christianity's jewish roots
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year)
David Brown
Jews for Jesus
CBN.com
– Rosh Hashanah, or Jewish New
Year, is at once solemn and joyful. It is solemn because of the Awe of judgment.
It is joyful because it represents the hope of the future redemption of Israel.
Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the High Holy Days. It falls on the first
day of the seventh month, according to the Hebrew calendar (see Leviticus 23:23).
It could occur anywhere from the first to the last week of September on the Western
calendar. (Sept. 11, in 1999) It ushers in the ten days of repentance leading
up to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
The name "Rosh Hashanah" literally
means "Beginning of the Year" You may wonder how this can be, since it is called
the first day of the seventh month! The reason is that the Jewish calendar is
built on two cycles-the religious calendar beginning in the Spring, and the civil
calendar beginning in the Fall. In the Torah, the months are never named but only
numbered, beginning with the month of Nisan in the early Spring, which is the
first month according to the religious calendar.
Rosh Hashanah Customs
Among the many traditions of Rosh Hashanah are:
Dipping of bread
into honey after kiddush and ha-Motzi, as a symbol of the hope that the new year
will be sweet.
Dipping pieces of apple into honey, for the same reason.
Also, the apple is said to symbolize the Divine Presence.
Use of
round loaf of bread instead of the usual braided hallah. Some say the round shape
symbolizes a crown. Avoidance of nuts. This is because the numerical value of
the Hebrew word for "nut" is the same as the word for "sin."
Tashlikh ceremony,
in which "sins" are ceremoniously tossed into a river and washed away, as penitential
prayers are said.
The Shofar
The most obvious distinguishing
feature of Rosh Hashanah is the blowing of the shofar, or ram's horn. The Biblical
name for this holiday is in fact Zichron Teruah (Remembrance of the shofar blast),
or Yom Teruah. (Day of the shofar blast). In some English Bibles it is called
The Feast of Trumpets.
Over a thousand years ago, the great Jewish sage
Saadia Gaon came up with ten reasons for sounding the Shofar:
1.The shofar
is associated with the coronation of a King.
2.The shofar heralds the beginning
of the penitential period.
3.The Torah was given amid blasts of a shofar
4.The prophets compare their message to blasts of shofar.
5.It is
a reminder of the Conquering armies that destroyed the temple.
6.It is
a reminder of the Substitutionary Sacrifice of the ram for Isaac.
7.It
fills one with Awe-Amos 3:6.
8. It is associated with Judgment Day-Zephaniah.
1:14, 16.
9.It heralds the Messianic Age, Isaiah 27:13.
10. It heralds
the Resurrection.
Significance
Unlike Passover, the Bible
does not clearly identify Rosh Hashanah with a historical event, so we must look
to tradition to discover its significance.
According to Talmudic tradition,
the Ten Days of Awe which begin at Rosh Hashanah are the time in which God determines
the fate of each human being. On Rosh Hashanah, the wholly righteous are supposedly
inscribed in the Sefer ha-Hayyim, or Book of Life, while the wholly wicked are
inscribed in the Book of Death. The fate of all others hangs in the balance until
Yom Kippur. Consequently, it is a time for introspection, for taking stock of
one's behavior over the past year and making amends for any wrongdoing.
The
Book of Life in the Bible
In chapter 32 of the book of Exodus we find
the first hint of the book of life. Moses has been on the mountain receiving the
Torah while the people of Israel waited below. Seeing that Moses was taking a
long time in returning, the people gave up waiting and made themselves a golden
calf to worship, thus incurring the wrath of God. Moses asks to be "blotted out
of the book" if God will not forgive the sins of the people. (See also Deut. 9:13).
There are a number of other references in the Tanakh which mention God
blotting out or not blotting out someone from the Book. In Psalm 51:3/2, David
asks to have his sins blotted out. Psalm 69:29/28 uses the exact phrase "Book
of Life" See also 2 Kings 14:27, Psalm 9:5/6.
Rosh Hashanah in the Bible
The Torah does not use the term "Rosh Hashanah," but calls this holiday
Yom Teruah, The Day of the Sounding of the Shofar. According to Leviticus 23:23-25,
it was to be celebrated by blowing a shofar, or ram's horn, by resting from all
work, and by calling a holy assembly, and presenting an offering. The offering
is described in Numbers 29:2-6. In Nehemiah 8:2-9 we find Ezra reading the Torah
to the assembled people of Israel on this date. Psalms 93-100 are also believed
to have been composed for Rosh Hashanah.
Modern Observance and Jewish
Tradition
In modern Jewish observance of Rosh Hashanah, the principal
themes are:
1.Repentance (Teshuvah in Hebrew-literally "turning back" to
God).
2.Redemption-restoration of a severed relationship with God.
3.The
coming of Messiah.
4.Judgment.
5.Creation.
The Coming
Messiah
The following quotes underscore the theme of the coming Messiah
in Rosh Hashanah tradition: "The sounding of the shofar is related to the Messianic
theme, and in one tradition, Rosh Hashanah is said to be the time of the ultimate
redemption." - Philip Sigal
"The prayers . . . in many ways allude to God's
enthronement, for the kingship of Heaven materializes with the advent of Messiah,
who presides over the last judgment." - Philip Sigal The Brit Ha-Hadashah (New
Testament) also associates the sound of the shofar with the coming of Messiah.
Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, a book of the Brit Ha-Hadashah, tells us:
"For the Lord himself (i.e., Yeshua ha-Mashiach) will come down from heaven,
with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call (Tekiat Shofar) of God,
and the dead in the Messiah (i.e., those who believed in Yeshua and have died)
will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught
up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will
be with the Lord forever. . . ."-I Thessalonians 4:16 - 17. (Believers refer to
this coming event as the "Rapture," from the Latin word for "caught up.")
The
description of Things to Come given in the Brit ha-Hadashah fits well with all
the modern themes of Rosh Hashanah. In order to participate in the Rapture, one
must 1) Repent: Turn away from sin and toward God. Then you will be personally
2) Redeemed. The soul will be redeemed immediately, and your body on that day
when 3) The Messiah comes again and "we shall all be changed/ we shall be like
him as he is!" (1 Corinthians 15:51, I John 3:2) and therefore ready for the (4)
Judgment.(Revelation 20:11-15) before the world is 5) created anew (Revelation
21).
The Book of Life in the Brit ha-Hadashah
The Concept
of the Book of Life is found in the New Covenant Scriptures as well. In Philippians
4:3, Paul mentions his faithful colaborers as being written in the book of Life.
The book of Revelation, dedicated to the themes of judgment and the coming Messiah,
contains several references to the "Book of Life."
Revelation 3:5 - "he
who overcomes" will not be blotted out.
Revelation 13:8 -- All who are
not written in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb will worship the beast.
Revelation 17:8 -- All who are not written in the Book of Life belonging
to the Lamb will be astonished at the beast.
Revelation 20:12 -- Judgment
by the Book.
Revelation 20:15 -- All who are not found in the book are
thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 21:27 -- Those who are in the
Book will enter the New Jerusalem.
Tashlikh
One very interesting
ceremony of Rosh Hashanah is the custom of Tashlikh. In a Tashlikh service, worshippers
go to a body of water such as a stream or an ocean, and toss the contents of their
pockets into it while reciting passages such as Micah 7:19, ("You will hurl (Tashlikh)
all their sins into the depths of the sea.") as a symbol of sin being swallowed
up in forgiveness.
A New Covenant
This is not the only place
in the Tanakh where God speaks of such total forgiveness for his people. Jeremiah
31:34 says: "For I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more."
Only one verse before, God declares that one day he will make a New Covenant (Brit
Hadashah) with Israel, and put his Torah in their minds and write it on their
hearts: "See, a time is coming-declares the LORD-when I will make a new covenant
with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. It will not be like the covenant
I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the
land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, so that I rejected them-declares the
LORD."
What is this "New Covenant"? What is to be the basis of Atonement
under it? The Torah teaches that atonement requires the shedding of blood, i.e.
a sacrifice. (Leviticus 17:11). Yet, there is no more temple in which to make
the sacrifice, so how can there be atonement? It is impossible to keep the Torah
completely as long as there is no temple. The rabbis declared that prayers would
take the place of the sacrifices, but is that really enough? If prayer is as good
as sacrifice, why did God ever demand sacrifice in the first place? Would HaShem
allow the temple-so central to his service-to be taken away for so long without
putting an alternative plan in place? Hass ve'halilah! If God has allowed the
temple to lie in ruins for so long, could it be that it is because he has provided
another way?
Suppose someone you know to be reliable gives you directions
to someplace and you suddenly find yourself at a dead end. You know the directions
are good, so you back up to see if you missed a turn somewhere. Those directions
are the Torah and the prophets. The dead end is the Hurban. The missed turn is
the New Covenant-one that doesn't need a physical temple, because the ultimate
sacrifice has already been made, making all other sacrifice obsolete. The Hebrew
prophets predicted that a "Righteous Servant" would some day make such a sacrifice.
(Isaiah 53:6, 8, 12)
"And the LORD visited upon him the guilt of us all."-Isaiah
53:6 (JPS).
"My righteous servant makes the many righteous, It is their
punishment that he bears" -- Isaiah 53:11 (JPS).
"For he was cut off from
the land of the living Through the sin of my people, who deserved the punishment
" -- Isaiah 53:8 (JPS).
"He bore the guilt of the many And made intercession
for sinners." -- Isaiah 53:12 (JPS).
We believe that Yeshua is that Righteous
Servant (what other candidates are there?), and that his Atonement is the basis
of the New Covenant spoken of by Jeremiah. If the New Testament ("Testament" is
simply another word for Covenant or Brit) is true, it proves that God has not
abandoned Am Yisroel. We believe that God has come in person to rescue his people
from their sins as a prerequisite to the final restoration of Israel to the Land,
when HaShem Himself will rule over them as King. Marana Tha!*
*(Aramaic
for "Our Lord, Come!")
The Amidah Prayer
Christianity's Jewish Roots on CBN.com
More from Spiritual Life
Learn more about Christianity's Jewish roots at the Jews for Jesus Web site
*This article was originally
published in 1978.
© Jews for Jesus. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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