Hersh Goldman

The first day of Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year, (“day of blowing the horn” in the Bible) begins the night of October 2nd . The popular Jewish custom of “Tashlich” is done the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Tashlich is the symbolic casting away of the sins of the previous year while praying for a clean slate for the New Year. Jews go to a body of water and act-out throwing away their sins by emptying their pockets and tossing bread crumbs into the water. They toss things in the water during the Tashlich-prayer when they reach and utter the word “v’tashlich”, which translates into English from the biblical Hebrew “and cast forth”:

Once again show mercy, subdue our iniquity and cast forth all the sins into the depth of the sea (Micah 7:19 – recited during the Tashlich-prayer)

Customarily, Tashlich may be recited privately or with a group or with a whole congregation at a scheduled hour and location. Traditionally, the body of water for the tashlich-site may vary. Depending on the situation, it may be a river, lake, stream, brook, pond and even (would you believe) a well. Still, it seems to me, judging from the text of the Tashlich liturgy, that the ideal location for Tashlich is at the “sea”. According to my personal sentiments, Swampscott’s King’s Beach is more ideally suitable for Tashlich than anywhere in the Holyland’s Holy City of Jerusalem.

Here, in the North Shore, we have beaches to the Atlantic Ocean. The Swampscott synagogue on Atlantic Avenue, “Shirat Hayam” (Song of the Sea), didn’t proudly adopt the name to advertise proximity to a pond or lake but because of closeness to the sea.

King’s Beach is a 15 minute walk from my house. On my way to tashlich I will walk down Burrill Street to Monument Avenue and then cross Humphrey Street to King’s Beach . When I approach the concrete seawall’s stairway to the Beach, I feel like I am stepping from the artificial domain of man onto the stairway to G-d’s world. When I descend onto the beach sand and look to the ocean I see sky, water and Egg Rock and think , “this is a portion of the world that is the same as it was when made and presented at the time of Creation.” I then think of the liturgical phrase in the Rosh Hashannah prayer book that the congregants recite at the sounding of the shofar (ram’s horn):

“This day is the birthday of the world; this day stands in judgment all creation”

When I shift my gaze from the horizon and Egg Rock Island to the long encircling stretch of massive concrete seawall with its broad protruding stairways, I envision the sand-color walls and gateways surrounding the holy city of Jerusalem.

There’s no place like Swampscott for Rosh Hashannah Tashlich..