Rosh HaShanah - Feast of Trumpets

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Rosh HaShanah - Feast of Trumpets

The long-hot summer is finally coming to a close and with it the 'high holidays' have begun. The Jewish People celebrate Rosh Hashana (trumpets)- the biblical New Year, ushering in ten days of reflection and repentance before Yom Kippur (atonement), and Succot (Tabernacles) immediately after that. Its the biggest and most enjoyable season of the year; a time to get your heart right and celebrate the decision of God to 'tabernacle' and make His dwelling with man (Revelation 21: 3-4). It was this occasion that Jesus took to stand up in John 7 'on the last and greatest day of the feast' and declare that 'if anyone is thirsty- let him come to me and drink' - at the moment when the dry summer months were ending, but the rains had yet to come.

In 2009 Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) begins at sundown on Friday September 18 and ends at nightfall on Sunday September 20. It remembers the creation of the world. In Hebrew, Rosh Hashanah means the "head of the year." It is also called the Feast of the Trumpets. The blowing of a ram's horn, a shofar, proclaims Rosh Hashanah, and summons Jews to religious services.

Putting your spiritual house in order

While it does have its festive side, Rosh Hashanah is not one big party, as the New Year's celebrations on Dec. 31 tend to be. Rosh Hashanah is a time for personal introspection and prayer.

Rosh Hashanah is part of a process of spiritual growth. The Hebrew month preceding it, Elul, is a time for charity, tzedakah. Rosh Hashanah falls on the first and second days of the seventh month, Tishri.

The blowing of the ram's horn is associated with the ushering in of the biblical festivals of Israel , in particular, the period preceding the fall holidays.

The shofar is a ram's horn, connected with God's provision to Abraham of a ram for sacrifice, in place of his own son, Isaac. This portion of scripture is read on Rosh Hashanah. In the Bible, the blowing of the shofar was first heard when God called Moses to the summit of Mt. Sinai to receive the tablets of the law. And, it will be sounded at the end of days to usher the ingathering of the exile of Israel into their land.

The sounding of the Shofar:

Symbolizes freedom and liberty,
Proclaims the anniversary of the creation of the world,
Is a reminder of the giving of the 10 commandments at Mt. Sinai, and
is a sound that is guaranteed to chase Satan away.

In the Bible, the ram's horn was blown:

At the coronation of a King
As a call to war
To induce fear in the enemy
As a sound of victory, and
For announcing and ushering in the Sabbath and Festivals.

Remember, the walls of Jericho gave way at the sounding of the shofar.

In modern times, the blowing of the shofar is connected with the Jewish month of Elul, a period of repentance. The ram's horn is sounded to inspire the people to amend their lives. On Rosh Hashanah, it is blown some 100 times, and on Yom Kippur, it is blown only once at the end of the 24-hour fast. In modern Israel, the shofar is sounded every Friday afternoon as the Sabbath approaches.

From biblical description, there are three different sounds blown: TIKIYAH - A Single Blast SHEPHARIM - 3 Parts TRUAH - 9 short blasts

Speak to the children of Israel , saying: 'In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. 'You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.'" (Leviticus 23:24-25)

The shofar is usually blown in a combination of all three sounds, three times each to be certain that the commandment to sound the shofar is correctly made.

Many people believe the Messiah will arrive at the sounding of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah one year.

Rosh Hashana, or Jewish New Year, is at once solemn and joyful. It is solemn because of the Awe of judgment. It is joyful because it represents the hope of the future redemption of Israel.

Rosh Hashana marks the beginning of the High Holy Days. It falls on the first day of the seventh month, according to the Hebrew calendar (see Leviticus 23:23). It could occur anywhere from the first to the last week of September on the Western calendar. (Sept. 11, in 1999) It ushers in the ten days of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

The name "Rosh Hashana" literally means "Beginning of the Year" You may wonder how this can be, since it is called the first day of the seventh month! The reason is that the Jewish calendar is built on two cycles-the religious calendar beginning in the Spring, and the civil calendar beginning in the Fall. In the Torah, the months are never named but only numbered, beginning with the month of Nisan in the early Spring, which is the first month according to the religious calendar.

Rosh Hashana Customs

Among the many traditions of Rosh Hashana are:

dipping of bread into honey after kiddush and ha-Motzi, as a symbol of the hope that the new year will be sweet.
dipping pieces of apple into honey, for the same reason. Also, the apple is said to symbolize the Divine Presence.
use of round loaf of bread instead of the usual braided hallah. Some say the round shape symbolizes a crown.
avoidance of nuts. This is because the numerical value of the Hebrew word for "nut" is the same as the word for "sin."
Tashlik ceremony, in which "sins" are ceremoniously tossed into a river and washed away, as penitential prayers are said.

The Book of Life

In chapter 32 of the book of Exodus we find the first hint of the book of life. Moses has been on the mountain receiving the Torah while the people of Israel waited below. Seeing that Moses was taking a long time in returning, the people gave up waiting and made themselves a golden calf to worship, thus incurring the wrath of God. Moses asks to be "blotted out of the book" if God will not forgive the sins of the people. (See also Deut. 9:13)

There are a number of other references in the Tanach which mention God blotting out or not blotting out someone from the Book. In Psalm 51:3/2, David asks to have his sins blotted out. Psalm 69:29/28 uses the exact phrase "Book of Life" See also 2 Kings 14:27, Psalm 9:5/6.

Rosh Hashana in the Bible

The Torah does not use the term "Rosh Hashana," but calls this holiday Yom Teruah, The Day of the Sounding of the Shofar. According to Leviticus 23:23-25, it was to be celebrated by blowing a shofar, or ram's horn, by resting from all work, and by calling a holy assembly, and presenting an offering. The offering is described in Numbers 29:2-6. In Nehemiah 8:2-9 we find Ezra reading the Torah to the assembled people of Israel on this date.

Psalms 93-100 are also believed to have been composed for Rosh Hashana.

Modern Observance and Jewish Tradition

In modern Jewish observance of Rosh Hashana, the principal themes are:

Repentance (Teshuvah in Hebrew -- literally "turning back" to God)
Redemption -- restoration of a severed relationship with God
The coming of Messiah
Judgment
Creation.

The Shofar
The most obvious distinguishing feature of Rosh Hashanah is the blowing of the shofar, or ram's horn. The Biblical name for this holiday is in fact Zichron Teruah (Remembrance of the shofar blast), or Yom Teruah. (Day of the shofar blast). In some English Bibles it is called The Feast of Trumpets.

Over a thousand years ago, the great Jewish sage Saadia Gaon came up with ten reasons for sounding the Shofar:
1. The shofar is associated with the coronation of a King.
2. The shofar heralds the beginning of the penitential period
3. The Torah was given amid blasts of a shofar
4. The prophets compare their message to blasts of shofar
5. It is a reminder of the Conquering armies that destroyed the temple
6. It is a reminder of the Substitutionary Sacrifice of the ram for Isaac
7. It fills one with Awe-Amos 3:6
8. It is associated with Judgment Day-Zephaniah. 1:14, 16
9. It heralds the Messianic Age, Isaiah 27:13
10. It heralds the Resurrection

The Coming Messiah

The following quotes underscore the theme of the coming Messiah in Rosh Hashanah tradition:

"The sounding of the shofar is related to the Messianic theme, and in one tradition, Rosh Hashanah is said to be the time of the ultimate redemption." "The prayers . . . in many ways allude to God's enthronement, for the kingship of Heaven materializes with the advent of Messiah, who presides over the last judgment."

The Brit Ha-Hadashah/New Testament also associates the sound of the shofar with the coming of Messiah.

The Concept of the Book of Life is found in the New Covenant Scriptures as well. In Philippians 4:3, Paul mentions his faithful co laborers as being written in the book of Life. The book of Revelation, dedicated to the themes of judgment and the coming Messiah, contains several references to the "Book of Life."

Revelation 3:5 - "he who overcomes" will not be blotted out
Revelation 13:8 -- All who are not written in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb will worship the beast.
Revelation 17:8 -- All who are not written in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb will be astonished at the beast.
Revelation 20:12 -- Judgment by the Book.
Revelation 20:15 -- All who are not found in the book are thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 21:27 -- Those who are in the Book will enter the New Jerusalem.

This is not the only place in the Tanach where God speaks of such total forgiveness for his people. Jeremiah 31:34 says: "For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more." Only one verse before, God declares that one day he will make a New Covenant (Brit Hadashah) with Israel, and put his Torah in their minds and write it on their hearts:

"See, a time is coming -- declares the LORD -- when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, so that I rejected them -- declares the LORD."

What is this "New Covenant"? What is to be the basis of Atonement under it?

The Torah teaches that atonement requires the shedding of blood, i.e. a sacrifice. (Leviticus 17:11). Yet, there is no more temple in which to make the sacrifice, so how can there be atonement? It is impossible to keep the Torah completely as long as there is no temple. The rabbis declared that prayers would take the place of the sacrifices, but is that really enough? If prayer is as good as sacrifice, why did God ever demand sacrifice in the first place? Would HaShem allow the temple -- so central to his service -- to be taken away for so long without putting an alternative plan in place? Hass ve'halilah! If God has allowed the temple to lie in ruins for so long, could it be that it is because he has provided another way?

Suppose someone you know to be reliable gives you directions to someplace and you suddenly find yourself at a dead end. You know the
directions are good, so you back up to see if you missed a turn somewhere. Those directions are the Torah and the prophets. The missed turn is the New Covenant -- one that doesn't need a physical temple, because the ultimate sacrifice has already been made, making all other sacrifice obsolete. The Hebrew prophets predicted that a "Righteous Servant" would some day make such a sacrifice. (Isaiah 53:6, 8, 12)

"And the LORD visited upon him the guilt of us all." -- Isaiah 53:6 (JPS)

"My righteous servant makes the many righteous, It is their punishment that he bears" -- Isaiah 53:11 (JPS)

"he bore the guilt of the many And made intercession for sinners." -- Isaiah 53:12 (JPS)

We Christians believe that Yeshua/Jesus Christ is that Righteous Servant (what other candidates are there ?), and that his Atonement is the basis of the New Covenant spoken of by Jeremiah. If the New Testament ("Testament" is another word for Covenant or Brit) is true, it proves that God has not abandoned Am Israel.