🍎 Shana Tova 🍯 Happy new year from Avi!
- avi1972
- Sep 26, 2025
- 2 min read
I usually associate the High Holidays with heat. Sticky pomegranates, slow walks to shul, the feeling of cotton shirts clinging to your back. But this year, I spent the chaggim in Germany. So it was cold. The first real chill I’ve felt in a while. Still, the painting I made — and everything it holds — came out of the heat of Tel Aviv.
Round Challah Loafs with Honey Dipper (Rosh Hashana 2025)
Watch the video on instagram 🍎🍯
I made a little painting for this years Rosh Hashanah. It’s small, quiet, and simple. And as I often do these days, i've made a little video sharing some of the thoughts about what it means to return to the same table each year, looking for something new.
(Feel free to like, save, or share — it helps more people find my work.)
The Painting
I’d been wanting to paint from life for a while. Something about the challenge of it felt honest. No camera filters, no post-processing, just the object, the light, and me.
So I asked my girlfriend if she’d bake the challah early this week. The bakeries weren’t doing the round ones yet, and hers are always better anyway. Watching her work is still a kind of magic to me. She doesn’t use a recipe anymore — just her hands and memory, some flour, water, oil. Somehow, by the time it rises, it’s transformed. Making something out of nothing. It reminds me of painting.
Why I Painted It
Two round challot, a honey dipper, and four pomegranate seeds. That was the still life. But it’s never just about the objects. Painting from life lets me see things cameras miss — the way the crust catches light, the subtle glow of gold inside the honey. But more than that, it lets me feel what I’m looking at. Observation and sensation at once.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote,
“Faith is the courage to see the world not only as it is but as it could be.”
That line stuck with me this year. Because Rosh Hashanah isn’t just about new beginnings. It’s about returning. The same challah, the same prayers, the same light. But each time, we come back changed. We add another layer. A new note of sweetness. A bit more courage.
That’s what painting does for me. Especially painting something Jewish. It’s my way of returning to the tradition — adding my voice, one brushstroke at a time.
Shana Tovah,
Avraham
P.S. I'd love to hear — what's a ritual you've come to see differently this year?
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