Rosh Hashanah L'Ma'sar Behemah (Hebrew: ראש השנה למעשר בהמה "New Year for Tithing Animals") or Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah (Hebrew: ראש השנה לבהמה "New Year for (Domesticated) Animals") is one of the four New Year's day festivals (Rashei Hashanah) in the Jewish calendar as indicated in the Mishnah. During the time of the Temple, this was a day on which shepherds determined which of their mature animals were to be tithed. According to the first opinion, the day coincides with Rosh ChodeshElul, the New Moon for the month of Elul, exactly one month before Rosh Hashanah. However, the halacha follows the second opinion that the day coincides with Rosh Hashanah itself.[1]
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Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah
Official name
Hebrew: ראש השנה לבהמה English: New Year for (Domesticated) Animals
Beginning in 2009, the festival began to be revived by religious Jewish animal protection advocates and environmental educators to raise awareness of the mitzvah of tza'ar ba'alei chayim, the source texts informing Jewish ethical relationships with domesticated animals, and the lived experience of animals impacted by human needs, especially in the industrial meat industry.[2][3][4]
The Mishnah in Seder Moed Rosh Hashanah 1:1 indicates there are four New Year's Day festivals (Rosh Hashanot) that take place over the course of the year. According to the first opinion, "The first of Elul is the Rosh HaShanah for tithing behemah (domesticated animals)."[5] The second opinion there holds that the festival occurs on the first of the month of Tishrei,[5] and the halacha follows this opinion.[1] This disagreement is explained in the Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 8a as a difference of opinion between Rabbi Meir, who holds that the animals conceive in the month of Adar, and Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Shimon, who hold that the animals conceive in the month of Nissan and give birth in Elul.[6]
In the Temple era, the tithing of the animals on Rosh Hashanah L'Ma'sar Behemah occurred by means of passing animals through a narrow opening in a pen where every tenth animal was marked with red paint.[7]
A poster advertising a communal seder for Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah in Jerusalem at Ginger House in 2012.
Informal celebrations of Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah[8][9] began in 2009 at the goat barn of Adamah Farm on the campus of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, including a blessing of assembled farm and pet animals, and a meditation on beginning the period of cheshbon hanefesh with a personal accounting of all the domesticated animals relied upon, followed by the shofar blast for Rosh Chodesh Elul.[10] Activists have reached out to synagogues and Jewish food, environment, and animal protection organizations, in order to raise the profile of the festival and raise awareness for the conditions of domesticated animals in contemporary society in Jewish communities.[11] In 2012, the first guided ritual communal meals for Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah were held at the Ginger House in Jerusalem, and in major cities across the United States.[4][12] Several prominent Masorti and Open Orthodox rabbis have since lent their support for reviving the festival, including Adam Frank,[13]Yitz Greenberg,[14]Jonathan Wittenberg,[15]David Wolpe,[16] and Shmuly Yanklowitz.[4][17]
According to the first opinion in the Mishnah, Rosh Hashanah L'Ma'sar Behemah coincides with Rosh Ḥodesh Elul.[5]
Commencing the first of Elul (and continuing throughout the month), in the Ashkenazic tradition, the shofar is blown at the end of the shacharit morning service (and in some communities, at Mincha as will) in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah.[18]
The period of cheshbon hanefesh (the traditional accounting for one's relationships during the month of Elul) begins on this day. (This period of self-reflection and relationship repair is also commonly referred to as Elul Zman, the Elul season.)[citation needed]
Schwartz, Richard (1 August 2012). "Animal Rights and Jewish Law: Restoring and Transforming an Ancient Holiday". Haaretz. Retrieved 20 July 2017. Rosh Hashanah Le'ilanot (New Year's Day for the trees), a day initially intended for tithing fruit trees for Temple offerings, was reclaimed in the 17th century by mystics as a day for healing the natural world (Tu Bishvat). It is important that Rosh Hashanah Labehemah (New Year's Day for animals) becomes a day devoted to increasing awareness of Judaism's powerful teachings on the proper treatment of animals and to a tikkun, a healing, for the horrible ways that animals are treated today on factory farms and in other settings.
Cohan, Jeffrey (15 August 2012). "New Year for Animals: The Time Has Come". The Jewish Daily Forward. The Forward. Retrieved 23 July 2017. It is therefore, in the spirit of our Prophetic tradition, that a creative effort has arisen to rouse us from our chilling complacency and to focus attention on Judaism's teachings about animals: Concerned Jews in Israel and the United States are trying to resurrect and reframe the ancient but long-forgotten holiday of Rosh Hashanah La B'Heimot, or New Year for Animals.
Schwartz, Richard (19 August 2012). "An Overlooked Mitzva: 'Tsa'ar Ba'alei Chaim'". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 20 July 2017. Jewish Vegetarians of North America, of which I am president, is spearheading a coalition of groups that is making an audacious proposal: that the ancient Jewish New Year for animals, a day originally involved with the tithing of animals for sacrifices, be restored and transformed.
Schwartz, Richard H. (8 August 2012). "New Year for Animals: The Time Has Come". Tikkun. Retrieved 20 July 2017. In addition a number of rabbis have endorsed the initiative, including Orthodox Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg who has written a comprehensive book on the Jewish festivals, Rabbi David Wolpe, a leading U.S. Conservative rabbi, and Rabbi Adam Frank, rabbi of the largest Conservative (Masorti) synagogue in Israel.
Dubkin Yearwood, Pauline (14 August 2012). "Op-Ed: At the New Year, let's give animals a new Jewish chance". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. it is a beautiful idea to renew/revive a classic day, [Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah] … Your contemporary application … in the form of addressing humanity's relationship to animal life and the widespread mistreatment of food animals and environmental abuse in today's economy, marked by industrial farming and animal husbandry, is inspired.
Wittenberg, Jonathan (12 August 2015). "Why Animals Need Their Own New Year". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 20 July 2017. "What might a New Year for Animals look like? Alef Elul is when we first blow the shofar, whose raw call awakens an awareness of a world deeper and more extensive than human society alone. This cry should be accompanied by two modes of liturgy: penitence, "For the sins we've committed in cruelty to lives with no political voice or economic power"; and praise, "Praise God, wild and domestic animals, creeping creatures and birds on the wing" (Psalm 148). If I was brave, I would add a Council of All Being, … to help us recognise, not just intellectually but experientially, our bond with nature. Participants choose an animal, and through quiet reflection, try to imagine how life feels from inside its skin.
Dubkin Yearwood, Pauline (14 August 2012). "Op-Ed: At the New Year, let's give animals a new Jewish chance". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Jewish tradition mandates that we are stewards of all God's creation. In our day, we are increasingly sensitized to suffering of those living creatures in our care. This initiative [Rosh Hashanah LaBehemah] helps us to recognize our obligation to animals and so helps us be more fully human.
Yanklowitz, Shmuly (7 Aug 2017). "The Lost New Year: Celebrating the Animals". Times of Israel. Retrieved 8 August 2017. Rosh Hashanah La'Behemot is thus a day to reflect upon (and begin to correct) how our choices impact all the holy creatures we share the planet with; to take responsibility for the creatures we rely upon, and who depend entirely on our choices for their livelihood, freedom, and quality of life.
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