If you’re building a Jewish life at home, Rosh Chodesh may become one of your favorite observances.
Known as the beginning of the new Jewish month, Rosh Chodesh is a small but meaningful celebration that helps you experience the rhythm of the Jewish calendar. You don’t need to host a big meal or know dozens of prayers to mark the day. In fact, some of the most meaningful Rosh Chodesh traditions are simple enough to do on your own.
In this guide (and the accompanying video), I’ll explain what Rosh Chodesh is, why it matters, and share several easy rituals you can begin incorporating into your own Jewish life – whether you’re converting to Judaism, returning to Jewish practice, or simply looking for meaningful ways to connect with the Jewish calendar.
Want help building a Jewish life one step at a time? If you’re trying to build Jewish habits without feeling overwhelmed, I’d love to help. Join my mailing list to get the free Jewish Experience Tracker to keep track of the Jewish holidays, rituals, classes, books, and experiences that are shaping your journey. It’s a simple way to see your progress over time – and it’s also a wonderful tracker you can use to share with your rabbi what you’re doing and learning. Way better than a plain old booklist!
Transcript below.
Transcript:
 If you’re building Jewish life mostly at home, Rosh Chodesh might become one of your favorite rituals. It’s one of the easiest ways to start living Jewish time instead of just learning about Judaism. Jewish life is built season by season, and Rosh Chodesh is one of the gentlest, easiest ways to start.
So let’s talk about some simple rituals you can do at home, even if you’re the only Jewish person in the room.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, BuildingaJewishLife.com.
And if you want help actually noticing this Jewish life you’re building, instead of feeling like everything just disappears into a blur, I made the free Jewish Experience Tracker. It can help you or your rabbi see your progress over time much better than a book list would.
So what is Rosh Chodesh? Let’s actually start with how to pronounce it, because as I’m sure you figured out, it’s got that Ch, Chodesh. And not everyone can pronounce that yet, so my best tip for you is just imagine that it’s an H, Rosh Hodesh. That’ll be just fine.
So Rosh Chodesh is the beginning of the new Jewish month. The Jewish calendar is a lunar/solar calendar. It is primarily a lunar calendar, following the cycles of the moon from new moon to new moon, but we adjust it so that it always stays within the correct season. If you stayed with a purely lunar calendar, eventually the holidays will move into a different season, which we see happening on the Islamic calendar, for example.
Rosh Chodesh is the time when we mark the new moon appearing in the sky. That is the beginning of a new Jewish month, and it’s sort of a mini holiday. Honestly, it’s really underutilized. It’s a great experience to tap into, and even the most orthodox often aren’t doing very much for it.
Rosh Chodesh is traditionally either one or two days, and it changes, so you’ll always wanna be sure that you have a good Jewish calendar. I’ll link up here and down below to my video about Jewish yearly planning. It goes through how you can get a free calendar that you can sync to your own online calendar called HebCal, H-E-B-C-A-L.
If you’re doing all this without access to a Jewish community, you might feel silly or awkward, like you’re pretending. But most of these rituals do originate in the home.
Judaism has always been a very home-centered religion. And I want you to remember, small acts matter. Imperfect actions matter. You’re not gonna do everything perfectly the first time around.
Do the best you can with the resources you’ve got. How you practice today is not how you’ll practice next month or a year from now, so it’s okay to be imperfect.
You don’t need to earn the right to begin living Jewish time.
So the first set of rituals for Rosh Chodesh are special prayers for the holiday.
So traditionally, we recite Hallel in synagogue. You can also read and pray these at home. Hallel is a collection of psalms, also called Tehillim in Hebrew, that are traditionally recited on joyful Jewish occasions. They’re all about praise and gratitude to G-d, Hashem.
And other prayers, a section called Yaaleh V’Yavo. But if you’re here watching this video, you’re probably not saying the prayers that it’s added to, but if you wanna learn more about it, I would Google it.
Two, Rosh Chodesh is traditionally seen as a women’s holiday.
There is a custom that women will refrain from certain types of work on Rosh Chodesh. The usual explanation comes from the women refusing to give their golden jewelry to help build the Golden Calf in the Torah, the Bible.
So some of the things they might not do? Laundry or sewing, heavy housework. Basically, just give yourself a little extra rest time and treat it a little more festively.
If you do have access to a Jewish community, you might find women holding Rosh Chodesh groups.
Three, you can mark the day physically somehow.
Make it a nicer, more festive day. You could dress a little nicer. You could wear something meaningful to you.
Maybe cook something special or have dessert. If you like flowers, you could get a bouquet of flowers. You could also give to charity, Tzedakah.
Four, learn something Jewish. You could watch a short class, maybe even here on YouTube. You could read a Jewish article or a few pages from a Jewish book.
You could use this time to prepare for any upcoming holidays in the coming month.
You could also study texts, like the Torah or Tehillim, Psalms. You don’t need to become a Torah scholar overnight. Each building block of knowledge gets you where you’re going.
Five, reflect and set intentions for the new month.
This is a good time to review last month What went well? What went poorly? Where do you need more support? Where can you get rid of friction that’s causing things to be harder than they need to be? You could even journal about it.
Then you could set some Jewish intentions for the coming month.
Maybe you wanna try out a new recipe from a Jewish cookbook or learn a new prayer. Maybe you finally got your courage up to finally go visit that synagogue. This is a great time to set those intentions.
Six, connect with other Jews.
Isolation is one of the hardest parts of building a Jewish life. Most people start without a Jewish community. If that’s you, I’ll link above and down below to my video about what you can do when you don’t have community around you.
But there are lots of ways you can connect with other Jews or anyone who might be interested in what you’re learning and doing. You could find an online learning program to attend this month, whether or not it’s related to Rosh Chodesh.
You could look up the event calendar for your closest Jewish community. A lot of people take the time to drive an hour or two to a Jewish community a couple times a year so that they can feel connected.
If you aren’t already going to synagogue and you have access to one, definitely go. It’s one of the things that people most put off for way longer than they should. They won’t bite, and a lot of people in the room once stood where you were, new person in the room, no idea what’s going on.
It happens pretty regularly, so you’re not weird. Most people will be really nice and helpful, especially if you get up the bravery to ask for help. The people who act like jerks are just jerks.
If you have any local Jewish friends, it’d be great to have them over for coffee for Rosh Chodesh or something like that.
But if you don’t have someone nearby, maybe you have a Jewish friend who lives elsewhere, and you could text them, send them a funny cartoon, or just something to connect with each other.
And yes, your online communities count, too. I have my membership, Bayit Builders, but there’s also groups on Reddit and Facebook.
People poo-poo over online connections, but I wouldn’t be here without the Jews who helped me online when I had a ton of questions and no one to ask. Those connections do count, and they do matter.
And if you’re figuring out what else you can do without a Jewish community around you, watch this video next.
