Truah’s Message: Return to Me
There is one important truth that we, and every Jewish person, must recognize when it comes to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the opening of the Book of Life. This New Year is rooted in tradition, and not in what the Torah actually teaches. By Torah, we mean the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible itself.
Moses did not know of these things. And all other men and women of God, David, Solomon up to and including Ezra and Nehemiah, did not celebrate the New Year in the 7th month, Tishrei. There is also no mention in the Torah that the Book of Life opens on this day. All of this was added over a period of time, since around the first century.
Rosh Hashanah then is a place where one can begin to see a great difference between rabbinical Judaism and Biblical Judaism. Often, when these two titles are mentioned, people, Jews in general, are puzzled. One very surprising tradition is that it is called the Jewish New Year, despite the fact that this feast falls out on he seventh month and despite the fact that the Bible gives only one New Year date, which is at Passover and not on Yom Terouah (Feast of the blowing of the Trumpets). This is a fairly new invention, developed around 2000 years old when the nation of Israel itself was about 3500 years old. Passover, with the giving of the law was designated as the Hebrew calendar’s new year.
And what is amazing is that the entire Jewish nation is following a set of laws with the assumption that it is fully God given, yet it is not even in the Torah. And it is so un-Jewish of us to just follow without asking questions, without scrutinizing the subject. What happened to the Jewish mind concerning Rosh Hashanah? This is the power of religion. Tradition can indeed be beautiful, serving to preserve identity and strengthen a people, yet the difficulty arises when one can no longer clearly discern between the word of the Lord and the word of man.
Let us now go to these Scriptures and look at this great feast and see how it speaks to us today. There we will further understand why the rabbis added so many traditions to this feast, for the explanation given is brief, very brief with little details. Yet, for us, the absence of information speaks volumes, and directs us to other parts of the Scripture for a deeper understanding.
Let us now read Leviticus 23:23–25 Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. ‘You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord.’ ” At first, there is an aura of mystery covering this feast for these two short verses give us little information. In the NASB English translation, there are only 123 words as compared to the number of words for Succoth which are 644 words. Yom Terouah contains less than seven percent the words for all the seven feasts. Why is that? Numbers 29:1-6 also speaks about the Feast of Trumpets, but these verses only list the different offerings done on this particular day.
And even the little information we are given raises more questions than it answers.
We are told that it is called a day of remembering, Yom Hazikaron, but we are not told what we are to remember or what we are to look forward to.
Then we read that it is a day of blowing the trumpets, but why were the Israelites supposed to blow the trumpet? For what purpose exactly? We are not told. Medieval rabbis have asked this same question; Ibn Ezra, a medieval Bible commentator from the 12th century, spoke of religious mysteries when commenting on this feast. Abarbanel, a 15th-century rabbi and bible commentator, asked; Why does the Torah not explain the purpose of this festival? (Commentary on Lev.).
It is indeed an enigma of a feast, for no reasons are given for the Zicharon, for the Terouah, or for the Holy Convocation and all this makes the study of this feast fascinating.
So then, how can we truly grasp the meaning and message of Yom Teruah? Let us take it step by step. The beauty of this feast is that its mystery becomes clear when we look at it within the prophetic plan of the seven feasts of Israel. In fact, the fuller meaning of this feast is revealed in the Brit Hadashah, what we commonly call the New Testament. We must remember that the Brit Hadashah was written by Jewish believers. It is not a separate book, but the continuation of the Tanach, and it is there, in these writings, where many of the mysteries of the Hebrew Bible are explained and brought to light.
Above all, it is there that we find the biography and the teachings of Israel’s Messiah, Yeshua Ha Mashiach and see how He fulfilled all the messianic prophecies of the First Coming of the Messiah.
Let us then look at the prophetic meaning of this feast. When considering the Feast of Yom Terouah, let us first notice one important item that is mentioned: that is, the Shofar.
Let us look at vs.24 one more time. “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.” See the words blowing of the trumpets; it is one word in Hebrew, it is the word Terouah, and this is why this feast is called Yom Terouah. Out of its 37 mentions in the Tanach, here is the first time it appears in the Hebrew Bible.
But what does Teruah mean? The Hebrew word Teruah (תְּרוּעָה) can refer either to the sounding of the shofar or to a loud shout. It is used as an alarm, a warning, or a signal, frequently in the context of impending war, as described in the prophets.
In Jeremiah, it is the sound of the alarm for war as the Babylonians were coming to destroy Jerusalem and the First Temple; Jer.4:19, 20,16, 49:2. In Ezekiel, Amos and Zephaniah, it is translated as the battle cry; Ezek. 21:27 Amos 1:14 Zeph. 1:16.
But this is its very meaning when we consider its placement in the chart of the Feasts of the LORD. It is the first one which triggers the end times for right after it comes Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, which speaks of the time of judgment over the earth, the Tribulation times, and where all wars prophesied will take place.
Thus, the blowing of the shofar on Yom Teruah serves as a summons, a wake-up call pointing to the coming end times. In the same way, both the prophecies of Scripture and the unfolding events of our world today are sounding the alarm, calling Israel to awaken and return to the Lord.
This is the days of Joel where the Shofar sounds twice and where the LORD twice says, “Return to Me with all your heart, Now return to the Lord your God” Joel 2:12-13.
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