Rosh Hashanah 2030

The dates

Rosh Hashanah is the start of the Hebrew year, the 1st and 2nd of Tishrei, two days kept as one long day. On the civil calendar it drifts between early September and early October; this year it falls on 28-29/9/30 (Saturday).

Of all the festivals it is the only one with no event behind it: no exodus, no miracle, no rescue from a decree. What it has instead is a single sound and a moment of stocktaking. In practice it is also the most domestic day of Tishrei: a laid table, honey, a pomegranate, and a short blessing for everyone who walks in.

The festival day by day

Day	Gregorian date	Weekday	Hebrew date
Day 1	28 September 2030	Saturday	1 Tishrei
Day 2	29 September 2030	Sunday	2 Tishrei

The day that got its name late

The phrase "Rosh Hashanah" never appears in the Torah. The day turns up there exactly twice, under two other names: a "remembrance of blasts" and a "day of blasts." It is a day with a sound in it, and no explanation of what the sound marks. The name everyone uses is rabbinic, fixed by the Mishnah in the tractate that carries it.

So why does the year begin here at all? The Talmud preserves an old disagreement about the season of creation, and Rabbi Eliezer states the position that won: "the world was created in Tishrei; in Tishrei the patriarchs were born… on Rosh Hashanah Sarah, Rachel and Hannah were remembered" ¹. Hence the line that recurs in the day's prayers: hayom harat olam, today the world was conceived. It is a birthday, but not of a people or a king. Of the world.

Which also explains what looks at first like a gap. Rosh Hashanah has no story because it comes before all the stories.

"A remembrance of blasts"

Everything the Torah says about this day fits into two verses. The first, in the list of festivals: "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a day of rest, a remembrance of blasts, a holy convocation" ². The second, in the list of festival offerings: "it shall be a day of blasts for you" ³.

That is all of it. Not a word about a shofar, not a word about judgment, not a word about repentance. The Torah supplies a date and a sound; everything else (the hundred blasts, the liturgy, the table of symbolic foods) was built on top over many centuries. There is something characteristic in that. To this day it remains a festival each household fills with its own content.

What people actually do

The shofar. The blasts are sounded during the day itself, after the Torah reading, a hundred notes in all. Three sounds alternate: tekiah, one long note; shevarim, three short ones; teruah, a fast broken stutter. When the first day falls on Shabbat, the shofar is not sounded at all that day, and every blast is heard on the second.

The symbolic foods. The origin of this one is disarmingly plain. Abaye, a Babylonian sage, said a person should make a habit of eating at the new year "gourd and fenugreek, leek, beet and dates" ⁴. An entire table grew out of that sentence: apple dipped in honey, pomegranate, a fish head, and a one-line wish over each. Sephardi and Mizrachi households keep it as an ordered ceremony at the start of the meal; Ashkenazi ones mostly kept the apple and the honey.

Round challah. Not the long braid of Shabbat but a coil, dipped in honey rather than salt. In many homes the honey stays on the table until the end of the festival season.

Tashlich. On the afternoon of the first day people walk to water (a river, the sea, a pond, a fountain) and say a few verses there. The name comes from Micah's image of casting sins into the depths of the sea. The custom is a relatively late one, and much of its appeal is the walk itself.

Two days. Rosh Hashanah is kept for two days everywhere, Israel included; it is the only festival of which that is true. Jewish law treats them as one long day. On the second night it is usual to put out a fruit not yet eaten that season, so the shehecheyanu blessing has something new to attach to.

"Shanah tovah." The greeting starts on the eve of the festival, while written good wishes go out from the middle of Elul. In Israel this is also the week the school year opens, which is why the day feels like the start of a year even to people who never set foot in a synagogue.

What is read on the two days

You might expect a day of judgment to be marked by readings about law and verdict. The readings are nothing of the kind.

The first day is the birth of Isaac: a story about an old woman who had stopped hoping, and about laughter. The prophetic reading that follows it is Hannah's: a woman at the sanctuary in Shiloh, praying so quietly that only her lips move, mistaken by the priest for a drunk, answering that she is simply pouring out her heart. The same rabbinic tradition that ties this day to the creation of the world adds that line too, "on Rosh Hashanah Sarah, Rachel and Hannah were remembered" ¹.

The second day is the binding of Isaac, the text from which the shofar itself is traditionally derived, by way of the ram caught in the thicket.

None of the three is about reward and punishment. All three are about people asking for something without knowing whether they will get it. Which may be why the day, whatever its formal title, does not feel like a courtroom.

Between a verdict and an alarm clock

The Mishnah gives the day one image that is hard to shake: "on Rosh Hashanah all who have come into the world pass before Him like sheep" ⁵, everyone filing past one at a time, like a flock counted through a narrow gate. The whole atmosphere the Hebrew calls the Days of Awe grows out of that picture.

Maimonides, writing his laws of repentance roughly a thousand years later, takes the day somewhere else entirely. The shofar, he says, is a decree of scripture, and yet there is a hint in it: "Awake, sleepers, from your sleep; rouse yourselves, slumberers, from your slumber; examine your deeds, return in repentance, and remember your Creator" ⁶. Then comes the practical half: a person should see himself all year as though he were half innocent and half guilty, and the world with him, so that one good act tips the scale.

The distance between the two images is the distance between fear and opportunity. In the second, the shofar is not a sentence but an alarm clock, and the weight of an entire day shrinks to the size of the next small thing you do.

Common questions about Rosh Hashanah

When is Rosh Hashanah?

Rosh Hashanah always falls on 1–2 Tishrei (28-29/9/30). On the civil calendar it drifts between early September and early October, because the Hebrew year is about eleven days shorter than the civil one.

When does Rosh Hashanah start?

At candle-lighting before sunset on the evening before, 29 Elul (17/9/31). Times vary by a few minutes between cities; exact times for your location appear at the top of this page.

How long does Rosh Hashanah last?

Two days, in Israel and in the Diaspora alike. It is the one festival kept for two days even in Israel: when the new month was fixed by witnesses, there was no way to know in advance which of the two days would be declared the 1st of Tishrei, and that day is itself the new moon. Jewish law treats the pair as a single long day.

When does Rosh Hashanah end?

At nightfall on the second day of the festival (28-29/9/30), thirty to forty minutes after sunset.

What happens when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat?

The shofar is not sounded that day. It happens often: this year 1 Tishrei falls on Saturday. When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, all hundred blasts are then heard on the second day only, and Tashlich is likewise moved to the second day.

How is Rosh Hashanah different from the civil new year?

Rosh Hashanah opens the Hebrew year, on 1 Tishrei. The civil new year is 1 January, the start of the Gregorian year. The two calendars run alongside each other, which is why every Hebrew date lands on a different civil date each year.