Q&A: Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah
Question
If you were a one-man Sanhedrin and it depended on you, what character would you give Rosh Hashanah as a day, in terms of its length, its somewhat intimidating content, the length of the prayers, and so on?
Answer
You don’t need a Sanhedrin for that. A holiday like any other holiday. Shofar blowing. A drastic shortening of the prayers (and the liturgical poems left to whoever wants them. Same for the symbolic foods). All of that can be done even today.
Discussion on Answer
Rosh Hashanah is for beginners. If only someone could be found to set up a short prayer quorum on Yom Kippur.
On the contrary. Yom Kippur is easy. There’s no real obligation regarding the prayer. On Rosh Hashanah there are the Kingship, Remembrances, and Shofar sections, and shofar blowing.
What about the Temple service order on Yom Kippur? From the Talmud it seems that they were already reciting the service order in their time. And confession is also part of the day’s obligation.
The service order is a later liturgical poem. And the confession also takes ten seconds.
And of course, only one day.