Today is a holiday for Jews everywhere - Today we celebrate Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, and welcome in 5779. Jewish tradition says Jews should both look forward to the new year and also reflecting on the past year, specifically on the ways we could have been better but were not.
To that end, there is a tradition called tashlich, which literally means 'cast off', that Jews do on Rosh Hashana. Jews go to a natural source of water, each with a bit of bread in their hands. They then throw the bread into the water. The bread symbolizes the things they wish to cast off from last year. Sins but also errors, unintended consequences, emotional loss of control, sadness, unnecessary arguments with friends, petty squabbles, really anything at all you don't want next year. It's sort of like a New Year's resolution, but with the explicit acknowledgment of "I used to do it poorly."
Whenever I run Rosh Hashana services for teenagers, I use a specific example from Lord of the Rings to show what it is like for someone to acknowledge the bad within them and to attempt to cast it off.
I encourage the teens to think of something specific they did that they do not want to do again. Then, bread in hand, face the water and scream "Leave now and never come back!" and then throw their bread into the water as hard as they can. It gives the ceremony a visceral feel to it, and of course shouting is a perfect intersection of "things teens sometimes want to do" and "things you usually cannot do during religious services," so it's inherently interesting.
Happy new year to all!
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