Understanding Tashlich: Lessons for All Learners

(18) Who is a God like You, Forgiving iniquity And remitting transgression; Who has not maintained His wrath forever Against the remnant of His own people, Because He loves graciousness! (19) He will take us back in love; He will cover up our iniquities, You will hurl all our sins Into the depths of the sea. (20) You will keep faith with Jacob, Loyalty to Abraham, As You promised on oath to our fathers In days gone by.

There is no doubt that sins cannot be carried like a burden, and taken off the shoulder of one being to be laid on that of another being. But these ceremonies are of a symbolic character, and serve to impress people with a certain idea, and to induce them to repent; as if to say, we have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, have cast them behind our backs, and removed them from us as far as possible.

(21) After the Minchah service you should go to a river [or stream] (to recall the merit of the Akeidah, [the binding of Yitzchak] for the Midrash relates that when our Father Avraham went to the Akeidah with his son Yitzchak, Satan transformed himself into a river to deter him. But our Father Avraham, peace be upon him, walked into the river until [the water reached] his neck and said, "Deliver me, O God, for the waters have reached until my soul." (Psalm 69:2) There is another reason [for this custom]; for on this day we proclaim the kingship of the Holy One, blessed is He, over us, and it was the custom to anoint kings near a river bank as a sign that their kingdom may endure without end.) It is preferable that [this river] should be outside the city limits and it should contain fish (as a reminder that we are compared to living fish who are caught in a net. We too, are caught in the net of death and judgment, and as a result [we will be inclined] to think more of repenting. Another reason is to symbolize that the evil eye shall have no power over us, just as [it has no power] over fish, and that we may be fruitful and multiply as the fish. Others say the reason is that fish have no eyelids, and their eyes are always open, the purpose is thus to arouse the compassion of the All-Seeing Eye above us.) But if there is no river that contains fish you may go to any river, or to a well, and you should recite the verses, Mi keil kamocha [Who, Almighty, is like you] etc. as it is written in the prayer books in the text of Tashlich. You should then shake the ends of your clothes, symbolizing your resolve to cast away your sins, and to examine and scrutinize your ways, from now on; so that your "clothes" will be white and innocent of all sin. If the first day of Rosh Hashanah is on Shabbos you go [to the stream for Tashlich] on the second day.