Episode Details

A couple of years ago, I was out shopping in the days before Rosh Hashana when I noticed two yeshiva boys in their suits and white
shirts with their mom. The mother pulled a set of small bowls off a shelf into her wagon and one boy asked why they would need such small bowls. The mother responded that they would be good for the simanim - the special foods we serve on the night of Rosh Hashana.  

  The other boy laughed and asked, 'Ma, what do you think? That this is Pesach? Ma, it’s not the Seder! Why such a big deal over some foods that we don't want to eat anyway? Do you really think it matters?'    

 I couldn't mind my own business. The mother was a bit aggravated. She went one way and the boys went the other way.
So I went over to speak with them.  

The truth is that their question is very valid. Just imagine for a second getting a speeding ticket in some small town in upstate New York or New Jersey. You arrive at this small town court.
The cop who wrote you the ticket is there and the judge asks you how you plead. You try some guilty with explanation excuse and then the judge cuts you short, asks the cop a few questions and tells you if you're done he will decide the verdict. 

 Try telling it to the Judge   

 You tell him to wait one more minute. You pull out from your bag a jar of honey and some sliced apple and as you dip the apple into the honey you state aloud, may it be the will of your honor the judge to sweeten my verdict just like this honey sweetens the apple and you eat the apple, relishing each bite in front of the court. Odds are that the judge will either throw you into a cell for a few hours charging you with contempt or ask that you be taken to the local hospital for observation.  

 Rosh Hashana is supposed to be the day of judgment. And as we learned in school as children, G-d takes out the scale. On one side go our sins and on the other go our merits. If we are worthy, we are judged positively and if not then we're in for some trouble.  

 How can eating a pomegranate or some blacked eyed peas increase our merits? How can eating a gourd or some dates
help destroy our enemies? How can an apple in honey sweeten out judgments? How is it possible through these foods to change sins into merits? What's going on here?  

 Is There Such a Thing as a Good Omen? 

 Is there such a thing as a good omen? And on Rosh Hashana is it the food or the prayer? And if it's the prayer then why do we need the food? The Talmud tells us about omens. If someone wants to know if they will be judged for life then on the days between
Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur he should light a candle in a draft free room. If the candles burns then fine, if the candle goes out, he better get some more life insurance quickly.  

 If he wants to know if he will merit a good parnasa or livelihood, he should take a chicken. He should feed it an