Shana Tova Umetuka!
This means: Happy and sweet New Year! Tonight, September 11th 2026, starts according to the rabbinical counting the Jewish New Year. Everywhere in the Jewish world you will hear this blessing and you will see pictures with pomegranates and apples and honey. From a friend in Israel I received a blessing sent out by a travel agency: May we have a good year, filled with new and wonderful horizons. I love that blessing and am wishing that also for all of us!
If we look at the Bible though, you can count in total four New Years. The one that God spoke of being the beginning of the year is the first of the month Nisan. This is the month in which Passover is celebrated and the beginning of the new year is two weeks prior to the feast of Passover. So, what is this feast of tonight, that is known as Rosh HaShana, the head of the year? In the Bible it is called the Feasts of (the blowing of) Trumpets. In Leviticus 23, verses 23-25 God calls Israel to keep this feast. He uses four words to describe the feast:
Shabaton: a shabbat
Zichron: a memorial
Trou’ah: this is sometimes translated as a summon, but it talks about the blowing, the sounding of a shofar (ram’s horn) or trumpet
Mikra-Kodesh: a holy convocation
Besides not working on this day there are very few other guidelines for how to celebrate this day. The thing that stands out for me the most if the word Zichron followed by the word Trou’ah. Zichron is about commemorating, but of what? I think it has to do with the word Trou’ah. Commemorating of the blowing of the shofar or by the blowing of the shofar. Blowing the shofar is used for different reasons, but based on Psalm 98 verse 6 it means also that you proclaim that God is King. The shofar is, as I mentioned, a ram’s horn. The first time a ram is mentioned in the Bible is when God makes covenant with Abraham and Abraham has to cut a ram in two, together with some other animals (see Genesis 15). The second time is at the Binding of Isaac, also known as the Offering of Isaac in Genesis 22. This time the ram’s horns are also mentioned. This ram is taken as a sacrifice for God instead of Isaac. Isaac has already asked his father in verse 7: ‘Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’. His father answers, that God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. In Hebrew it is written in such a way, that you can also read: God will provide Himself as a lamb… This aligns entirely with the thought that Isaac’s sacrifice here was a prefiguration of what Yeshua would do. Yeshua has become the Lamb that God provided. He provided Himself as a lamb in Yeshua, to take away the sins of the world. And this Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8). So, might this be the thing that we should remember on this Feast of Trumpets?
The Feast of Trumpets marks also the beginning of the Ten Days of Awe, days of introspection, purification and repentance, preparing our hearts for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. How important it is then, to remember, that Yeshua is the Lamb that was slain, who takes away the sins of the world. We will need to call on Him for our atonement. So, I wish all of us on this Feast of Trumpets to proclaim God as King in our lives and to remember that sacrifice of the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. And yes, may this also be a new beginning and mark the rest of the year, no matter what calendar we follow 😉.
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