Tashlich

The theme of water that appears in the Bible readings for the first morning of Rosh Hashanah is strengthened through action later in the day. For centuries, traditional Jews have gone that afternoon to the nearest body of free-flowing water—a river, lake, or ocean. (If the first day of Rosh Hashanah is a Shabbat, the ceremony is postponed till the next day.) There they have recited several Psalms and a line from the prophet Micah: "And You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." And they have shaken out their pockets of lint and bread crumbs, symbolically shaking loose their sins of the past year so that they could be swept downstream—"into the depths of the sea." Since the word for "You will cast" in Hebrew is tashlich, the ceremony has become know as Tashlich.

Among some Jewish communities, there have been special versions of Tashlich. Kurdish Jews actually leaped into the water and swam like fish to cleanse themselves of sin. Chassidim in Galicia sent little floats of straw out upon the water, set them afire with candles, and rejoiced that their sins were either burned up or washed away. In Jerusalem, where even brooks are hard to find, Tashlich is done at a well.

Tashlich began after the Talmudic period. Indeed, no direct mention of it has been found in any manuscript until a thousand years later. Scholars think it took root first among the Jews of Europe in about the thirteenth century, and spread among Sephardic and Oriental Jews in the sixteenth century through the influence of the Kabbalists who lived in the mystical town of Safed in Northern Palestine.

It spread despite the opposition of the rabbis. They feared that Jews who took part would rely on the magical powers of emptying their pockets to achieve the clearing of their sins—instead of changing their conduct, turning their lives around, and returning to God's path. But the amcha, the ordinary people of the Jewish community, insisted on continuing.

The rabbis tried to instill ethical content in the ceremony. One of them connected it with the story of the Binding of Isaac through a legend that Satan tried to deter Abraham by appearing as a rushing river in his path—and so we celebrate Abraham's determination by seeking out the river. Others suggested that the ceremony used water so that fish could be its witnesses—since the eyes of fish never close, symbolizing the unblinking eye of God reviewing our behavior. But despite these explanations, the rabbis preserved their distaste—so much so that many editions of the Machzor do not include a Tashlich service.

Why have the people insisted on preserving Tashlich despite rabbinical disapproval? It may be simply that it felt like a pleasant outdoor break from the solemnity of Rosh Hashanah—especially on the afternoon of the first day, moving toward a second full day of prayer and penitence, inside the synagogue. Children find Tashlich especially delightful, and parents may be relieved to offer them a refreshing respite to run and jump in the open air, to clamber on the rocks along a river, to empty out their pockets above the rushing stream.

Or there may also be a reason that, despite the rabbis, is rooted in the most profound meanings of Rosh Hashanah. In the passage about Ishmael that we read on the morning of the first day, we see that Hagar, in thirst and despair, having used up the bottle of water that Abraham gave her, casts her son Ishmael beneath a bush so that she will not have to see him die: "Vatashlaych et-hayeled." It is her act of tashlich that brings God to show her a well of water.

Yet surely Hagar does not want to get rid of Ishmael. She wants him to live. It is her casting him that brings them both to the life-giving water, that transform him from dying to living, transforms him from her burden to her fruitful offspring. Perhaps the passage is telling us that when we do Tashlich at the water's edge we are not trying to get rid of our misdeeds but to transform them. We are trying to seek out and renew the life-giving energy that is concealed within a sin, and turn it into an energy for good. We are trying to give that energy new life, so that it can give new life to us.

Such a view of Tashlich is borne out by the fact that on the culminating day of the Ten Days of Turning—on Yom Kippur—we read both the passage of Tashlich from the prophet Micah—"You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea"—and from the Book of Jonah, where this line appears as Jonah cries out to God from the belly of the great fish: "You cast me (vatashlichayni) into the depths, into the heart of the sea." Here again God did not intend to get rid of Jonah, but to transform him. Here again the water gives life—transforms and renews.

That the Ten Days are bracketed by these versions of Tashlich—in word and ceremony—may provide us with an approach to the refreshing well of water that Hagar and Abraham experienced. After the dry and thirsty summer, after the spiritual thirst of remembering on Tisha B'Av the destruction of the Temple and brokenness of the world, we drink on Rosh Hashanah from the Well of our salvation—and we renew ourselves, turning even the death-energy of our sins toward life.

Copyright © 1981 by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, from his book Seasons of Our Joy (Beacon Press). Reprinted with the author's permission. See also the book by Rabbi Waskow and Rabbi Phyllis Berman, A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven, and the "Celebrations” section of The Shalom Center's website www.shalomctr.org for interpretation of other aspects of Jewish festivals and life-cycle celebrations.