Rosh

Quick. Tell me all the Hebrew words you know. I bet you know over a hundred. Today, I'll show you that each word you know is actually the root of many many words. Ancient Hebrew from Torah days is used in modern Hebrew, in exciting ways. Since we're at the beginning of the Torah this Shabbat, let's start with the word ROSH. Of course you know that word. "Rosh" means "head", Rosh Hashana is the head or beginning of the year, and the very first word of the whole Torah is B'reishit, "In the beginning". See the word "reish" in there? That's from the same root. Hmmm. Head first. In the beginning, the thought, the idea. Then action. A good suggestion for us - first, use our head. Then our hands and feet. In fact on ROSH Hashana, we say a blessing over the head of a fish, May we enter this year as a head, and not a tail: thinking, planning, intentional, and not just flapping along with everybody else. That makes for problems here in Israel. Do you know how many political parties there are? Neither do I. Ten Jews, Eleven Opinions, they say. Nobody just agrees here. "Rosh" is also in "Rishon", which means first. Sunday is called "Yom Rishon", the first day, so everybody here remembers every Yom Rishon that it is the first day of creation. There are religious people here, and there are many many nonreligious people too, who consider Israel a Jewish homeland, and care about their Jewish identity, but have no interest in religious observance. But everybody calls Yom Rishon Yom Rishon. So: Rosh, B'Reishit, Rishon, and the picture here is of Rosh HaNikra in the north of Israel, right on the border with Lebanon (everything in Israel is pretty close to the border with somebody, or to the sea. It's a narrow country). Rosh - head, Rishon-first, Yom Rishon-Sunday, B'reishit-In the beginning, Rosh Hanikra-an exciting spot where the sea swooshes into white stone caves.