Why Honey?

Every festival has its food. On Chanukah we eat doughnuts, cheesecake on Shavuot and Matzah on Pesach. Rosh Hashanah is associated with honey - apple dipped in honey on the first night and Challah with honey throughout the festival. Honey is sweet, emphasizing our hopes for a good and sweet year. But why specifically honey - why not sugar or some other sweet food?

Honey is unique because of where it comes from. It is the only food taken from a non-kosher animal that we are permitted to eat. Furthermore the bee is an insect that stings and causes pain and bodily damage. Yet at the same time it is able to produce a sweet food that can add a delicious flavor to other things.

This is specifically why we use honey - because it represents the power of Rosh Hashanah. When we begin a fresh new year, the past is not always so sweet. Not everything in the last year might have been completely "Kosher". Sometimes we may have stung and hurt those close to us. But on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we can turn it all around. We can learn from last year's experiences and make the future more positive and filled with blessing. Like the bee, we can produce sweet honey.

When we eat the honey on Rosh Hashanah we are making a statement: We are not perfect, but with a little effort we can achieve sweetness. G-d accepts our commitment, and blesses us all with a happy, healthy, prosperous and sweet new year.