Rosh HaShana - The New Year
A Practical Guide for Understanding and Celebrating the Biblical Holidays
by Barney Kasdan, President of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On
the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred
assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present
an offering made to the Lord by fire”’ (Leviticus 23:23-25).
One of the fascinating facts about the holy day, Rosh HaSahanah is
that it is considered the “New Year.” The truth is, it comes in the seventh
month of the calendar year. Did someone make a blatant miscalculation?
The biblical year starts in the spring with the month
Nisan (Exodus 12:2). This has a certain logic to it. It is the beginning
of the new harvest season. However, the rabbis
gave such significance to this special shabbat (it was the first of the
fall holidays) that they eventually considered it as the “spiritual” New
Year. Hence the name change as well. Biblically known as Yom Teruah (the
Day of Sounding/Festival of Trumpets), this first day of Tishri became
called “Rosh HaShanah,” the Head of the Year.
The purpose of this holy day is summed up in one
word— regathering. Since the fall holidays call us to regather to a pure
faith in God, Rosh HaShanah has come to represent the day of repentance.
It is the day when the people of Israel take stock of their spiritual condition
and make the necessary changes to insure that the upcoming new year will
be pleasing to God.
So important is this day of Rosh HaShanah that, in fact, the entire
preceding Hebrew month of Elul takes on a holy significance of its own.
The rabbis stressed that the forty day period from the first day of Elul
through the tenth day of Tishri (Yom Kippur) was to be a time of special
spiritual preparation. This was based on the belief that it was on the
first of Elul that Moses ascended Mount Sinai in order to receive the second
set of Tablets of the Law and that he descended on Yom Kippur (Pirke DeRabbi
Eliezer 46).
TRADITIONAL JEWISH OBSERVANCE
In synagogues the shofar, or ram’s horn, is sounded
daily to alert the faithful that the time of repentance is near. Many Orthodox
men take a special water immersion (Hebrew, tevilar mikveh ) to symbolize
cleansing their ways.
Since the theme of Rosh HaShanah is repentance, the observance takes
on a somber character, yet always with a hint of hope because of God’s
forgiveness. In the traditional Jewish home, the evening starts with the
festival dinner with many of the customary dishes. Then it is off to synagogue
for the evening service. A good part of the next day is also spent in worship.
The liturgy, music and prayers emphasize the recurring theme of repentance,
turning to God. Since the day is a shabbat, most Jewish people take off
from work or school in order to observe the day correctly.
In traditional groups, the afternoon of Rosh HaShanah is spent at a
body of water (ocean, lake or stream ) observing the ancient service, Tashlich.
The word derives from Micah 7:19 where the prophet promises, “You will
hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” To illustrate this
beautiful truth, people cast bread crumbs or pebbles into the water and
rejoice in God’s promise of forgiveness.
With these themes in mind, it is customary in the
Jewish community to send holiday cards greeting family and friends with
wishes for a blessed New Year. The most noticeable custom is the shofar,
the trumpet mentioned in the biblical text. The shofar is sounded in the
synagogue with four different notes: tekia (blast), shevarim (broken notes),
teruah (alarm) and takia gedolah (the great blast). These notes provide
some spiritual lessons. Rabbis observed that the shofar was used in the
ancient world to hail a king. So, too, at Rosh HaShanah, all Israel is
said to appear before the King of Kings in anticipation of personal judgment.
Also, often in the Bible the shofar was sounded to gather the troops together
for battle (see Joshua 6). In this case, the shofar is our “wake-up call”;
an alarm to call us to our appointed time.
THE PROPHETIC FULFILLNIENT
As with all biblical holy days, there is prophetic
as well as historical meaning in Rosh HaShanah. Many classical rabbis saw
a connection between Rosh HaShanah as the holy day of regathering and the
Messiah who would be the agent of regathering. For example, in a work in
the 8th century C.E. we find the following commentary:
Messiah ben David (son of David), Elijah and Zerubbabel, peace be upon
him, will ascend the Mount of Olives. And Messiah will command Elijah to
blow the shofar. The light of the six days of Creation will return and
will be seen, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun,
and God will send full healing to all the sick of Israel. The second blast
which Elijah will blow will make the dead rise. They will rise from the
dust and each man will recognize his fellow man, and so will husband and
wife, father and son, brother and brother. All will come to the Messiah
from the four corners of the earth , from east and from west, from north
and from south. The Children of Israel will fly on the wings of eagles
and come to the Messiah... (Ma’ase Daniel as quoted in Patai, p. 143).
While the historical emphasis of the holy day is
repentance, the prophetic theme looks for the future day when the full
spiritual regathering will occur under the Messiah. AlI the details
of Rosh HaShanah become more interesting as we consider the New Testament
and the life of Yeshua. The bulk of biblical evidence has led me
to agree with those who say the Messiah’s birth took place in the late
fall, not the winter. If this is true, we can approximate the time when
Yeshua started his public ministry. As Luke notes in his Gospel (3:23),
Yeshua was “about thirty years old” thus placing his baptism and first
preaching in the fall of that year.
Consider the parallel themes to Rosh HaShanah. Would
it be surprising that Yeshua took a special immersion/mikveh in the fall
of the year (Matthew 3:13-17)? Is there a relationship to the forty day
period of testing by the adversary (Matthew 4: 1-11 )? And what was the
message Yeshua immediately started proclaiming after the forty days? “Turn
from your sins to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near!”
What better time could there have been for the Messiah
to start his earthly ministry than the time of the spiritual new year?
The historical evidence seems to indicate the month of Elul served as the
perfect time of preparation for the greatest spiritual message ever to
come to Israel: return to God, Messiah has come!
There is rich prophetic truth associated with this
Feast of Trumpets. As it characterizes a time of ingathering and spiritual
preparation, a future fulfillment of Rosh HaShanah is also alluded to.
In speaking of the future regathering of the believers in Messiah, commonly
called the “Rapture”, Rabbi Saul (the apostle Paul) reveals an interesting
connection to the holy day:
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a rousing cry,
with a call from one of the ruling angels, and with God’s shofar; those
who died united with the Messiah will be the first to rise; then we who
are left still alive will be caught up (Latin = rapture) with them in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will always be with the
Lord. So encourage each other with these words” (I Thessalonians 4:16-18).
This holy day is a perfect picture of the regathering
of believers! In the future all true believers in Yeshua will be gathered
to meet him in the clouds. The dead in Messiah will rise first, to be followed
immediately by those believers alive at that time. Not surprisingly, the
signal of the gathering will be the sound of the shofar. In fact, the reference
here is to a particular note sounded at Rosh HaShanah. The word normally
translated “shout” in verse sixteen comes from the Hebrew, teruah, better
translated in this context as the “alarm” blast of the shofar. Similar
references to the shofar as the signal of the Rapture can be found elsewhere
in the New Testament (see I Corinthians 15:50-58 and Revelation 4:1).
Another important fulfillment of Rosh HaShanah is the regathering of
the Jewish believing remnant at the second coming of Messiah. As far back
as the seventh century B.C.E., the prophet Isaiah wrote:
In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the
Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites will be gathered up one by one. And
in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria
and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the
holy mountain in Jerysalem” (Isaiah 27:12-13). That this passage
is referring to a latter day gathering of the believing remnant is
clear, and we are still waiting for this shofar to fulfill it. Likewise,
Messiah Yeshua, when asked bout the future of Israel, confirmed this
as a latter day promise in his own teaching:
He (the Son of Man) will send out his angels with a great shofar; and
they will gather together his chosen people from the four winds, from one
end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:3 1 ).
Believers In Yeshua HaMashiach should have a fond appreciation for this rich holy day, Rosh HaShanah! It has served historically as a time of spiritual preparation and repentance, both themes we can learn from. Prophetically, we are reminded of God’s promise to regather and restore his chosen people, Israel, in the last day. The sound of the shofar is also a reminder of the blessed hope every messianic believer possesses: we could enter Messiah’s presence at any time (Titus 2:13). Let us give heed to the sound of the shofar and all that Rosh HaShanah has to teach.