netzovim – Vayeilech: Birthing
Samech Vav, part 19 discusses the renewed light that shines on the eve of Rosh Hashana, a light which is relevant to each of us as a unique being…
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Ki Tovo: Tremors
As we prepare for Rosh Hashanah we reflect on what the world has been and imagine into what the new century may challenge us with…
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To Stand Before G-d
On the Shabbat before Rosh Hashanah we read Parshat Nitzavim, which begins with the contradictory words: “You stand today, all of you, before G-d your G-d”
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When Shabbat Follows Rosh Hashanah
Learn about this spiritual meaning of where Rosh Hashanah falls on the Jewish calendar.
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Netzavim Rosh Hashana: Give Me Your Soul
Envision what your child will look like having grown into an adult saturated with not just with love and nurturing, but with a profound sense of purpose.
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Rosh Hashana: New Year 5772
If we only allow ourselves to pull ourselves a bit back and out from our enmeshed lives, we can transcend many of our doubts, and see new opportunities, as an old world gives way to a new one.
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Chayei Sarah: Birth of a Revolution
Is your ultimate purpose self-actualization, the need to express yourself and be “recognized” by others, or is there something more to life?
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Time To Sing
I realized and continue to realize the deep grief of so many tormented souls; children whose lives were forever altered because of a self-indulgent, sick adult.
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Netzvim-Vayelech: Blackberry Unplugged
By pressing a button in one corner of our lives we set in motion a series of events that reverberate around the world; how you can hold infinity in the palm of your handheld device.
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Why We Bless Each Other With a “Good and Sweet Year”
The meaning behind the phrase “sweet new year” is examined in relation to the concepts of judgment and concealment.
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Erev Rosh Hashana: New Year Blessings
Rabbi Simon Jacobson extends his personal Rosh Hashana (New Year) blessings upon everyone, and discusses personal missions.
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A Trembling World Waiting To Be Reborn
Remember the lesson of Rosh Hashana’s renewal: never to give up hope, never to resign yourself, no matter how difficult the challenge, you were given all the strengths to face any situation and come out stronger.
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The Universal Message of Rosh Hashanah
The universal message of Rosh Hashanah is that we all need to hear the sounds of our own souls. Read this conversation with Rabbi Simon Jacobson.
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A Blast in Three Dimensions
The meaning of the shofar blasts: the sounding of the shofar is more than a commandment—it is also a vehicle for repentence.
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