The Feast of Trumpets...

The Feast of Trumpets is a Biblical Feast, not a Biblical year. Jewish culture however has adopted the feast of trumpets to be a civil new year call Rosh Hashanah (Head of the year). Again, it is not a Bible New Year, it is a civil one just like January 1 is not a Bible New Year, but it is a civil year for the United States and much of the world. The last thing that I wanted to point out is that there are actually four heads of the year (New Years) marking seasons in Israel that have to do with harvest and the offerings that were made in the temple. So you do not get confused, of the 4 new years in Jewish culture/tradition only one is the Biblical New year marking the beginning of months, the Biblical New Year is not Rosh Hashanah/Yom Teruah.

What makes Yom Teruah important:
Well first and formost, God commanded us to celebrate His feasts and Yom Teruah is a feast of the Lord. This is not just a Jewish thing, this is a Bible thing! the Bible tells us these very few verses on how the Feast of Trumpets must be observed. 

Leviticus 23:23-25 - 23 The Lord said to Moses, 24 “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. 25 Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord.’”

Numbers 29:1-6 - “On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a sacred assembly. You are to do no laborious work. It is for you a day for sounding the shofar. 2 You are to prepare a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to Adonai: one young bull from the herd, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old, without flaw, 3 with their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, three tenths of an ephah with the bull, two tenths with the ram, 4 and one tenth with each of the seven lambs, 5 as well as one male goat as a sin offering to make atonement for yourselves. 6 Also offer the burnt offering for the month with its grain offering, the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their appropriate drink offerings as a pleasing aroma to Adonai, as an offering by fire.

There was a question that I posed to my Jewish community saying, “If we read from the book of Moses to observe the Bible according to the way it is written, how would we go about celebrating this holiday?” They responded, “I do not know"! This is because traditions have been made to make sure that the command to observe the day is fulfilled. Let me tell you that tradition is not a bad thing, the bad thing lies when you do not observe God's Word to proclaim Him as King! I find that many people in the world are afraid of the observance of these holidays, because they do not know how to do it! However, when you look into the Bible, you see that God calls those that He has called to Himself to observe this feast by 

  1. Resting
  2. Blowing the Shofar
  3. Having a Holy convocation
  4. Bringing an offering to the Lord

These are 4 basic things that God asks for people to do. That’s it! I rather observe the holiday to the best I can according to God's Word to us then not observe it at all and risk losing a blessing! There's a reason why my name is Jacob, I holding on till I'm blessed.

Of-course, Jewish culture has picked up many ways to observe the feast based on these four commands. As a part of the Jewish community, the most important thing to us is Loving God and the second thing to Love others. In all our services we have come to the understanding that we must follow an order that Blesses/Praises God and encourages us to be a blessing to our community and then to the nations. When we speak blessing, we inspire thus bringing life and wholeness. It is just as God created the Universe, He spoke and there was life and wholeness that filled the earth. “The Whole World is Full of His Glory”. His glory bestowed to the inhabitants of the earth is a Blessing!

When we see the feast of trumpets we can compare it to the beginning and the end of time. In the beginning there was complete rest. Just like before a  music compostion, there is only complete silence, and, though the notes of life exist, the composition is not alive until a force enables for sound to be made. For a trumpet a person must come to contact with a trumpet in a specific way and blow into it in a certain way for the trumpet to sound in a particular way to hit the frequencies/notes as specifically composed on the piece of music. Wow, that is a lot! Other names for this holiday is Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance) and Yom Hadin (Day of Judgement)

How life began is an unbelievable thing to fathom, yet, God enabled us to be able to fathom it! Ain’t that interesting?! The Feast of trumpets calls all to fathom the goodness of God that fills the whole earth. To fathom is to come to a complete rest to observe, measure, and take in… to understand. When you take the time to understand something, you are placing the value of your livelihood to it. God wants us to rest in Him and behold His goodness, and so we blow the shofar to declare the coming of our great King so that all can behold the beauty and awesomeness of our God. The blowing of the Trumpet allows people to be awakened/alerted to their suroundings, and as people are gathered by the sound of the shofar, in order to approach God we are called to separate ourselves from that which is mundane. Like a fire drill, we stop our business to gather outside of the place in which there is a fire. Those who keep themselves in the secular neglect their faith in God and they will be separated forever left out of God’s remembrance punished with complete darkness and unquenchable burning. The holy convocation recognizes those that bring an offering to God, but not just any offering… a specific offering of oneself. God was pleased in Able’s offering and not Cain’s offering, because Abel gave of himself (the best of His livelyhood) where Cain gave of the ground. God gave Cain the opportunity to do better, but in letting sin win, Cain was cursed. Abraham was given an opportunity to do better, and in doing what God asked, God saved Abraham and Isaac by providing the ram. God considers complete faith in Him as righteousness and will not allow you to sin. Instead, because of your faith - not withholding anything from God - God provides to you His goodness. 

As we know, the feast of trumpets is about the trumpets… do you know why the trumpets were blown?Trumpets in Biblical times were either made from rams’ horns (shofars) or from silver, and could be blown by the priests and leaders. There were different sounds for different purposes:

  1. – Time to pack up camp and move on, when the Israelites were traveling in the desert
  2. – Time to gather the people and call an assembly
  3. – To mark a sacrifice on a feast day
  4. – A warning of war or danger
  5. – To praise/Worship
  6. – To declare a procession or feast
  7. – Proclaiming a king
  8. – Assembling the troops for battle
  9. – To be used in battle
  10. – To declare victory
    The sound of the trumpet also has other connotations in the Bible:
  11. – God’s power to raise the dead (1 Corinthians 15:52, 1 Thessalonians 4:16)
  12. – The proclamation of the gospel (Psalms 89:15)
  13. – The bold and faithful preaching of prophets (Isaiah 58:1, Hosea 8:1, Joel 2:1)
  14. – The latter day judgments (Revelation 8:2 and 13)


In the Torah we are commended to blow the shofar, and thus it is important to blow the shofar on the feast of Trumpets. In many Jewish communities following the first reading of the Torah, the shofar is blown about 30 times and about 100 times by the days end. There are 3 blasts of the shofar. Does anyone remember what they are? 

Tekiah, a long blast; shevarim, a series of three short blast; and teruah, at least nine staccato bursts.

The blowing of the shofar represents all the above calling us to reverence and repentance. During Yom Teruah we are reminded of the binding of Isaac (Akedah) which shows God replace the sacrifice of Isaac with a ram. This moment allows us to recognize the  Sacrifice of Yeshua! Yeshua took our place as the ram took Isaacs place. This is vital, because the one who receives the sacrifice of Messiah shall be saved. In remembering the sacrifice of Messiah, it is written that though your sins were as crimson they will be as white as snow. And in Micah it is written that your sins shall be cast into the depths of the sea. In so, a part of the Rosh Hashanah service, we go to a body of water and remember the goodness of God throwing our sins into the sea. This service is called Tashlich.

Rosh Hashanah/Yom Teruah is the beginning of what it means to experience His goodness by going through His judgment. We have been given an opportunity to life, we have been delivered by HaShem from Egypt, we have journeyed through the wilderness, we have been set apart, we have been blessed with the Sacrifice of Messiah, and now WE AWAIT HIS RETURN! In His return, He will establish His kingdom, and those who want to be citizens of the land of the promise have to be willing to get rid of all that is not Holy. In bringing ourselves to complete submission of His Ruling we must openly confess that He is King, He then offers Himself via the day of atonement/confirming the covenant, and He brings us to His dwelling place forever. This is why Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur, and Feast of Tabernacles are vital, it is the representation of the Holy Wedding ceremony, the moment of truth, the finale of all time!

Therefore let us Rejoice for the King is in the Field, He has been anointed and is to be proclaimed as King!
Join us in Proclaiming Yeshua as King this "Feast of Trumpets"!
“And it is said that HaShem shall be King over all the world, and on that day HaShem will be one and His Name One”!

 

L’Shana Tova - To a Good (Civil) Year
&
Ketivah VaChatimah Tova - “A good sealing and inscription” (in the book of life)