At Rosh Hashanah tables around the world, Jews will perform a familiar ritual. We will dip an apple into honey and ask G-d to grant us a good and sweet year.

The meaning seems obvious. The apple is sweet. The honey is sweeter. Together, they express our hope for a year filled with happiness, health, and blessing.

But perhaps the ritual contains a more complicated message.

In a 2021 Rosh Hashanah sermon, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue noted that the apples available in earlier times were not necessarily the sweet domesticated varieties we enjoy today. Some were decidedly sour. He therefore raised an intriguing possibility: perhaps, in the custom’s early development, the honey was intended to counteract the sharp taste of the apple.

Rabbi Cosgrove presented this as an interpretation, not a proven historical explanation. Yet the image is compelling. Perhaps the ritual was never meant to offer sweetness alone. Perhaps it brings sour and sweet to the table together.

That possibility changes the meaning of the moment.

We are not pretending that the coming year will contain nothing difficult. We are not asking G-d to remove every disappointment, loss, limitation, or unwelcome surprise. Instead, we take what is sour, dip it into sweetness, and consume them together.

Jewish tradition repeatedly returns to this idea.

Why do we wish one another a shanah tovah u’metukah, a good........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)