YUH GM

When you want to acknowledge someone observing Rosh Hashanah, "l'shanah tovah" ("for a good year") is the greeting you'll hear most often. However, there's another one that can be uttered in its place: "Ketiva v'chatima tova," which translates to "good writing and sealing."

The Yiddish word for carrot—mehren—also sounds like the Yiddish for more—mer—so those who eat carrots are thus expressing "the hope that we see an abundance of success [in the] upcoming year," says Hess.

If you've ever wondered what carrots have to do with Rosh Hashanah, it's all because of a little word play. As Hess explains, the Hebrew words for "carrots" (g'zarim) and "decree" (gezerah) are homonyms, and so those consuming the orange veggie are asking for any evil decrees to be cast aside in the new year. That's why carrots end up in your tzimmes, a traditional Rosh Hashanah dish that also frequently contains sweet potatoes, prunes, and apples

Similarly, those pomegranates on the seder table aren't just there to give the meal some color. Hess notes that they've become an integral part of the Rosh Hashanah celebration "in the hope that we will perform as many good deeds as the seeds in the pomegranate" during the new year.

Eating apples dipped in honey on Rosh Hashanah has more meaning behind it than your average dessert. It's part of Simanim, the Jewish tradition of eating foods with specific symbolic meanings, according to Hess. He explains that the apples and honey represent the sweetness that those celebrating the holiday hope the new year brings them.

Since Rosh Hashanah doesn't occur on the same date each year on the Gregorian calendar, the holiday coincides with Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, every few years. According to Chabad.org, when that happens, the shofar isn't sounded

While the shofar—a hollowed-out horn of a kosher animal (typically a sheep or goat)—is blown during services on both days of Rosh Hashanah, that's not specifically written in the Torah

It would be fair to assume that, as one of Judaism's highest holidays, Rosh Hashanah would be prominently featured in Jewish holy text, the Torah. But Rabbi Joshua Hess of Congregation Anshe Chesed in Linden, New Jersey, says that's not the case. "The name for the holiday, Rosh Hashanah, does not even appear in the Bible," he explains.

Unlike many major holidays in other religions, Rosh Hashanah doesn't have a fixed place on the Gregorian calendar. The holiday is celebrated on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year. It typically falls sometime between September 5th and October 6th.