Celebrating the Feast of Trumpets

Tomorrow is the Feast of Trumpets, prompting my Twitter/Facebook request yesterday for help finding a shofar. And I got some help with a name of a store not too far away where I can get one, though I don't have time to run out there before we celebrate tonight. 

(Yes, it'll be a day early, but we're headed to San Diego so we'll have our feast tonight.)

Anyway, Toben must've read my request, because I got a text last night that said this: "Got the milk. And a shofar." And then one that said, "Just kidding about the shofar." 

So when I walked in the door last night from Bible study to a sleeping house, I nearly woke everyone up with my laughter, because this is what was waiting on the dining room table for me:

Here's what the note says:

I love that man. And my party horn/shofar. It's REALLY loud.

So, what's the Feast of Trumpets? It's also called Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year. It marks the beginning of the holiest days of the Jewish year--the Days of Awe. These days are the 10 days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. It's a season for looking inward to spiritual growth, a time to make amends, to repent, to seek forgiveness.

Rosh Hashanah, or New Year's Day, is a day of grateful remembrance of God's benefits in the past year and a day to implore God's blessing for the coming year.

It is marked by blowing the shofar, a feast of sweet foods (usually including apples dipped in honey), passages of Scripture that center around the theme of remembering, and Tashlikh--a ceremony of casting stones into water, representing casting our sins away.

Themes of the feast include the new year, God's royalty, remembrance, the birthday of the world (the Hebrew words for in "in the beginning" spelled backwards translate into the first day of the month of Tishri, which is why many people believe the world was created on this day), and the day of judgement. 

The feast also calls to mind the second coming of Jesus, when he will return at the sound of trumpets to rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Why are we celebrating this? I've shared our Passover Seder tradition each year--a celebration that has deepened our celebration of Easter, and has given us greater appreciation for God's work in history and in our lives. As I've read up on some of the other feasts, I've really wanted to begin to celebrate them as a family.

We're not going all out--sometimes it just doesn't come together like I hope. But I'm excited to at least talk about this with the girls and to begin to follow the Jewish calendar throughout this next year. 

I've mentioned them before, but these two books are so good and I can't recommend them enough if the idea of celebrating the biblical feasts is at all interesting to you.

 

We'll be having our feast tonight--a simple dinner with some conversation and teaching about the feast. 

We'll remember God's goodness to us in this past year, and ask for blessing in the year to come.

And, yes, I'm sure we'll be blowing our horn!

"Be it thy will that a good and a sweet year be renewed for us."

New Year's Blessing

Comments

[Kathleen Jaeger]

How fun! Our homeschool curriculum (My Father's World from the Ancients to the Greeks) has us celebrating the Biblical feasts this year, too. I love it! The book they recommend is Celebrating Biblical Feasts by Martha Zimmerman. I'm also going to check out these that you listed, too, for additional help & insight. Thanks. I enjoy reading your blog.
Kathleen Jaeger

[Marla Taviano]

Toben, you're awesome!! Happy Feast of Trumpets!

And Heim sounds pretty Jewish to me. Or would that be Chaim? ;)

[Holly @ Crownlaiddown]

I love it!!

Do take time and check out the fellow I told you about...Zola Levitt. I think you will be blessed by his thorough and short books on the feasts and other Jewish customs from a completed Jew.

Have fun in SD, Joanne!

[Michelle]

Shofar's have got to be one of the coolest things ever. My husband and I went to a prophecy conference last March and a man was blowing the shofar during worship...it was amazing...and so powerful. Enjoy!

[carrie]

Neat! We are Christians who celebrate all of God's Holy Days and find them awesome!