We eat apples on Rosh Hashanah mainly as a sweet, hopeful symbol for the new year, and because over time the apple picked up deep layers of Jewish meaning in Bible, Midrash, and mysticism.

Core reason: a sweet new year

The most widely-known reason is very simple:

  • We dip a slice of apple in honey as a kind of edible prayer that the coming year will be “good and sweet.”
  • Honey itself has long been used in Jewish tradition as a symbol of abundance, blessing, and pleasantness (think “a land flowing with milk and honey”).
  • So you start the year literally tasting sweetness, hoping it “sets the tone” for everything that follows.

An easy way to picture it: the apple is the new year, and the honey is the extra sweetness you are asking God to pour over it.

Why specifically an apple?

Plenty of fruits are sweet, so why apples and not, say, dates or mangoes?

  • Beloved fruit in Jewish sources: The apple tree is singled out in Song of Songs as special among other trees, with delightful shade, fragrance, and fruit. That love-poem is traditionally read as describing the love between God and Israel, so the apple becomes a symbol of that relationship.
  • Symbol of love and renewal: Later Jewish teachers read “under the apple tree I aroused you” as a poetic image of first love, separation, and reunion—standing for Israel’s long relationship with God, from early love to exile to renewal. Eating apple on Rosh Hashanah is like renewing that bond at the year’s beginning.
  • Healing and protection: In some traditions the apple was associated with healing powers and the ability to “sweeten” what is harsh, including wine (which in mystical language can symbolize severity or judgment). That’s very on-theme for Rosh Hashanah, a day of judgment when we hope harsh decrees will be softened.

Over time, these associations made the apple the “star fruit” of the holiday, even though Rosh Hashanah has many symbolic foods.

Classic customs and the little prayer

The usual custom looks like this:

  1. Take a sweet apple, slice it, and dip a piece into honey.
  2. Recite a short blessing over the fruit.
  3. Then say a brief additional line asking for a good and sweet year, and eat.

Some communities say small prayers or wishes over several symbolic foods (like pomegranate, dates, or leeks), but even among those who don’t add a special line for every food, they will often still do it for the apple in honey.

Think of the apple-and-honey moment as the “headline ritual” that even people with minimal observance still recognize.

Deeper mystical and midrashic layers

Later Jewish thought added more symbolic meanings to the apple:

  • Connection to the Giving of the Torah: Some teachers link the “apple tree” in Song of Songs to the moment the Torah was given at Sinai. Just as we blow the shofar to recall Sinai, eating apple can also hint at that spiritual encounter.
  • Judgment softened into mercy: Mystical writings associate the apple with spiritual qualities like beauty and truth, through which harsh judgment can be transformed into compassion. Eating apple at the start of the meal can symbolize “sweetening all severities” for the year ahead.
  • Memory, hope, and endurance: Modern interpretations describe the apple as a sign of first love that survives through hard times—like Israel’s love for God that persists through exile and suffering. Eating it on Rosh Hashanah becomes a way of saying: “Our hope and our relationship with the divine are still alive.”

These layers are not required “beliefs” to eat an apple, but they give people richer ways to connect spiritually with a very simple act.

Apples and honey today: community and culture

In recent years, apples and honey have also taken on social and cultural meanings:

  • Family and community ritual: For many Jews, especially in North America and Europe, this is the most familiar Rosh Hashanah moment—kids passing plates of apples, everyone dipping and wishing each other a sweet year.
  • Creative spins: People experiment with different apple varieties, local honey, or recipes like apple‑and‑honey cake and themed desserts, but the core symbolism stays the same.
  • Simple entry point: Even if someone doesn’t attend full synagogue services, doing “just apples and honey” at home or with friends is a gentle way to feel connected to the holiday and to Jewish time.

So the short version: we eat apples on Rosh Hashanah because they’re a sweet, love‑laden, and spiritually rich symbol that lets us literally taste our hope for a good, gentle, and sweet year.

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