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The High Holidays
As the major Jewish holidays are approaching, many will be interested to either learn the holiday vocabulary or to have the explanations handy to teach kids etc.

In this article we start to explain some Hebrew words and names used relevant to the High Holidays period: from Rosh ha-Shana to Yom Kippur.



Rosh ha-Shana
That's Jewish New Year, and the name literally means the Year's Head.

רֹאשׁ - [ rosh ] - head, pl: רָאשִׁים - [ rashim] - heads

שָׁנָה - [ shana ] - year, pl: שָׁנִים - [ shanim ] - years

(The word שנים is remarkable because it's irregular: you would typically expect the -ot ending in a word of female gender with -a ending.)

The very construct [ rosh ha-shana ] is a compound form, or smikhut: it's quite equivalent to possessive case in English. The order of the words is the opposite, however, with respect to English one; it's more reminding of a "something of something" order: (the) Head (of) the Year. In compound words, the article [ ha- ] is being added to the second word only: רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה

In synagogues we blow in שׁוֹפָר [ Shofar ] - a horn, which is actually made of a real ram's horn.

The etymology of this word is not that obvious. It has probably more in common with the word צַפְרִיר (morning wind) or צְפִירָה (alarm, siren), rather than with לְשַׁפֵּר (to improve), which is a word of Aramaic origin. Thus, Shofar existed in Hebrew at least since the Torah has been written, which is much earlier than all the other words with the root [sh-f-r] entered the language.