Some of you may know that I am Jewish and that I have built many web sites for Jewish communities, charities and youth clubs here in the UK.

As in many small communities there is an element of "they have a new web site, why don't we?"

Now I might have claimed to have built many of these Jewish web sites but it's amazing how many are now using Joomla.

I even heard one Rabbi referring it to "Jewmla" assuming that it was software specificaly written for synagogues.

So whats with the apples and honey?

Tonight the Jewish New Year of 5770 begins, this is not an excuse for a party that you might find on December 31st but is one of the holiest days of the year, and one of the traditions, we're very big on tradition, is to eat apple dipped in honey.

Now I'm not a Rabbi or a scholarly student of the Jewish faith so apologies if I don't get this explanation exactly correct.

By taking a sweet apple and dipping it in even sweeter honey we are creating a tangible desire for the comin year to be happy and sweet.

There is also a more interesting explanation from the Jewish mysticism of Kabalah, not the Madona version but the real thing, of why we use an apple and not another sweet fruit.

If we take apple and cut it in half horizontally you will see a five pointed star and ten little holes. Every letter in the hebrew alphabet has a numerical value and ten is the value of the Hebrew letter Yud, and five is the value of the letter Hey.

Although Jews do not write the name of the God we typicaly use the letter Yud Hey to symbolise his name in writing. The letters Yud Hey are also an acronym for the hebrew words that translate to "Hands of God".

So the apple reminds us of God's role in our lives and everything around us.

May I wish you and your families
Shana Tova Umetukah, a Happy and Sweet Year

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