Rosh Hashana traditions, with twists

My mother's preferences for Rosh Hashana fare are traditional, things her Odessa-born Russian mother and generations of Ashkenazi Jews would have made in the old country. It's a menu that evolved based on the limited number of seasonal foods that were available. Yet symbolism also played a fascinating role in the evolution of Jewish holiday cuisine, and not just on Rosh Hashana. Throughout the Jewish year, seasonal foods are incorporated into special dishes that have become the caretakers of our wishes, laden with symbols from Jewish history, and collective memories of nature in the biblical land.

Today, these same symbolic foods can still be a part of tradition, though we might prefer to have them updated a little.

Foodstuffs were among the first symbols in Judaism, beginning from the fateful day when God chastised Adam and Eve for eating that forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge. In biblical times, the grapevine symbolized security and well-being, peace, quiet and abundance, as did the fig tree. ("They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree / And none shall make them afraid.") The grape was so revered that it is the only fruit to have its own blessing (when consumed as wine).

The pomegranate held even greater symbolic richness. King Solomon graced the pillars of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem with carvings of pomegranates, and the Bible required that they adorn the priests' garb as well. Its form embellished coinage of old, and the tufted crown of the pomegranate is purported to be the first inspiration for the kingly headdress.

The complement of bell and fruit held particular significance for the ancients. Bells symbolized the male pomegranate flower, the fruit the fertilized female. In the Song of Songs, pomegranates are used as a metaphor for beauty — "Thy temples are like a pomegranate split open behind thy veil" — and in later days the fruits were used to decorate the booths (sukkot) on the Feast of Tabernacles. According to legend, the pomegranate contains exactly 613 seeds, the number of commandments in the Torah that Jews are instructed to perform, and an ancient custom suggests that on Rosh Hashana, the Day of Judgment, we should consume a pomegranate to remind the Creator of all the good deeds we have (we hope) done in the last year.

This year, as in centuries past, Jews from all over the world will devote some element of their Rosh Hashana menu to symbolic foods. Most will dip sliced apple in honey, a late-medieval Ashkenazi tradition to symbolize our wishes for a sweet new year to come. A round challah will substitute for the usual elongated loaf shape, symbolizing the cycle of the year and the continuity of creation, and pieces of it will be dipped in honey, rather than the traditional salt.

Other dishes were chosen because their names in Yiddish, Hebrew, Aramaic or even Ladino, have connotations suitable to the holiday: The custom of eating tzimmes a carrot-based Ashkenazi stew traditionally served on Rosh Hashana, derives from the fact that the Yiddish word for carrots, merren, also means "more" or "increased." Sliced into coin-shaped pieces, they symbolize a wish for "more" health and wealth for ourselves and our children. Even kreplach — small stuffed pasta dumplings — hold symbolic significance: An ancient mystical tradition suggests that since the new moon is nearly invisible at Rosh Hashana, some holiday foods should be "covered" or hidden as well.

But in Sephardic communities, once dispersed throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa, living in a climate similar to that of Israel, the plenteous selection of fruits and vegetables together with a Talmudic passage written in Aramaic evolved into a pre-meal Rosh Hashana Blessings Tray ceremony characterized by the eating of their own symbolic foods.