Eating Nuts on Rosh Hashana
Question
How important is it to refrain from eating nuts on Rosh Hashanah? Is it okay to do to please a friend? I am asking because my friend I am going over is baking an apple walnut cake and she wants me to eat some. She doesn’t follow any such restrictions and will feel hurt if I don’t eat any. And I feel bad for her if she does all that work and I eat none.
Answers
While the accepted custom among the Ashkenazic communities is to avoid eating nuts on Rosh Hashanah (and sometimes until after Yom Kippur), I think that it is permissible for you to eat the cake in order to not offend your friend, which would be a terrible thing to do on Rosh Hashana. However, I think that you you should try to explain to your friend, before Rosh Hashana, that you would prefer not to eat the cake on Rosh Hashana because of the nuts. Perhaps you could tell her that you would love to come by after Rosh Hashana for a big piece of cake and a good cup of coffee.
Best wishes from the AskTheRabbi.org Team