In the summer of 1945, as World War II neared its end, the Allied powers issued the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender. Reporters pressed Japanese Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki for a response. He chose the word “mokusatsu.”

In Japanese, mokusatsu is a layered term. It can mean “we withhold comment for now,” a cautious way of buying time. But it can also mean “we treat this with silent contempt.”

While Rosh Hashanah is commonly referred to as the “Jewish New Year”, in fact, the precise translation of Rosh Hashanah is actually “Head of the Year”.

We call this holiday “Head of the Year” since these two days stand in the same relationship to the rest of the year as the head does to the body. Just like the head is the source of the life force of the person, and afterwards this life force is distributed to each individual organ of the body, so too Rosh Hashanah has hidden within it all of the life force of the year, and from the holiday it is apportioned to each and every individual day.