Early morning on the eve of Rosh Hashanah I was online with an alum serving abroad in Iraq discussing how he could best keep Rosh Hashanah under the circumstances out there, being the only Jew on base, far away from home and Jewish life.
Thankfully he mastered the Shofar we had sent him in an earlier care package, and he had a Machzor – and was prepared to say the whole thing (the parts you say without a Minyan, which is most of it) himself. His mom had sent apple chips and he got honey on base. He didn’t think he could get his hands on a pomegranate, and wondered how to fulfill some of the symbolic foods eaten on the first night of Rosh Hashanah?
Some of these symbolic foods have to do with what they are: pomegranate seeds (may our good deeds be as many as the seeds), head of a fish (so that we connect more with heads than with tails), and some of the symbolic foods like carrots, leeks and beets have more to do with how they sound phonetically in Aramaic or Yiddish – with names that remind us of positive attributes or Rosh Hashanah relevant messages.
I knew he had beef jerky, because we sent that to him in the care package. While it may not be one of the traditional symbolisms – it certainly has meaning for his valiant efforts to keep his Jewish faith ad traditions and observances in a far-off and challenging place like that! We sent beef-jerky because anything sent over there has to be non-perishable. It takes weeks to arrive, the packages sit in military transports and temperatures in that region can soar over 100 degrees especially in summer, and much higher than that inside metal shipping containers.
What meaningful symbolism! To eat beef jerky on the night of Rosh Hashanah as a tribute to dedication through thick and thin, despite adversity, no matter the conditions…
— We shared this message on Rosh Hashanah night back home here at Shabbos House. And then I realized another simple symbolic food he could have used! We sent him LIFE Cereal, because he likes LIFE cereal and it wasn’t one of the limited types of cereal available on base. But eating LIFE on the night when we ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life – that would have been a great symbolic food!
The point of sharing this all is to explain how the symbolic foods we eat on Rosh Hashanah and alternates that we can add, especially when we might not have the regular traditional ones available.