Making the crooked shofar straight

It’s time once again for the sons and daughters of Jacob to gather together – to celebrate and to remember. Sweet and somber traditions mix as Jews attend synagogue to pray and to hear the blast of the shofar. “May you be inscribed and sealed [in the Book of Life] for a Good Year!” (‘L’shanah tovah tikatevu v’teichateimu’).

Once a year the People of the Book assemble to carry out ancient traditions, some of which have biblical foundations. What does the God of Isaac want us to remember and to focus on during Yom Teru’ah, this day of blowing/ trumpeting/ sounding of the shofar/ ram’s horn (see Numbers 29:1)? The time has come to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The Days of awe and judgment

I was taught as a child that these Days of Awe (in Yiddish, yomim noroyim) are a sober season when men’s souls are judged. Rabbinic tradition circa 200 AD states:

• “Rabbi Judah says: All are judged on New Year and the separate dooms are sealed each in its time – on Passover in respect of produce, on Pentecost in respect of fruit, on Tabernacles judgment is passed in respect of rain, and man is judged on New Year and his doom is sealed on the Day of Atonement” (Babylonian Talmud [TB], Tractate Rosh Hashana 16a).

Sixty-five years later (circa 265 AD) Rabbi Yochanan bar Nappaha declared:

• “Three scrolls are opened (in heaven) on New Year, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed definitively in the scroll of life. The thoroughly wicked are forthwith inscribed definitively in the scroll of death. The doom of the intermediate is suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement. If they deserve well, they are inscribed in the scroll of life. If they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the scroll of death” (TB, Tractate Rosh Hashana 16b).

These post-biblical rabbinic traditions have led the Jewish nation to describe Rosh Hashanah as Yom Ha-Din – ‘the Day of the Judgment.’

Nearly 1,700 years later, a famous Jewish folksinger from Montreal, Eliezer bar Nisan ha-Cohen (known popularly as Leonard Cohen), blended these thoughts with a medieval Jewish Day of Atonement prayer known as ‘U’netanneh Tokef’ (transl. ‘Let us speak of the awesomeness’) and penned the song ‘Who by fire’ at the time of Israel’s October 1973 Yom Kippur War:

• “And who by fire, who by water, who in the sunshine, who in the night time – who by high ordeal, who by common trial, who in your merry merry month of May, who by very slow decay… And who shall I say is calling?”

Apples, honey and Bible

Over the centuries, various traditional celebrations have become associated with the Feast of Trumpets/ the Day of the Blowing of the ram’s horn/ shofar. Jews nibble apples and honey, hoping for a sweet year. Round challah loaves are served, symbolizing the continuity of the year, with this holiday being considered the ‘crown’ of the calendar. Synagogues register their highest attendance at the High Holy Days. This season also bring with it a heightened awareness of sin within the Jewish community.

But the Jewish Bible has a perspective on the Feast of Trumpets which is somewhat different from modern Jewish tradition. According to the Tenach, the Jewish New Year does not occur in September; it actually takes place 14 days before the Feast of Passover – on the first day of the first month of Spring, called Aviv in the Bible. “Now YHVH said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be the beginning of months for you. It is to be the first month of the year for you” (see Exodus 12:1-3; 13:4; Deuteronomy 16:1).

What today is called Rosh Hashanah by most Jewish people is actually the biblical Feast of Trumpets (or the ‘Feast of Blowing’ of shofars/ ram’s horns/ trumpets). It is not the first Feast of the year but the fifth Feast of the biblical calendar (Leviticus 23:23-25). And it occurs in the biblical month which King Solomon used to call ‘Eitanim’ (meaning ‘the strong ones’ in Hebrew – see 1 Kings 8:1-2). The God of Jacob is a stickler for details, and insists through Moses that the Jewish people “shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year” (Exodus 13:10).

So how did the Jewish New Year slide from the first month to the seventh month?

Someone once said that it’s easier to get the singer out of Vegas than it is to get Vegas out of the singer. This is is a relevant maxim here regarding both the Jewish people, the Babylonian Exile and the origins of modern Rosh Hashanah.

The twelve Jewish tribes went into Exile between 722 BC (Assyria) and 597/586 BC (Babylon). They took the twelve original names of the Hebrew months with them ‘to the rivers of Babylon’ (Psalm 137:1). These included:

• Aviv (the first month, today called Nisan – Exodus 13:4)
• Ziv (the second month, today called Iyar – 1 Kings 6:1)
• Eitanim (the seventh month, today called Tishrei – 1 Kings 8:2)
• Bul (the eighth month, today called Heshvan – 1 Kings 6:38)

Rabbi Hanina bar Hama of Galilean Zippori (d. 250 A.D.) noted that, when the Jewish people returned to Jerusalem from Exile, “the [Babylonian] month-names came up with them [with the exiles] from Babylon” (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh HaShanah 1:2,56d). These Babylonian names gradually replaced the original Hebrew names, especially after the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. The first month in the Hebrew calendar (Aviv) was renamed Nisan (from the Akkadian nisānu, meaning ‘sanctuary’ or ‘sacrifice’, or possibly from Sumerian nisag meaning ‘first-fruits’). The seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, Eitanim (‘the strong ones’), was renamed Tishrei (from the Akkadian word tašrītu or ‘beginning’).

Today eight of the twelve original Hebrew names of the months have completely vanished. The Babylonian month-names used today are for the most part the names of Babylonian demons, even as most modern Western months are based on the names of Roman deities, and the modern Western secular week-day names are taken from Norse and Germanic gods. Since the Babylonian royal calendar began its year in Tishrei (biblical Eitanim), the Jewish people gradually adapted these month-names into their national calendar, and Rosh Hashanah morphed from a Spring feast into a Fall feast.

Rejecting the Messiah and His biblical New Year

A crucial fork in the road was crossed in 33 AD when Messiah Yeshua was rejected by the majority of Israel’s spiritual authorities, and was handed over to the Roman occupation authorities to be crucified. If Jerusalem’s then spiritual leadership could have made such a terrible decision to reject the Messiah, it does not take a long stretch of the imagination to understand how these same leaders could eventually make similar errant decisions about a host of other issues – including the nature of the New Covenant, the status of the Mosaic covenant, the biblical basis for salvation, the issue of rabbinic authority, etc.

The authority of the Scriptures – and what they teach about Messiah Yeshua – is very much connected to the issue of the Jewish New Year. Today most Jewish people’s spiritual confusion about something as clear and basic as the Biblical teaching concerning when the Jewish New Year falls, reminds us of the Days of the Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The prophet Jeremiah also stressed this point circa 600 BC: “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters – to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

As Babylonian cultural influences strengthened among the sons and daughters of Jacob, the Jewish people gradually weakened in their faithfulness to other biblical patterns and expressions as well. By 200 AD the biblical focus on the Feast of Trumpets had been renamed and refashioned as ‘the New Year.’ The influence of the Exile and our sojourn in Babylon would continue to shape medieval Judaism as well as modern Jewish thought.

• But there is a day coming when YHVH will bring about full restoration to His Jewish people. He will renew our ancient feast days, as prophesied in Zechariah 7:1-6 and Zechariah 8:18-19.

• YHVH will restore His original calendar, confirming the declaration of Leviticus 23:2: “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘YHVH’s appointed times which you shall proclaim as holy convocations – My appointed times are these…”  For, as Paul said, these divine gifts to Jacob and God’s calling on the sons and daughters of Israel “are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29).

YHVH’s shofar – the sound of warfare

 For every Jewish man and woman, boy and girl, the sound of the shofar was associated with shouts of victory in war. The shofar blast was connected to overwhelming joy; it was a reminder to the God of Jacob for Him to remember His prophetic promises and protection over His people Israel.

• “And when you go to war in your land against the enemy who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, so that you will be thought of by YHVH your God, and be saved from your enemies. Also on the day of your joy and at your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow your [silver] trumpets over your burnt offerings . . . and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am YHVH your God” (Numbers 10:10).

Every Israelite remembered the destructive power of the trumpets at the walls of Jericho: “So the people shouted, and priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city” (Joshua 6:20)

The Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly emphasize that the God of Jacob is soon coming to judge the earth and to vanquish Israel’s enemies. The Hebrew prophets call that day ‘The Day of the Lord,’ and it will be announced by the blowing of a shofar: “Blow a shofar in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the Day of YHVH is coming. Surely it is near” (Joel 2:1)

On that day of judgment, YHVH Himself will blow His heavenly shofar of victory in battle, as He empowers Israel’s mighty army to accomplish His awesome task:

• “For I will bend Judah as My bow! I will fill the bow with Ephraim, and I will stir up your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece. And I will make you like a warrior’s sword. Then YHVH will appear over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning. And the Lord YHVH will blow the trumpet, and march in the storm winds of the south” (Zechariah 9:13-14; see also Ezekiel 37:10; Ezekiel 25:14).

The Psalms describe YHVH as a warrior rising above the battlefield with a shofar blast, deafening and defeating His enemies: “God has ascended with a shout, YHVH with the sound of a trumpet” (Psalm 47:5-6)

The shofar’s joyful sound of worship

King David’s worship orchestra incorporated the victory sound of the shofar and the military sound of the silver trumpet as he led the Ark of the Covenant in public parade to the House of YHVH:

• “And David assembled all Israel at Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of YHVH to its place which he had prepared for it . . . Then David spoke to the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their relatives as the singers, with musical instruments, harps, lyres, and cymbals, playing to raise sounds of joy . . . Thus all Israel brought up the Ark of the Covenant of YHVH with shouting, and with sound of the shofar, with [silver] trumpets, with loud-sounding cymbals, with harps and lyres” (1 Chronicles 15:3,16,28)

Psalm 98 links the shofar blast to high praise: “Sing praise-songs to YHVH with the lyre – with the lyre and the sound of praise-songs. With [silver] trumpets and the voice of the shofar shout joyfully before the King, YHVH” (Psalm 98:5-6).

The zenith of the Book of Psalms concludes with the blasting praise of the shofar: “Praise Him with the sounding of the shofar” (Psalm 150:3)!

The great rejoicing that Israel entered into every month at the New Moon celebrations, at the Feast of Trumpets and on the first day of the Feast of Sukkot/Tabernacles, is described in all its glory by Asaph in Psalm 81: “Blow the shofar at the New Moon [see Leviticus 23:23-24], at the full moon [the 15^th day of the Hebrew month – see Leviticus 23:33-35], on our feast day. For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob” (Psalm 81:3-4).

The sound of the shofar was associated with joy. It was a reminder to the God of Jacob to remember His prophetic promises: “Also on the day of your joy and at your appointed feasts, and on the first days of your months, you shall blow your [silver] trumpets . . . and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am YHVH your God” (Numbers 10:10).  The trumpet blast was seen as an intercessory act, reminding YHVH of His promises over His Jewish people.

Shofar show good

The word teru’ah (from the Hebrew root ru’a) has a secondary meaning – a powerful shout-out of rejoicing – as used in the following passages:

• “Shout to God with a voice of joy!” (Psalms 47:1)
• “Shout joyfully to God, all the earth!” (Psalms 66:1)
• “Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob!” (Psalms 81:1)
• “Shout joyfully to YHVH, all the earth!” (Psalms 100:1)

The Feast of Trumpets is called zichron teru’ah in Leviticus 23:24. This term can be translated as ‘a memorial of trumpeting’ or ‘a memorial by shouting out.’ Teru’ah can refer to a shofar blast (Leviticus 25:9; Hosea 5:8; Psalm 81:3-4), a great shout of joyous praise (2 Samuel 6:15; Ezra 3:11; Job 8:21; Psalm 27:6), or a resounding cymbal clash (Psalm 150:5). The word speaks of explosive and joyous power, and usually refers to an extremely positive sonic event.

• The Bible calls our attention to remember that the Feast of Trumpets is a day of shofar blasts, as well as a day of gathering in public prayer where the faithful crowd shouts in unison, giving high praise to the name of YHVH (see Joshua 6:20 where shofar and shouting are both described)

The Bible does not connect the shofar of the Feast of Trumpets to sadness, mourning, or incipient danger. Numbers 10:10 instead refers to it as “the day of your gladness in your appointed convocations.”  These celebrations were actually happy occasions of great joy. Psalm 81:1-3 refers to singing aloud, making a joyful shout, raising up a song by striking the tambourine, harp and lyre – and all this on the Feast of Trumpets!

The shofar blast of revival

 A major spiritual revival took place during the Feast of Trumpets in Nehemiah’s day.

• “And all the people gathered as one person at the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Teaching (Hebrew, Torah) of Moses which YHVH had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the Torah before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. And he read from it before the public square which was in front of the Water Gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the Book of the Teaching. Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose” (Nehemiah 8:1-4)

• Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to YHVH your God; do not mourn or weep!” For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the Torah. Then he said to them, “Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our YHVH. Do not be grieved, for the joy of YHVH is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved.” All the people went away to eat, to drink, to send portions and to celebrate a great festival, because they understood the words which had been made known to them (Nehemiah 8:8-12)

The God of Jacob lays it all out for us here: This is not a day for tears or fears. It is not a day to be afraid, to grieve or to mourn. It is a day to eat rich food, to drink sweet-tasting beverages, and to have a huge and joyous celebration. In short, YHVH is calling on His people to have a holy festivity!

In Nehemiah this party follows immediately on the heels of a national revival. The people had just heard the words of Deuteronomy 27-28. They understood that there was a good reason for the punishment of Exile, and they immediately repented of their national rejection of His prophets.

• Today that same national call stands before our Jewish people – to realize that our Exile to America, England, France, Argentina, Russia, South Africa etc. – is due to our leaders’ rejection of the message of the Prophets and of Messiah Yeshua (Matthew 23:34-39; Mark 12:1-12). And we as a nation have followed our leaders in their despicable decision. The need of the hour for us is national repentance. The need of the hour is to wake up and realize that our existence in the Exile is like that of a bird in a gilded cage. The God of our Fathers is calling us home – home to Him and home to our homeland!

 The shofar blast announces major upcoming prophetic events

The End of the Jewish Exile will be accompanied by a shofar blast:

• “It will come about also in that day that a great shofar will be sounded. And those who were perishing in the Land of Ashur and who were scattered in the Land of Egypt will come and worship YHVH in the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13)

Messiah Yeshua will gather together Israel’s scattered flock from across the face of the whole planet, sending out angels who will blow a great shofar:

• • “And He will send forth His angels with a great shofar and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Matthew 24:31).

The resurrection of the dead will be accompanied by the sound of the shofar:

• “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52; the Greek equivalent word for shofar/trumpet used here is σάλπιγξ - salpigx).

The return of Messiah Yeshua to Israel will be signaled by a shofar blast:

• “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

How shall we then pray?

• Pray for God to bring revelation and alignment to believers everywhere concerning His times and seasons (Daniel 2:21; Genesis 1:14-18)
• Pray for Messiah’s body (especially for Bible teachers, pastors and teachers) to become even more attuned to how the God of Jacob is using His calendar as a catalyst and a holy milestone in bringing forth the salvation of Israel as well as life from the dead for the world
• Pray for the nation of Israel to receive a revelation of their God who both hears our prayers (mingled with the call of the shofar) and answers us (accompanied by His divine shofar blast) during this season of heightened spiritual focus
• Pray for those who have given their lives to communicating the message of Messiah Yeshua’s atonement to His own precious people – that they might be encouraged, receive needed provision, and experience God’s enabling presence
• Pray for the raising up of Ezekiel’s prophetic Jewish army throughout the earth!

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

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