Rosh Hashanah: Should We Be Afraid of ‘Judgment Day’?

Rosh Hashanah – it’s Yom Hadin, the Day of Judgment, right? God is going to judge the whole world and decide its fate for the coming year. And our job is to search our hearts, confront our misdeeds from the past, and do teshuvah, repentance. Sounds like a big responsibility! But as it turns out, the Torah itself doesn’t say anything about Rosh Hashanah’s being Judgment Day. So how does the Torah explain what Rosh Hashanah is about, if it’s not about judgment? And what did the Sages see in the Torah’s take on Rosh Hashanah that led to the idea of Yom Hadin?

Listen in as Imu and Rabbi Fohrman explore the question of what Rosh Hashanah really is primarily about. We’ll get some clues from the prayers that we say on this day, and we’ll see how we might be able to stand before God and ourselves, truly celebrating and even looking forward to this holiday.

Here’s the course Beth recommended on relating to God through the Rosh Hashanah prayers: How Do I Get Closer to God?

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