No pickles on Rosh hashana
No pickles. No sour, half sour or dill, spicy garlic, polish, kosher, gherkins. No pickles.
You see, there's are lots of symbolic customs surrounding what we eat on Rosh Hashana. Apples and honey is well know as an omen for a sweet year. There are also don'ts when it comes to Rosh Hashana food. We don't eat nuts, because of a numerological anomaly equating the Hebrew word for nut with 'sin'.
Foods containing vinegar, like pickles are also avoided on Rosh Hashana due to the symbolism of its bitterness.
How to cope?
Those who know me know that my appreciation of the pickle (and its juice) borders on an obsession. Does it bother me that on a holiday when we eat delicious food, I must avoid one of my favorites?
Not really.
Let's backtrack a bit. You may ask, "If it's good to have apple and honey to symbolize a sweet year, why not EVERY DAY? Why limit the goodness to one or two specific meals?
A special food, incident or event is made more significant in its rarity. It's only because we DONT have honey daily that it means something on Rosh Hashana. While true that honey is sweet, there's a time and a place for everything. It's OK to have good things in our life without adopting them in permanence.
So it's ok to avoid pickles for a couple of days. I'll have 352 days of pickley bliss until the next Jewish new year.
