Minhag Manhattan: Where Is the Best Place to Do Tashlich in Manhattan?
Before ranking Manhattan’s bodies of water, however, it is worth stating that fundamentally, it really does not matter that much. Tashlich is a custom, not a mitzvah obligation. A person who heard the shofar, prayed, ate the festive meals, but never made it to a body of water has not failed to fulfill some essential obligation of Rosh Hashanah.
In fact, Tashlich is a somewhat strange custom. Surely nobody believes that our sins are literally sitting in our pockets, waiting to be shaken out into the River. The water does not carry away our transgressions, and reciting the Tashlich liturgy is not a substitute for real teshuva. Tashlich is symbolic. We spend Rosh Hashanah praying, reflecting, thinking about the year that has passed and the year ahead. Then we walk to the water and perform a physical, symbolic act. And symbols can be very powerful. The Talmud in Tractate Horayot suggests, simana milta hi, symbols can be significant. A physical ritual like this one can give concrete expression to an internal decision. It creates a moment of transition: this was who I was before; this is who I hope to be afterward. That, I believe, is the power of Tashlich. You can read more about this here in remarks I delivered about Tashlich at KJ in 2014.
But nevertheless, I will entertain the question: if we're doing it anyway, is there an ideal body of water? Various sources (acharonim such as the Mateh Ephraim and later the Mishna Berura) do list a variety of preferences. Ideally one goes to a river outside the city containing live fish; if that is unavailable, one goes to another river, and if that’s not possible, a well. The Mishnah Berurah explains that fish are themselves symbolic: they represent fertility and freedom from the ayin hara (the “evil eye”). There is also significance to moving water. In the same context in which the Talmud notes that symbols can be meaningful, it notes a preference for performing symbolic acts near flowing water because its continuing flow represents continuity and blessing. Some later sources connect this symbolism to Tashlich explicitly.
So, translating all of this into Manhattan geography, the Hudson River and the East River are the gold standard. They are large, moving bodies of water, they contain fish, and they most closely approximate the setting envisioned by our tradition. The Central Park Reservoir is not quite as ideal. It is standing water rather than a flowing river. But it is no worse than a well which works when a river is unavailable. The same is true for just any fountain found in New York. Remember, the holy city of Jerusalem has no rivers. In fact, the custom in Jerusalem for centuries was to recite Tashlich even next to a well that has completely dried up! Surely a fountain in midtown or pond in Central Park is no worse than a dried up well.
Ultimately, despite the suggestions above from the acharonim, the best place is the place where you will actually stop and think about what you are doing and find meaning in the symbolic act. Where the water can make tangible the possibility that the year that was does not need to be the year that will be.
