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From Rabbi Dr Harvey Belovski, rabbi of Golders Green Synagogue and CEO of University Jewish Chaplaincy:

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I recently discovered that in the USA, 5th October is the most popular birthday of the year.Ìý I’d have thought that birthdays were distributed about evenly, but apparently, more babies are born on 5th October than any other day of the year, with about 950,000 Americans celebrating their birthday today.

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No one really knows the reason for this, but someone clever noticed that early October is almost exactly nine months after New Year’s Eve.Ìý Probably enough said.Ìý

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This week, the Jewish community has been marking a mega-birthday – the Jewish New Year. ÌýWe consider it to be the birthday of the world as we know it – the anniversary of human history with all its amazing opportunities and challenges. ÌýIn fact, the festival finished just last night.

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Our new year is not really a time to party in the conventional sense – although we did have some delicious meals and some excellent wine.Ìý Since it’s the anniversary of the start of history, it’s an opportunity to review our goals, rethink our priorities and think about how we’d like the world to look if we were able to change what’s wrong.Ìý In short, the Jewish New Year is an occasion to think about why we’re alive and to recalibrate our relationship with God.

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But I don’t want to give the impression it’s a miserable day – not at all.Ìý We eat traditional foods, especially apple dipped in honey to wish each other a sweet and fruitful year and our synagogue services include ancient, beautiful melodies and a kind of wake-up call blown on a ram’s horn to encourage us to think about some of those big life themes.

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It’s also a time when lots of people come to the synagogue, even those who attend rarely, something which always causes amusement, especially among the regulars. ÌýThis reminds me of the awful joke once made by a rabbi to the invisible man – funny, I haven’t seen you in synagogue recently.

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The Jewish New Year is one of the most demanding – and rewarding – occasions in my rabbinic calendar.Ìý It’s that tension that makes it so special and it teaches an important lesson: that birthdays can be enjoyable and meaningful all at once – an opportunity to turn a celebration into a celestial moment.Ìý Happy birthday, world.