Rosh Hashanah

Introduction

Welcome to Torah Today Ministries and a series called Divine Appointments, our studies in the moadim (מוֹעֲדִים) which means the appointed times. There are seven appointed times in the Torah and then there are two additional holy days that were added to the biblical calendar. Hanukkah (חֲנֻכָּה) and Purim (פּוּרִים). And so I planned this is the first in a series of teachings on these special times during the year.

So now this first one on Rosh Hashanah (רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה), I had planned to be a two-parter. We’re going to talk about Rosh Hashanah, but also the month of Elul (אֱלוּל), the month right before Rosh Hashanah, the new year. And I’m recording this in the month of Elul. It is a very special month on the calendar and there’s much to say about it, but recently Robin and I did a Breadcrumbs episode where we talked about Elul and I think I said about everything I have to say about Elul in that discussion. So I’ll put a link to that at the bottom of your screen. You can check on that later. And so instead of listening to two teachings on it, you can just go to that to hear what we had to share about this special month of Elul where we prepare our hearts for the high holy days.

The Meaning of Rosh Hashanah

Now Rosh Hashanah as you can see in Hebrew is two words. Rosh (רֹאשׁ) means head. It also means the beginning. When you’re at the head of something, you’re at the beginning of something. Hashanah (הַשָּׁנָה) – the year. Head of the year or the new year.

So let’s first take a look at the context in which Rosh Hashanah takes place. Rosh Hashanah is the first of the fall holy days. And I’m going to have to keep moving this back and forth so you can see all seven of the holy days.

The Seven Moadim – Spring Holy Days

But let’s begin with the spring. I could have started in the spring with Passover or I can start in the fall with Rosh Hashanah. Makes a little difference where you start. They’re six months apart. But just to give us context, let’s take a look at what the spring holy days or moadim are.

Now all three of these holy days take place within the same month and that’s the month of Nisan (נִיסָן). Okay. Passover, Pesach (פֶּסַח), where we have our Passover seders, we’re familiar with that, is also the first day of the week of unleavened bread. And sometimes this is called the week of Passover, which is just fine. So you have the week of unleavened bread, but the first day of that week is the official day of Passover proper.

And then the third day after Passover is the day of first fruits. And you’re probably aware of the wonderful things that happened in that year that Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ) came and he died on Passover. He unleavened our lives, so to speak, by taking our sins upon himself. And then on the third day, on the day of first fruits, he arose from the dead as the first fruits of those who slept. So his resurrection is on the day of first fruits. This is the first fruits of the barley harvest.

There are three first fruits holidays during the year. The barley harvest on first fruits, third day after Passover. Then there’s the wheat harvest which takes place 49 days later. Actually 50 days later after Passover we count the days, day one, day two, day three up to 49. 7 weeks, 7 times 7. And then you come to the next day which is Pentecost or Shavuot (שָׁבוּעוֹת) which is the word sevens. This is sometimes called the feast of weeks. Pentecost comes from the word that means 50 if I’m not mistaken. It’s a Greek word but Shavuot is what is referred to in scripture. This is the first fruits of the wheat harvest. And Shavuot is in the middle. It’s number four and it just kind of hangs out there in the middle by itself.

The Seven Moadim – Fall Holy Days

But then we come to the fall and these last three holy days also occur all in one month’s time within the same month. The month of Tishrei (תִּשְׁרֵי). Rosh Hashanah is the very first day of Tishrei. 10 days later is the day of atonement. Yom HaKippurim (יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים). 5 days after that is the feast of tabernacles or Sukkot (סֻכּוֹת). And this is the third day of first fruits. This is the first fruits of the fruit harvest, the grapes and the pears and the apples and so on.

So you have the first fruits of the barley harvest, then the first fruits of the wheat harvest, then the first fruits in the fall of the fruit harvest.

Now it’s interesting if I can shrink this down so you can see the entire page. I mentioned before that these first three moadim all occur in the same month. The last three all occur in the seventh month. This is in the first month in the spring and these last three take place in the seventh month in the fall. Pentecost is there in the middle so to speak and you begin to see a menorah (מְנוֹרָה) pattern where these first three balance out the last three.

Another interesting thing is that the first three begin with a 7-day period. You have the week of unleavened bread, the week of Passover. And then Tabernacles, the very last of the holy days also lasts for a full week. So you begin the holiday season in the spring with a 7-day holiday and you end in the fall with another 7-day holiday which connect together. Again it makes a beautiful menorah pattern.

Now these last two, Hanukkah and Purim, these are not in the Torah. These came later. Purim is described in the book of Esther. Hanukkah, the only place it is mentioned is over in the Gospels in John chapter 10. And these also are two very important additions to the calendar. And they also balance each other out. And we’ll look at them later on as we go through this series.

The Three Feasts

Last of all, you’ll notice I have three of these holy days, Passover, Pentecost or Shavuot, and Tabernacles highlighted in yellow because these are the three feasts. Of all the holy days, only three of them are called feasts.

A wonderful book I recommend it. It’s been around since I think 1995 or something is called “The Feasts of the Lord.” It’s by Kevin Howard and Marvin Rosenthal. Great book. It is beautifully illustrated, easy to read, and it does a very thorough job of describing what the Bible says about these holy days, how they are celebrated traditionally, what their prophetic significance is, what they mean to us as Messianic believers in Yeshua. Great book. The only issue I have with it is the title. They call the book “The Feasts of the Lord.” But only three of these holy days are feasts. And these three are the three feasts when the males in Israel are commanded to go to Jerusalem to the place that God designates to record his name. They are to go and they are to rejoice before the Lord, bring their sacrifices, their first fruits, and so on three times a year. And it’s like if you’re going to God’s house, God says, “Come to my house, but when you come, we’re going to eat.” But those are the three feasts. The others are not feasts.

So let’s get back to Rosh Hashanah. And by the way, if you need convincing that there are only three feasts, 2 Chronicles 8:13 says:

“As the duty of each day required, offering according to the commandment of Moses for the Sabbath, the new moons, and the three annual feasts. Here they are. The feast of unleavened bread, the feast of Shavuot, and the feast of Sukkot.” (2 Chronicles 8:13)

There are only three feasts. So let’s not make the error of referring to all the holy days as feasts. They’re not. Only three are. In fact, Yom Kippur (יוֹם כִּפּוּר) is a fast, not a feast.

Yom Teruah – The Day of Blowing

But what about Rosh Hashanah? The feast of trumpets or Yom Teruah (יוֹם תְּרוּעָה) as it’s called in the scriptures. What’s that all about? Well, it’s only mentioned two places. Two places, both in the Torah. And here they are.

“And Adonai (יהוה) spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel saying in the seventh month, that’s Tishrei, on the first day of the month you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blowing, a holy assembly.” (Leviticus 23:23-24)

Now in the Hebrew that phrase “of blowing” doesn’t use the word trumpets there. It just says “of blowing.” And but we can assume that’s referring to blowing trumpets. So it’s the day of blowing of trumpets, a holy assembly. But I put “of trumpets” in brackets because it’s not there in the Hebrew.

And then the second reference:

“On the first day of the seventh month, you shall have a holy assembly. You shall not do any ordinary work or any laborious work, a day of blowing. It shall be for you.” (Numbers 29:1)

And again, trumpets is not mentioned. It’s implied, but it’s a day of blowing of trumpets. And the trumpets that were blown, of course, were shofars (שׁוֹפָרוֹת). These were horns from a kosher animal.

Why the Seventh Month is Special

Now here’s the thing. Here’s the question. So on the first day of the seventh month, they were to blow horns. Just have blowing. But the thing is, you would blow the shofar on the new moon of every month, 12 months a year. The first month or the new moon, you’d always blow the shofar. It was just traditional, something that was done.

So what’s so special about the seventh month? Why on the seventh month are we especially directed to make it a day of blowing the shofars? You know, here in Psalm 81:3-4, it says:

“Blow the shofar at the new moon. At the full moon, on our feast day.” (Psalm 81:3)

And let me mention here that in the biblical calendar the phases of the moon starting with a new moon all the way to when the moon wanes and goes back to nothing, that perfectly aligns with the month. The months of the biblical calendar align with a new moon up to the full moon in the middle of the month and then the waning till the month goes away and the moon goes away and there’s no light.

So the new moon is always the first of the month. There’s no exceptions to that. In fact, the word for month and the word for moon are the same word. And in English, the word month, M-O-N-T-H, comes from the word moon, M-O-O-N. So unlike our calendars where the phases of the moon are not in sync with the beginning and end of the month, in the biblical calendar, they perfectly align. New moon, new month.

So it says, “Blow the shofar at the new moon. At the full moon, on our feast day.” What is that referring to? There are two holy days that occur on full moons. That would be around the 14th, 15th of the month, right in the middle of the month when the moon is full. And that would be Passover, which is at the very beginning, and Sukkot, the feast of tabernacles, at the end of the moadim. Those both begin on a full moon.

Rosh Hashanah, though, is the only holy day that begins on a new moon. It’s the only one of the seven.

“For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.” (Psalm 81:4)

And also:

“On the day of your gladness also and at your appointed feasts, those are the three feasts, and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God. I am Adonai your God.” (Numbers 10:10)

So every month, 12 months out of the year, the new moon was announced with the blowing of shofar. Now if you’re in the temple or at the temple area in Jerusalem they didn’t use shofars. They actually used trumpets. They had silver trumpets that were blown. So here in Hebrew the word is not shofar. It’s the word chatzotzrot (חֲצוֹצְרוֹת) which means trumpets, the silver trumpets, but everywhere else it’d be shofars.

Two Beginnings of the Year

So, just a little review here. The first month of the year is Nisan, and it should be spelled N-I-S-A-N, but sometimes it’s spelled N-I-S-S-A-N, but it sounds like the foreign car, doesn’t it? And in that first month, you had Passover, unleavened bread, and first fruits. Then six months later in the seventh month, the month of Tishrei, you kicked it off with Rosh Hashanah on the first day of the month. Again, it’s the only moadim that occurs on the first day of a month. And during the month of Tishrei, you had Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot. Hanging out in the middle in between would be Shavuot, the day of Pentecost.

Now some people contend, well, Rosh Hashanah, that term “head of the year” is not found anywhere in scripture. And you’re right, it isn’t. It’s not there. So how did the first day of Tishrei come to be identified as New Year’s Day, as the first day of the year? Because after all, back in Exodus it tells us that Nisan back in the spring is the first month of the year.

“Adonai said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month, this is the month of Nisan, shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.” (Exodus 12:1-2)

And no one argues that Nisan isn’t the first month of the year. It is the first month. We begin counting the months with Nisan in the spring when Passover and the week of unleavened bread and the first fruits of the barley harvest take place. Those all happen in the first month. Nisan, no argument about that.

So the first month of the year is in the spring and then in the seventh month on the new moon, how can we call that the beginning of the year? Rosh Hashanah.

Well, you know, as you’ve heard me teach many times before, everything comes in twos. We also have two beginnings of the cycle of the year. We have the first of the month, the first month here in the spring. That’s Nisan. But the first day of the year is in the seventh month on Rosh Hashanah.

So, we count the months from the spring, but we count the days from the fall.

Now, if this sounds a little weird to you, think for a moment. If I ask you when is the first day of the year, you say January 1st. If I say what is the first day of the school year, then depending on where you live, it would be sometimes the end of August or early in September. If I ask you what is the beginning of the fiscal year, it depends on what business I’m talking about. For many people, it’s June 1st or July 1st. If you are talking about politics, the presidential year, well, I believe it’s in January is when there’s a new president is when he is sworn into office and they have his inauguration. So, the presidential year… We have all these different beginnings depending on the kind of year we’re talking about.

Well, in the Bible, the year has two beginnings. You have the first of the month with Nisan in the spring, but you have the first day of the year at the beginning of the seventh month, six months later at the beginning of Tishrei.

The Spiritual Significance of Two Beginnings

I’ll be talking about this more when we get to Passover. But let me just drop this little hint to you. Why would there be two beginnings? What’s the spiritual significance? Because I’m always interested in what is the spiritual significance, the spiritual insight that God wants to illustrate with this.

Well, I mentioned earlier that in the spring holy days, significant things happened in the life of Messiah. Crucified on Passover, took away our sins, which begins the week of unleavened bread, taking the leaven out of our lives. On the third day after Passover, he rose from the dead on the day of first fruits. And then as you count the 50 days, the seven weeks, the 50 days to Shavuot, which celebrates the day that God spoke from Mount Sinai, it’s the beginning of the wheat harvest. What happened then? God empowered his community with his holy spirit. At Sinai, fire rested on the top of the mountain, but at Shavuot, it rested on the heads of the apostles.

So we see significant things happening in those first four holy days. I can only imagine that in the first century the apostles and all the thousands who came to faith in Yeshua that when Yom Teruah, the first of Tishrei, rolled around they’re probably all expecting some great manifestation of Messiah, maybe his return.

But Rosh Hashanah came and went, nothing happened. Yom Kippur came and went, nothing happened. Sukkot came and went and nothing happened.

What I’m saying is this: that there in the first century when Yeshua died, was buried, was resurrected, and ascended, incredible things happened that fulfilled the spring holy days. But the fall holy days, after this long gap, the fall holy days will be fulfilled upon his return.

Because we know he’ll descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the shofar, the sound of the shofar. And there are various passages in 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4, Revelation 11 that talk about Messiah’s return accompanied by the blast of the shofar.

And so we can expect some kind of fulfillment in the future at his return during these fall holy days. In fact, this is the year 2025 as I record this and there’s a lot of chatter going on that this Rosh Hashanah, this feast of trumpets is when Messiah is coming back. We’ll see. That’s wonderful if he does. I need to get this posted quick so you can listen to it before he comes. But it might be another hundred years before he comes. I don’t know. We need to be prepared to meet him every moment of every day.

So all of that to say, just as there’s a beginning of months in the spring, a beginning of the days in the fall, for humanity, you have one of two beginnings.

For myself and probably for you listening, your beginning of your experience in your walk with Messiah began with what he did when he came the first time, when he came and he gave himself as a sacrifice for our sin to take away our sins to bring salvation. And so we count our walk with Messiah by what he did in the past.

But there are many people who don’t know what he did. I think especially of the Jewish community who attach no significance to Yeshua’s first coming. But they’ll attach significance to his return. For them, their walk with Messiah will begin upon his return because when he returns, there’s going to be incredible repentance. They’ll all look to him. Every eye will see him. Everybody will see him. They’ll look upon him whom they have pierced. And they will open their hearts to him and they’ll repent and they’ll receive him. Their walk will begin with Rosh Hashanah, the first of the days.

So there’s two beginnings because spiritually some begin with what Yeshua did. Some will begin with his return. But regardless of where you start, you will then embrace the other that you’re moving up towards. But again, we’re getting ahead of myself. We’ll talk about that more in the spring.

Exodus 34:22 – The Turn of the Year

But how do we know that Rosh Hashanah is actually the beginning of the year? Well, tucked away in Exodus 34:22 is this interesting passage:

“Observe the feast of Shavuot with the first gathered produce of the wheat harvest.” (Exodus 34:22a)

As I said, Shavuot is the beginning of the wheat harvest. So as a reminder here to observe the feast of Shavuot with the first gathered produce of the wheat harvest. And then he skips ahead to the end of the season to the last first fruits day, the fruit harvest, and says:

“And the feast of ingathering at the turn of the year.” (Exodus 34:22b)

This is the only place that phrase is found, but the feast of ingathering is always understood to refer to the fruit harvest, the grapes and apples and all the wonderful fruits. And when do they do that? At the turn of the year. In other words, the turn of the year takes place in the seventh month, not in the first month.

So the beginning of the months is in Nisan. The beginning of the year is in Tishrei. We have two beginnings. So it’s perfectly appropriate to call this first day of Tishrei Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year.

And again, as I was asking earlier, you blow the shofar at the beginning of every month. But why at the beginning of Tishrei do you have all this blowing of shofar? Why is it such a huge deal then? Because not only is it the beginning of the month, it’s the beginning of the year.

Names for This Day

Now, there are several names for this day. Yom Teruah (יוֹם תְּרוּעָה) is the only one found in scripture. But “trumpets,” mistakenly called “feast of trumpets,” but it’s not a feast, is often called the Feast of Trumpets. And if you want to eat on that day, that’s wonderful. We kind of feast anyway even though the Bible does not call it a feast day. And then of course also Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year.

Traditional Events on Rosh Hashanah

Traditionally there are a number of events that supposedly took place on this day in biblical history and Jewish history and legend. It’s believed that the creation of Adam and Eve took place on Rosh Hashanah, that the birthday of the world, the head of the year, was also the birthday of Adam and Eve. So Rosh Hashanah is kind of a birthday party.

But also according to Jewish tradition, Adam and Eve didn’t make it 24 hours before they sinned. The day they were created was also the day that they ate of that forbidden fruit.

It was also a day of man’s repentance because they were so sorry for what they did, but it was too late. They were removed from the garden.

And Rosh Hashanah is seen as a day that begins the 10 days of awe or the 10 days of repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Those 10 days are the days of awe. I’ll talk about those more in the next teaching that has to do with Yom Kippur.

And it is the day of man’s exile from the garden.

And also there’s a tradition that the Akedah (עֲקֵדָה), the binding of Isaac, when Abraham took his son Isaac up to the top of Mount Moriah and took him up to sacrifice him, that that was on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Tishrei. That’s a strong tradition. There’s another one that says no, it’s actually 10 days later, it’s on the day of Yom Kippur that he did this. So we’re not sure. There again there are those two traditions and both days are good days to recount the story of the Akedah.

How is Rosh Hashanah Celebrated?

Now there are a lot of answers I could give to this question. How is Rosh Hashanah celebrated? And again this is where I would point you to Howard and Rosenthal’s book “The Feasts of the Lord.” And there are many great books out there on the moadim. And this is one of the first ones I read and still one of my favorites. And in there you can read about all the traditions and different things that are done.

One of my favorites is that after our Erev Rosh Hashanah service we’ll always have sliced apples and bowls of honey and you’ll take a slice of apple and dip it in the honey. It is delicious and you wish one another a sweet year and it’s just a beautiful sweet tradition.

And there are a number of things. I’m going to bring up two things. Two that to me are the most meaningful and you can read about all the others on your own.

The Commandment to Hear the Shofar

First of all, it’s considered a commandment to hear the shofar blown. You’re not commanded to blow the shofar yourself. I can barely get any sound to come out of it myself. So, I’m glad that’s not a commandment or I would be sunk.

But the rabbis have always interpreted this as a commandment to hear the shofar blown. They are to be blown, but it’s important for us to hear it. In fact, the blessing that is said before the blowing of the shofar is this:

“Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, who has sanctified us by his commandments and instructed us to hear the sound of the shofar.”

And I think they go back to Mount Sinai when it talks about the sound of the shofar being heard. It got louder and louder and louder. And it was like God getting their attention, waking them up, saying, “I’m about to speak, so listen to this.”

Because the shofar is a very primitive sound and it’s a harsh sound in many ways. There’s something spiritually beautiful about it, but to the ears it’s not all that beautiful. I think if we’re perfectly honest, it’s a very raw, primitive, unrefined sound. It’s alarming, but I think that’s his purpose. It’s to be God’s spiritual alarm clock to wake us up.

Tashlich – Casting Away Sins

Another tradition I think is a beautiful tradition. It’s been done for many centuries and that’s called Tashlich (תַּשְׁלִיךְ). So you would have your service in the evening at sundown when Rosh Hashanah begins, the shofars would be blown, have your apples dipped in honey, but the next day you would go to a body of water. It could be a river, a lake, an ocean. Makes no difference. A small creek.

And you would have some crumbs and lint in your pockets. And you go out to pray. You go out to confess your sins. And you throw what’s in your pockets into the water. These breadcrumbs and whatever. Just throw them in the water. It’s a picture of repentance, of getting those things out of your life that have just kind of accumulated and you shouldn’t have there.

And does this sound familiar to you? Prove it. If it does, it should because at the beginning in the spring before Passover, we’re to clear our homes of leaven. Leaven is always a picture of sin. You’re to cleanse your home of leaven. But here now, 6 months later, we are to take those personal things, not in our homes, but in our own pockets, those deeper things, those things that are closer to us, and go out and throw them in the water, get rid of them.

In the spring, we would take the leaven that is found, you burn it in a fire. That’s how it’s disposed of. But here, we take them and we throw them in the water to dispose of them that way.

And the traditional Tashlich prayer is:

“Who is a God like you who pardons iniquity and overlooks the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retains not his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again have mercy upon us. He will subdue our iniquities and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.”

So Tashlich is a tangible way of kind of acting this out and making it more real to us. It’s a beautiful tradition. Again, not a commandment, but it’s a tradition and it’s a beautiful one. It’s meaningful and I encourage you to engage in it.

Rabbi Schneerson’s Quote

I love this quote by Rabbi Schneerson. “Rosh Hashanah is the day on which we proclaim God’s sovereignty of the universe and commit ourselves to obey and serve him.”

How different from a typical New Year in America on January 1st when people get drunk, listen to bad music, act foolish and are filled with regrets the following morning. Whereas here with Rosh Hashanah, we take it very seriously. The idea is not to get drunk but to hear the sound of shofar and to wake up. And then to go through this symbolic act of getting rid of those things in our lives that should not be there. Instead of engaging in sin like the world does on their new year, we want to get rid of any accumulation of wrongdoing and sins and things that we need to repent of. We want to get rid of those and start with purity.

Wake Up to the Spiritual

Here’s what I always think of when I think of Rosh Hashanah and the blowing of the shofar. And this is it. It’s simply put: Wake up to the spiritual. Wake up to the spiritual.

It’s so easy to get lulled asleep and become numb with the physical comforts that we’re surrounded with in this modern world. We just kind of wrap the world around us. We have plenty of food. We have houses that are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You can push a button on your phone and food arrives at your door. We can pipe in entertainment, a lot of it that we shouldn’t be watching. We have so much ease, so much comfort, and it’s easy just to roll it around us and become numb and go to sleep.

But every year Rosh Hashanah rolls around and the raw primitive blast of the shofar sounds in our ears and if we truly hear it, it’s as if the voice of God is saying wake up to the spiritual. In other words, wake up to reality. Wake up to reality. Because the spiritual world is the real world, not this physical tangible world that is passing away. It’s the things that are unseen that are eternal because they are truly real.

And we need to once again wake up and realize all the stuff I see around me that I’m so dependent upon for my security, that’s not where my security comes from. It comes from him. And we need to wake up again to faith and to walking in faith with our wonderful loving invisible God.

From Keren to Shofar – The Lesson of Surrender

I want to finish with this lesson which to me is screaming at us the meaning of what Rosh Hashanah is all about and Yom Teruah, this day of blowing the shofars.

On the left on the screen you see an animal’s head with horns and the Hebrew word for horn is the word keren (קֶרֶן). K-E-R-E-N. Not K-A-R-E-N. Keren. That’s a horn, right? So animals have horns, generally have two of them.

But when you cut off the horn and you cut off the tip of the horn and you hollow out the horn, it’s no longer a horn. It’s no longer a keren. It is now a shofar (שׁוֹפָר).

You say, “Well, duh. That’s pretty obvious.” So, what’s the purpose of this?

Well, here’s a typical shofar. And I want you to remember something. This end here used to have an animal attached to it. It was some kind of kudu, I think, is the animal, the African animal. Kind of like the one you see in the picture. It’s like a kind of deer. They have these beautiful horns, but it could be a ram. It could be some other kind of kosher animal.

But there was an animal attached to this horn at one time. And when the animal was attached, this horn was an expression, I should say, of its physical power, its physical danger. And when it wanted to enforce its will, it would ram its head with its horns into its enemy.

I always think of the battle of Jericho. How foolish it would have been if Joshua had brought his men up and said, “Okay, guys, see those walls on that town there? We need to conquer that city of Jericho. So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take all of our animals with horns, our rams and our oxen, and we’re going to point them towards the wall, and on my signal, we’re going to smack them in the rear, have them ram their heads into the wall, and knock those walls down.” I think all you’d done is just stun your cattle. You’d just lost your cattle.

But the horn is a picture of our physical power, our physical prowess, our physical intimidation of others.

And God says, I want you to surrender to me and I want to remove the flesh from this thing. I want to remove the animal from this.

And all of us have potentials. All of us have kerens. When I say we have kerens in our lives, I’m not talking about the neighbor who’s always screaming at your kids because their ball rolled into their yard. I’m talking about these horns. We all have these potentials. We all have these abilities.

And God says, “You’re tired of doing things your own way. Would you die to the flesh? Would you let me just remove the flesh from this thing I’ve given you and then let me hollow it out? Let me dull its point. Let me circumcise your heart, your lips, your ears, and then instead of you with your flesh ramming this into the thing you want to accomplish, it’s going to rest in my hand. Instead of it moving through the world, I’m going to let my breath move through it.

And the place that was occupied by the flesh before becomes occupied by my voice, by my spirit, by my spiritual ways of accomplishing things in this world.

Because it wasn’t by ramming the horns into the walls of Jericho that city came down. It was by blowing air through the shofar. And air doesn’t seem very powerful compared to the walls of Jericho. But when we use these that are submitted fully to God’s lordship and his authority and we allow him to use us the way he wants, all it takes is his breath moving through our shofar, that shofar of our life, our talents, our abilities, our resources, and down come the walls of Jericho.

You see the picture? It’s screaming at us. Whenever you see a shofar, that’s what we should see. There was an animal here that’s gone. There was a point here that’s gone. Instead of this thing moving through the world, God’s breath is now moving through it. And that is how God accomplishes things in this world. Not by us forcing our own ways on the world, but surrendering ourselves to God so he can force his spirit, blow his spirit through us. That’s when wonders happen.

And that’s what we should be thinking about on Rosh Hashanah, the head of the year, and let it set the tone for our entire year and for our lives.

So with that thought, I wish you shalom (שָׁלוֹם) and may God bless.

<u>Teaching Material</u>

All Scripture Passages

Leviticus 23:23-24; Numbers 29:1; Psalm 81:3-4; Numbers 10:10; 2 Chronicles 8:13; Exodus 12:1-2; Exodus 34:22; 1 Corinthians 15:52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 11:15; John 10:22; Esther 9:26-28; Micah 7:19 (ESV)

Hebrew Text Resources

• Leviticus 23 – Hebrew Text (Sefaria)
• Numbers 29 – Hebrew Text (Sefaria)
• Psalm 81 – Hebrew Text (Sefaria)
• Exodus 12 – Hebrew Text (Sefaria)
• Genesis 22 – The Akedah (Sefaria)

Hebrew Word Studies

• H7218 – Rosh (רֹאשׁ) – “Head, beginning, chief”
• H8141 – Shanah (שָׁנָה) – “Year”
• H4150 – Moed (מוֹעֵד) – “Appointed time, festival”
• H8643 – Teruah (תְּרוּעָה) – “Shout, alarm, blowing”
• H7782 – Shofar (שׁוֹפָר) – “Ram’s horn, trumpet”
• H7161 – Keren (קֶרֶן) – “Horn, ray of light”
• H2691 – Chatzotzrah (חֲצֹצְרָה) – “Trumpet (silver)”
• H6453 – Pesach (פֶּסַח) – “Passover”
• H7620 – Shavua (שָׁבוּעַ) – “Week, seven”
• H5521 – Sukkah (סֻכָּה) – “Booth, tabernacle”
• H3722 – Kippur (כִּפֻּר) – “Atonement, covering”
• H435 – Elul (אֱלוּל) – “Sixth month”
• H8394 – Tishrei (תִּשְׁרֵי) – “Seventh month”
• H5212 – Nisan (נִיסָן) – “First month”
• H7965 – Shalom (שָׁלוֹם) – “Peace, completeness”

Additional References

• Torah Today Ministries
• The Feasts of the Lord – Kevin Howard & Marvin Rosenthal
• Rosh Hashanah – Jewish Virtual Library
• Tashlich – My Jewish Learning
• The Akedah (Binding of Isaac) – Sefaria
• Days of Awe – Chabad
• Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson – Chabad
• Shofar Blessings – My Jewish Learning