Doing a heart transplant on the Feast of Trumpets

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:

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

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:

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:

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.

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.

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:

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:

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 15th 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:

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 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.

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.

 The shofar blast announces major upcoming prophetic events

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

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:

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

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

How shall we then pray?

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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