We recently had Dr. Travis Plumlee come to our church to do some parent conferences and one of the things he talked about was exploring and celebrating Jewish holidays and traditions with our kids, helping to make it real. I did a little research and pulled some things together that we will do in our home this week for Rosh Hashanah. We'll be pulling the trumpet out of the storage shed and running to the store for some apples and honey!
BLOW A TRUMPET!
Leviticus 23:24 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.’
Numbers 29:1 On the first day of the seventh month hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. It is a day for you to sound the trumpets.
Joel 2:15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.
The blowing of the trumpets was understood to be a call to repent and prepare oneself to stand trial before God who would execute His judgment ten days later on the Day of Atonement.
According to this tradition Adam sinned on the very first day of his creation and God forgave him on the same day. Adam was told by God on this day: "Just as you stood before me in judgment on this day and came out free, so your children, who will stand before me in judgment on this day, will be set free.
The shofar "is sounded on Rosh Hashanah to arouse us from our moral reverie, to call us to spiritual regeneration, and to alert us to the need to engage in repentance. The shofar is the clarion call to perform teshuvah–to search our deeds and mend our ways before the awesome day of judgment. It is a reminder of our need to confront our inner selves just as God confronted Adam with the existential question, ‘Where are you?’ (Gen 3:9)
Gen 3: 1-9
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Joel 2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand.
Zephaniah 1:14,16 14 “The great day of the LORD is near— near and coming quickly.
Listen! The cry on the day of the LORD will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there.
15 That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin,
a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, 16 a day of trumpet and battle cry
against the fortified cities and against the corner towers.
Listen! The cry on the day of the LORD will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there.
15 That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin,
a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, 16 a day of trumpet and battle cry
against the fortified cities and against the corner towers.
God will judge…the time is coming!
1 Thess 4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
1 Cor 15:51-52 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
Tashlich, the symbolic casting away of sins into a body of water. After the morning religious service of Rosh Hashanah people go to rivers, oceans, lakes or any body of living waters and recite special prayers of repentance like this: "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea, and may You cast all the sins of Your people, the house of Israel, into a place where they shall be no more remembered or visited or ever come to mind."
Micah 7:19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Ex 2:24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
Summary: · Trumpet: summon His people to repentance, a call to stand trial to give account for one’s deeds and receive the promise of God’s mercy. (upon repentance, our sins are cast away)
· Revelation tells us the books would be opened and the destiny of each individual would be decided..
· Be reassured them that God would remember and vindicate His own on the day of judgment
· Jewish tradition: dip apples in honey --- even though we are sinful men, we have the promise of a sweet life in Christ.
