Q:
When we eat the simanim, the special foods, on Rosh Hashanah, you said that they aren’t actually causing us to have a good year. So what purpose do they really play then?
A:
Let’s say on Rosh Hashanah night you eat a certain vegetable that the word in the vegetable seems a siman for a good thing. So what is it? What’s the purpose?
And the answer is like this. The foods you eat for simanim are tefillos. You’re doing a maaseh of tefillah, an action of davening.
I’ll explain that. Because there’s a big question. Why do you need to daven with words? Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows your thoughts anyhow. Why should you speak it at all? That’s the kashya.
The answer is when you speak the tefillah it’s more powerful of an expression than when you just think it alone. Speech is stronger than thought. It has a bigger effect on you. And if you do a ma’aseh tefillah, it’s even more powerful. It has an even bigger effect on your mind.
So when you’re eating that thing you’re not only thinking it should be this year a shanah tovah umesukah but you say it too; you say that you want Hakadosh Baruch Hu to give you a shanah tovah umesukah. But not only you say the tefillah, but you do it. When you dip your challah in honey you’re thinking, “I’m doing the tefillah, Ribono Shel Olam. I want a year that’s as sweet as honey. Please Ribono Shel Olam, give it to me.”
Think those words. It’s a very important part of tefillah. Don’t just say it should be a shanah tovah umesukah like a segulah.
And therefore when you eat something, let’s say a rosh, the head of a fish, you’re praying to Hashem with your thoughts and your speech and your action that the Jewish people should be the rosh, the leaders, the most important. It’s a tefillah with an act.
TAPE #E-247 (September 2000)
