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IPhone Apps for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year

IPhone Apps for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, kicks off tonight. Along with helpings of honey cake and introspection, here are some iPhone apps to help you get ready to ring in the year 5771:

1. IShofar: The blowing of the shofar, an instrument usually made from a ram’s horn, is one of the most recognizable rituals of the Rosh Hashanah services, meant to inspire repentance and awe during the High Holidays.

For 99 cents, you can blast the shofar right from your iPhone using the “iShofar” app. App creator Adam Levy used his own shofar, a Chanukah gift from his parents when he was in high school, to record the sounds. You tap the image of the ram’s horn on the screen or blow into the microphone while tilting the iPhone up and down to produce the three distinct traditional shofar calls.

2. ITashlich: The Tashlich ceremony is usually performed on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. It involves reciting penitential prayers next to a body of water — and sometimes tossing bits of bread to symbolize “casting off” the previous year’s sins.

The “iTashlich” app (99 cents) focuses on the sin part. Against a serene lakefront backdrop, the app runs through an onscreen sin questionnaire, including trangressions like “Have you smoked?” and “Have you used other people’s unsecured wireless internet?” After the self-scrutiny, you move onto a short prayer and the “iTashlich experience”: an animation showing fish gobbling pieces of bread, hamburgers, and pizza.

3. ICharity: Giving tzedakah, charity, is especially emphasized on Rosh Hashanah. The “iCharity” app aims to keep the tradition of frequently giving tzedakah in people’s minds even when they aren’t near a charity box.

For 99 cents, the app can help you keep track of your giving intentions for the holidays and year round. You drop virtual coins into an onscreen pushke, or charity box; you can also schedule the app to make regular deposits. The app is just a tally of promised giving, and doesn’t deduct funds from a credit card or checking account. Rabbi Zalman Goldstein, founder of JewishLearningGroup.com, the company that created the app, says “iCharity” is a “tzedakah enabler” that helps people learn about the mitzvah of giving to the poor without making them leery about giving out banking information online. A good addition might be a reminder system to alert givers when it’s time to make good on their pledges.

4. Send a Prayer: It’s a tradition to slip written prayers into the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. With the 99-cent “Send a Prayer” app, made by Munera LLC in collaboration with Chabad.org, you can beam a prayer to the wall right from your iPhone. The app lets you type out a petition onscreen, and after you click “Send,” the app creators promise that your prayer will be printed and placed in the Western Wall within 24 hours. The app also lets you see a log of your past supplications on your own personal “Prayer Wall.”

[Thanks: http://blogs.wsj.com]

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