Adonai said to Moshe, “Tell the people of Israel, ‘In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar. Do not do any kind of ordinary work, and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai.’”-Leviticus 23:23-25
The section of Leviticus 23 dealing with the Spring and Summer Feasts concludes with the reminder that field owners are to leave a portion of their fields unharvested for the poor to come and glean.
We now jump from the Spring and Summer feasts to the Fall festivals.
For the Fall Feasts, things kick off from the 7th month of the year, otherwise known as the month of TISHRI after the Israelites’ stay in Babylon.
Recall that TISHRI is the 7th month in terms of the RELIGIOUS event calendar.
But in terms of the civil calendar year, it is the 1st month.
So the 1st day of TISHRI would be the Jewish New Year, also known as ROSH HASHANAH (Head of the Year).
Another name for ROSH HASHANAH is the “Feast of Trumpets”.
The idea is that the celebration of the first day of the 7th month is to be accompanied with loud shouts or trumpet blasts.
What’s interesting is that we’re introduced to yet another and NEW kind of Sabbath day here.
God tells us that the 1st day of the New Year is to be considered a Sabbath.
This is NOT the regular weekly 7th day Sabbath and neither is it one of the pseudo-Sabbaths connected with some of the Biblical Festivals.
This is actually a THIRD and new kind of Sabbath we’re being introduced to here.
The regular weekly 7th day Sabbath established at the creation requires a complete cessation of any and all kinds of work.
The sabbaths connected to the feasts are different than the regular 7th day Sabbath in that they don’t fall on any particular day of the week and they don’t require that any and all types of work must cease.
These “sabbath” days were for preparation for the feasts, so in this sense they were more like pseudo-Sabbaths.
The type of sabbath called for on ROSH HASHANNA is to be a day of COMPLETE REST just like the weekly 7th day Shabbat!
However, the Scriptures do tell us that a special sacrifice has to be brought to the altar on that day.
Moving on, exactly 9 days later on the 10th day of TISHRI (the 7th month), we arrive at the HOLIEST day of the whole year: YOM KIPPUR or the Day of Atonement.
Among the Jewish people, ROSH HASHANNA (New Year) combined with YOM KIPPUR (Day of Atonement), is usually referred to as the High Holy Days!
One question sometimes asked is should ROSH HASHANNA, the Jewish New Year, otherwise known as the Feast of Trumpets be significant to us?
The answer is of course YES!!
In the Bible, the blowing of trumpets signifies a call to the whole congregation to assemble before the Most High God for a HOLY gathering or as a call to HOLY war.
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