Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year, a two‑day holiday focused on spiritual “reset,” prayer, and celebrating hopes for a sweet year ahead.

What do you do on Rosh Hashanah?

Most Jewish communities mark Rosh Hashanah with a mix of synagogue time, festive meals, and personal reflection.

Core practices

  • Attend synagogue services with special prayers about God’s kingship, remembrance, and judgment.
  • Hear the shofar (ram’s horn) blown in synagogue, a central ritual meant to “wake up” spiritually and call people to reflect and return to their best selves.
  • Avoid regular work, treating the day like a festival and focusing on rest, spirituality, and family time.

At home: meals and symbols

Rosh Hashanah is also celebrated around the table with symbolic foods that express wishes for a good year.

  • Make Kiddush over wine or grape juice, then eat festive meals, often both evenings and daytime.
  • Eat round challah (instead of braided) to symbolize the cycle of the year and the continuity of life.
  • Dip challah and apples in honey as a sign and prayer for a “sweet” new year.
  • Serve other symbolic foods, such as:
    • Pomegranates (hoping for many merits like its many seeds).
* A fish or lamb head (wishing to be “like the head and not the tail,” i.e., to be leaders, not followers).

* Honey cake and sweet dishes in Ashkenazi homes.
  • On the second night, many families add a “new fruit” (one you haven’t eaten yet this season) and say the shehecheyanu blessing for reaching a new moment.

Tashlich and “casting off” sins

There is a widely observed custom called tashlich , usually on the afternoon of the first day.

  • Go to a body of water (river, lake, sea, even a pond) and say short prayers asking God to “cast” sins away.
  • Symbolically throw crumbs, pebbles, or just shake out your pockets or garments to represent letting go of past faults.
  • Some Jewish traditions debate whether to throw physical crumbs or keep it purely symbolic, but the idea of inner cleansing is common.

Inner work: reflection and resolutions

Beyond rituals, Rosh Hashanah begins the Ten Days of Repentance (Days of Awe), leading up to Yom Kippur.

  • Think about the past year: where you hurt others, where you grew, where you fell short.
  • Reach out to people to apologize or mend relationships, often starting around this time so that Yom Kippur prayers feel honest.
  • Set intentions for the coming year—better habits, stronger kindness, more learning or community involvement.

An example: someone might spend Rosh Hashanah morning in synagogue, lunch with family around apples and honey, walk to a nearby river for tashlich, and then take quiet time in the evening to journal hopes for the year.

Different communities, different flavors

How you “do” Rosh Hashanah can vary by background and observance level.

  • Some spend long hours in deeply traditional services; others join shorter or more musical gatherings.
  • Observant Jews typically refrain from using electronics, driving (except where permitted in some communities), and regular weekday tasks; more liberal communities may be less strict but still aim for a focused, sacred atmosphere.
  • People who cannot attend synagogue often:
    • Stream services online if their community offers it.
* Make a simple home ritual with candles, Kiddush, apples and honey, and some personal reflection or reading.

Simple answer recap

On Rosh Hashanah you usually: go to synagogue, hear the shofar, eat festive meals with round challah, apples and honey, and other symbolic foods, avoid regular work, do tashlich by water, and spend time reflecting on your past year and hopes for the next one.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.