5710

At sundown one day last week, in almost every corner of the world, skull-capped cantors put the curved Shofar (ram's horn) to their mouths and blew long, wailing blasts. Thus, Jews were called upon to take stock of their souls. It was the beginning of the two-day period of Rosh Hashana, the sacred celebration of the New Year 5710,* and the start of the ten High Holy Days which end Oct. 3 in Yom Kippur.

In Israel, the Shofar's sound echoed for the first time in more than 2,000 years through a free land in which the People of the Covenant could walk in safety and peace. The Labor government of non-Orthodox Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion made provision for an Orthodox observance. Cantors and special prayer books were dispatched to Israel's army bases. The police detoured all traffic away from Tel Aviv's great synagogue on Allenby Street, while inside, black & white robed rabbis prayed and chanted. In the Tel Aviv area alone some 400 synagogues were filled and in the pious Manshieh quarter no traffic moved after sundown, no pedestrians uncovered their heads and there was no smoking on the streets.

Resort hotels were booked solid by a younger generation to whom Rosh Hashana seemed little more than a two-day vacation. But in some Orthodox homes men received fish heads to symbolize their position as heads of families and honey was spread on bread to symbolize the coming of a sweet and fruitful year. Only in Jerusalem was there mourning--among the pious who could not hold their traditional services at the ancient Wailing Wall in the Arab-held Old City.

* Reckoned from the Creation, which is calculated by Jewish scholars to have taken place in the fall of 3761 B.C.

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