Yom Teruah/Rosh HaShanah Basics

This is the fourth in a series of introductory teachings on how to get started on celebrating the Leviticus 23 “Feasts of the Lord” in a sane and enjoyable manner. After all, if there is no enjoyment then what the heck is the point–is God honored by our trudging through the day as though it is a chore? Taking a day off of work and sitting around miserable isn’t honoring God, even if it does make some legalists happy. There are just too many folks doing this “because it is a commandment” but not actually celebrating because (1) they don’t know how, and because (2) Scripture gives almost zero practical guidance (we’re supposed to just know culturally what to do), and (3) because there are a lot of “Feast police” folks out there insisting that you keep them but telling you whatever you do above and beyond what is laid out is pagan. Surprise, surprise–this creates a ton of miserable people who secretly long for Christmas instead because at least they know how to do that and no one was keeping score about how they did it.

I am super tired of people being told “Keep the Feasts or you are a disobedient pagan” only to watch them ask why or even how and have their “helpful” accuser respond, “Read your Bible!” That right there tells me that they have ZERO clue what to do and didn’t even have the knowledge or compassion to be teaching anyone anything in the first place. Condemnation and criticism and nitpicking without guidance is worse than useless, it’s a stumbling block. Don’t be one.

If you can’t be helpful, be quiet instead. It’s less confusing and kinder–and you can spend the time learning what to tell people when they ask you how to do the stuff you tell them they need to be doing. Don’t try to teach algebra if you can’t add or subtract, and don’t change out electrical fixtures while standing in water, just don’t.

Lev 23 23 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. 25 You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord.”

Here are the instructions–

(1) seventh Biblical month, first day–this isn’t July first but the first day of Tishri, the seventh month starting at the beginning of months (not the same as years, which were calculated agriculturally and we will see that when I teach about Yom Kippur), so the seventh month of the festival calendar which began in the spring.
(2) Observe a solemn day of rest
(3) a memorial proclaimed with blast of trumpets
(4) a holy convocation (meaning a “get-together”)
(5) no ordinary work allowed (meaning your professions or any intensive labor)
(6) present a food offering to the Lord (a specific festival sacrifice to God–obviously impossible now)

(Note: In order to avoid confusion, I always advise new people to either celebrate according to the calculated Rabbinic calendar or to celebrate when their local congregation celebrates. We “kept” first-sliver for years before deciding to celebrate with the Jewish people. It’s a personal choice but all this is terribly confusing to begin with and so I advise simplifying whenever possible)

Anyway, so we have the Feast without a name that occurs on the first day of the seventh Biblical month, which you can find the date of by googling “Rosh HaShanah 2020” or whatever year you are reading this in. If you just did that, you can see it says it starts Friday night, September 18, and ends on Sunday night, September 20. I want you to ignore the two days bit for now, and you might always choose to ignore it, that is traditional outside of the Land of Israel from back in the day when people would not be sure when the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon was in the Land so they kept the Feast for two days and I don’t know of many people who can really afford to take that much time off of work. It’s tradition and there was a reason for it.

Sometimes, especially when people are really attached to one of the names associated with this Feast, they get angry when I point out that it is never specifically given a name like the others. Some folks call it the Feast of Trumpets, or Yom Teruah in Hebrew (meaning Day of Shouting or Blasts), or Rosh HaShanah (Head of the year) and I don’t care very much what your preference is so please don’t send me your arguments–I have heard them all before, believe me. Neither name is wrong or pagan. I am not the Feast police. I care that you celebrate, not about promoting a certain way. It’s just too easy to get hung up on the small stuff or worse, to believe that there is no small stuff. This is for beginners finding their way–not for people who feel as though they are experts wanting everyone to do it their way. Anyway, the Bible calls it a “memorial proclaimed by” but not specifically given a cool moniker. So people have made some up. It’s all cool. Can you imagine talking about it without something to call it? Hey, what are you doing for that memorial festival day thingie where we are supposed to blow trumpets and stuff?

What does this mean? This means that starting at sundown on Friday, September 18 we have what is called a “High Sabbath.” Whereas on a normal weekly Sabbath all work is forbidden, on High Sabbaths you can cook if you want to–unless that day also falls on a normal Sabbath, which it does this year. I just happen to be colossally lazy and I do all my cooking the day before (no matter what) because otherwise, I don’t get a Feast day, I just get another cooking day where I am limited in cleaning up after myself. I will probably spend all day Friday making a brisket (a traditional meal for this day) and a dessert and might make some side dishes. That’s just how I roll. Find what works for you. My friend Matt in Louisiana just cooks nonstop when this holiday falls on a weekday, he loves it.

What about the blast of trumpets?

What we do in my family every year is the Synagogue liturgy for Rosh HaShanah, which involves a lot of praying and praising God for hours and me blowing the shofar (a “trumpet” made from the horn of a kosher animal) one hundred times. If you are planning on doing this, please don’t just order the shofar that week and try blowing it the first time on the Holiday. Unless you are already knowledgable about blowing a trumpet, it’s going to sound like explosive Rhino flatulence and God isn’t particularly going to be honored by that. So practice. This is a worship ceremony, take it seriously if you are going to participate. But it isn’t required. It’s more advanced and I wouldn’t start out my first year or two by going there. Also, when you buy a new one they are sometimes stinky, and I mean offensively stinky, for a long time afterward and you don’t want to gag into the horn. You just don’t.

If you can’t blow the shofar, then you can find a youtube video of someone doing it and play it. Some of the ladies and gents out there have some seriously mad skills. Some of the bigger synagogues–you wouldn’t believe what those guys can do with a ram’s horn. That’s a legitimate way to satisfy this commandment–no one says that everyone has to blow a shofar. You don’t get bonus points for the afterlife. The shofar blower is just one element of the Feast. No one is going to hell for not doing this.

Oh, and we weren’t celebrating when my kids were tiny, but I don’t see anything wrong with using the cardboard tubes that come with paper towel rolls and allowing the kids to use those as horns, or even kazoos, for a before bed and early morning and end of the Feast family worship celebration. It can be done without being disrespectful. Kids can be pretty good about such things when they know it is important. When I have grandkids, hopefully not soon, I plan on doing this. Getting kids involved is so important.

Also, be mindful that some special needs family members, those with autism or PTSD, might find the loud blast of the trumpet alarming. There are always compassionate allowances we must made in such circumstances, and this blog might help with that.

The get-together part is nigh impossible for most Christians who want to celebrate because very few churches observe this commandment (which teaches us important eschatological truths about the future kingship on earth of our Messiah and especially about the season of His return) and a lot of folks just don’t live near any Synagogue, must less a Messianic Synagogue. You can find youtube livestreams to various congregations who participate, so that might work for you. It isn’t optimal, but these commandments were given with the understanding that believers wouldn’t be scattered all over the face of the earth with sometimes no local group who participates. Do your best, and enjoy it!

What about the food? Well, there are some traditional dishes that the kids especially might really enjoy. Whereas Shavuot focuses on dairy dishes traditionally, on this day the traditions include dipping apples in honey, dipping challah bread in honey, pomegranates, and fish heads. I skip the fish heads, but for those who participate, they hold up the fish head and ask that God make them fruitful like the fish. Your kiddos might get a huge kick out of it, and asking for blessings is never a bad idea.

I am not going to go into great detail because the point of this is to give you ideas for a starting point so that you will feel empowered and not overwhelmed. Our Savior kept this feast, and Paul reminded us that all of the Feasts are a foreshadowing of good things to come, the reality and revelation is and will be found in our Messiah beginning with the Passover on which He was slain, and continuing to that Shavuot when the Spirit came down upon the assembled believers at the Temple in Jerusalem. In the future, we will see the fulfillment of the Fall Feasts as well.

If you want more information about academic sort of stuff and some of the controversies folks might try and sidetrack you with, here are some of my other teachings:

Here is a Context for Kids Video about Rosh HaShanah: The Enthronement of our King

and another one about the agricultural calendar that started in the fall Torah Portion Phineas–Did Noah Have a Different Calendar?

Rosh HaShanah, the Gezer Calendar, and the “Higher Criticism” Myth of Akitu Origins

Rosh HaShanah and the Barren Woman 

New Moon/Full Moon? Psalm 81 and its Yom Teruah/Rosh HaShanah Context

And new this last year, a podcast about Rosh HaShannah and some of the controversies.



Question: “How Do I Find Meaning in the Feasts of the Lord?”

How do I find meaning in the Feasts of the Lord?
 
(I won’t accept any comments about Christmas and Easter, or digs at our mainstream Christian brothers and sisters or Christianity because that is not the point of this message and never should be. We have spent too much time looking in the rearview mirror and not enough focusing on our Biblical heritage.)
 
One of the most common questions I get before the Feasts – and I am not making fun or anyone or criticizing here because I struggle with this as well – is the result of a mindset that was trained into us in mainstream Christianity and therefore is entirely understandable and natural. In fact, it is terribly difficult to break out of because we don’t even realize that the question itself is not the right question but instead a symptom of a much larger problem.
 
“How do I find meaning in the Feasts/how do I make the Feasts meaningful for X.”
 
Now that didn’t seem like a strange question, did it? Of course not. We were brought up in a commercialized mess around Christmas and Easter, and the slogans abounded – “don’t forget the true meaning.” We therefore just naturally learned to think about modern Christian observances in those terms, because it really was hard to think about the “true meaning” in the midst of an incredibly secular holiday that bore little resemblance to anything that Yeshua (Jesus) or the apostles would have done in their lives. As individualists, it is vitally important to us that we find personal meaning in what we do, and we don’t like doing things that don’t have meaning to us – as though God should only be acknowledged in praise if we are in the mood, despite our need and obligation to acknowledge His glory even when we don’t “feel it.”
 
So when we find out about the Feasts, we are very used to holidays that were tailor made to “have meaning for us” and were frankly designed to appeal to all our desires for fulfillment through entertainment, gift giving and receiving, celebration dinners, wonderful family times, lavish decorations designed to engage the senses, etc. We are used to “holy days” being a lot of fun by modern standards. We lost sight of why God’s holy days were actually enjoyable to His people in Yeshua’s day.
 
Feasts in Yeshua’s day were enjoyable because all the people in the Land, and some from far off Lands, had all come together to worship the King of kings and Lord of lords. That was a good enough reason for them to be joyful – it thrilled their hearts to hear the Levites sing Psalms and play instruments. It was meaningful for them to watch the daily Tamid offerings in God’s honor. The meaning of the Feasts was not about them, their enjoyment or personal fulfillment – they naturally felt enjoyment and were personally fulfilled because their God was being exalted. They heard His Name being praised and that was enough, they found joy in it. They saw the Temple ceremonies, and that was enough, they found joy in it.
 
Ancient people intrinsically understood that worship was not about themselves and they didn’t need to find deep meaning in it – they knew the God/god/goddess was deserving of all honor, glory, and praise and it gave them joy when that was being performed. They worshiped not as individuals but as a community, on the same day and doing the same exact things and that oneness gave their praise all the meaning it needed.
 
We, on the other hand, are just shamelessly individualistic and we seek out the meaning for ourselves, for personal reasons to get us in the mood. It is very important “what this means to me, ” and that feeling is amplified when we no longer have the shared cultural experiences of Christmas and Easter when even the secular world joins in the celebration to one extent or another; we still derive meaning and satisfaction and relief when we are joined with many other voices in what we are doing, as if that lends a sense of legitimacy in our psyche.
 
When we switch over to the Feasts, we find ourselves in a pickle with Biblical days that look incredibly foreign to us and are not designed to appeal to our traditional sensibilities of what it looks like to honor God; we often unconsciously seek that same sort of meaning in the new/old as we did in the Christian celebrations. Add to that the unfortunate tendency of too many to tear down absolutely anything “traditional” – often due to a lack of understanding – and people feel empty and drifting. On top of that, some desire to “only do what Scripture says” when Scripture gives us about 30 minutes worth of instructions and leaves us flat the rest of the day. I don’t know about you, but I can only eat and drink so much before I am not joyful anymore.
 
We have a problem – we subconsciously want to find meaning in the Feasts on Christian terms while pushing away Christianity and want to find our Hebrew Roots without looking at how the Jews do things. We end up, all too frequently, between worlds – turning our noses up at anything that looks Christian while still seeking out the kinds of joy we had at Christmas and Easter, and shunning anything Jewish while deeply desiring the obvious joy that they take in the Feasts.
 
End game: we are still approaching things the same old way we did as individualistic Western Christians, except that we no longer have the joy that they have and we refuse to move on to the way community-centered Jews do things and don’t have their obvious joy in worshiping God either. We denounce their traditions and “Halakah” and are forced to make up our own based on what little is written in Scriptures – and then lament that we find little joy or meaning in them. Food for thought, “Why is our Halakah, our made up traditions based on what we think the text is saying, any superior to theirs?”
 
Of course, we find no joy! – If our goal is to find meaning for ourselves when the meaning is and always has been the exaltation of God through community psalms, prayers, dancing, feasting and yes, traditions – then we will fail. If our goal is simply to not do things in a Jewish or Christian way and presume that what we come up with will be more “authentic” then again, the focus is on ourselves and our own efforts. We spend anti-holy days – days devoted to not doing this or that instead of days devoted to God. It feels righteous at first, but all too often our efforts are fear-based, and an exercise in futility – and they become self-righteous instead.
 
Feasts are not about us; they are about the worship we owe to the Creator, to come together as one on set days and be united in our praises. That is what we should take joy in, the way that collective praise thunders through the universe on set days. It isn’t about us – it’s a celebration of what He has done for us.
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Is there meaning in the Feasts beyond that? Of course – historically and spiritually, at the plain text as well as in the deepest mystical levels, there is a fountain of meaning deeper than the universe itself – but first, we have to learn to take joy in something that, at its most basic and profound levels, is all about Him. We must learn to worship without any part of it being about us.