what is tashlich actually? after rosh hashana everyone goes to the water and says a few pesukim, but what is a person actually doing there? what is the point of the whole thing, and is there something specific to have in mind while saying it?
what is tashlich and what is a person actually doing by it
by moi613 | Sep 8, 2026 | Shabbat & Yom Tov | 2 comments
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thank you Rabbi, much appreciated.
Tashlich is a minhag. It is not a mitzvah from the Torah, it is not a takanah of the Gemara, and a person does not have to do it.
The basic idea comes from the last three pesukim of Michah:
מי אל כמוך נשא עון ועבר על פשע לשארית נחלתו לא החזיק לעד אפו כי חפץ חסד הוא
ישוב ירחמנו יכבש עונתינו ותשליך במצולות ים כל חטאותם
תתן אמת ליעקב חסד לאברהם אשר נשבעת לאבתינו מימי קדם
The phrase ותשליך במצולות ים כל חטאותם means that Hashem will cast our sins into the depths of the sea.
That is the whole image behind Tashlich.
You are obviously not literally throwing sins into the water. Aveirot are not crumbs that can be emptied out of your pocket.
The purpose is to stand there and think about teshuvah. What did I do this year that I regret? What do I want to leave behind? What do I want Hashem to forgive? What am I going to change?
Without that, the whole exercise is meaningless.
If a person walks to the lake, says a few Hebrew words that he does not understand, looks at the water, shakes out his pockets, and goes home, what exactly did he accomplish?
Nothing.
A minhag like this only has value when the physical act helps create an idea in your mind.
This is one of the problems I have with the way Tashlich is sometimes presented in modern machzorim. Instead of concentrating on the few pesukim that actually explain what you are doing, pages and pages of additional Tehillim and tefillot are sometimes added.
More is not always better.
Sometimes more ruins the entire point.
If you spend twenty minutes rapidly saying Tehillim that you do not understand, you can easily lose the one idea that brought you to the water in the first place.
ותשליך במצולות ים כל חטאותם.
Stop.
Think about those words.
Understand what you are asking Hashem for.
Understand what you are asking of yourself.
If afterward you want to go home and say an entire Sefer Tehillim, wonderful. But Tashlich does not become more meaningful because we added another five pages to it.
There was also an old custom in some places to throw bread crumbs into the water. The bread symbolized the sins being cast away into the sea.
That sounds picturesque, but it created an actual halachic problem. Once there are fish in the water, you are feeding animals that are not dependent upon you. The Maharil already warned people not to bring food to Tashlich and throw it to the fish because of the Yom Tov problem.
That is a perfect example of what can go wrong.
The symbol becomes more important than the Halachah.
There can be other Yom Tov issues as well.
For example, carrying on Yom Tov is much more lenient than on Shabbat, but that does not mean that anything can be carried anywhere for no reason. Where there is no eruv, the carrying still has to fall within the Yom Tov permissions. So someone should not casually create unnecessary carrying simply because “it is Yom Tov.”
If you carry a siddur to Tashlich because you need it there, that is one thing. Do not automatically assume that every additional carrying afterward is therefore permitted too. The particular carrying has to have a legitimate Yom Tov purpose.
And there is an even easier solution to many of these problems.
Tashlich does not have to be done on Rosh Hashanah itself.
In our family we would often do Tashlich during the week, sometime during Aseret Yemei Teshuvah. Then there was no question of carrying on Yom Tov, feeding fish on Yom Tov, or creating other unnecessary complications.
The Gra himself did not go to the river or well for Tashlich. Maaseh Rav 209 says:
לא היה הולך לנהר או לבאר לומר תשליך
So certainly nobody should imagine that going to the water is an obligatory Rosh Hashanah mitzvah.
There are several explanations for the minhag of going specifically to water. The Maharil connects it to the Midrash about Avraham Avinu on the way to the Akeidah, when the Satan appeared as a river and tried to stop him. Later sources give additional symbolism involving fish, ayin hara, fertility, judgment, and other ideas.
Fine.
But do not let all of those explanations bury the simple point.
Tashlich is supposed to help you do teshuvah.
If you go, say the pesukim slowly enough to understand them.
Think about what they mean.
Think about what you want to change.
Do not throw bread to fish.
Do not create Yom Tov problems for the sake of a minhag.
And do not confuse saying more words with accomplishing more.
A few pesukim that you understand and actually think about are worth far more than pages of words that you merely recite.
That is the perspective I would bring to Tashlich.