Chag Sameach Yom Truah
I found
the following Youtube video enlightening and helpful while preparing for Yom
Truah.
Rosh Hashanah 5787: The Torah Never Once Calls It That
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGx1UJaAtxI
According to the literal text of the Torah, the real focus
of Yom Teruah is not a celebration, a party, or a calendar countdown—it
is a collective, urgent cry to be remembered by YHVH.
While later rabbinic traditions transformed the day into Rosh
Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), the Torah strips away all the festive
fanfare and narrows the focus down to a single, powerful raw action: making a
distinct acoustic signal before the Creator.
The Torah establishes this true focus through three main
principles:
1. An Acoustic Awakening (Teruah)
The word Teruah (תְּרוּעָה)
does not inherently mean a musical instrument; it means a shout, a loud alarm,
or a crashing sound. The primary focus of the day is to shatter the silence. In
the Torah's agricultural context, this day lands at the end of the dry summer
when the harvest is completely finished, but the autumn rains have not yet
arrived. The earth is dry, and the people are vulnerable. The teruah is
a raw, corporate cry of human dependency directed toward the heavens.
2. Activating Divine Remembrance (Zikaron)
In Leviticus 23:24, the Torah explicitly calls the day Zichron
Teruah (זִכְרוֹן תְּרוּעָה)—a "memorial"
or "remembrance" of blowing.
The Torah defines exactly what this means in Numbers 10:9–10, where God
explains the purpose of blowing alarms:
"...then you shall sound an alarm (teruah) with the
trumpets, and you will be remembered before the YHVH your Elohim, and you will
be saved from your enemies."
Therefore, the ultimate focus of the day is not for us
to remember something, but to cry out so that YHVH will "remember"
us. In Hebrew thought, when YHVH "remembers," it means He moves into
action to save, protect, and provide for His people.
3. A Sacred Threshold of Introspection
The Torah places Yom Teruah exactly on the first day
of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:23). By making it the gateway to the seventh
month, the Torah frames this day as a spiritual threshold. It initiates a
ten-day countdown leading directly to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).
The focus is to wake up, stop routine work, gather as a community, and stand
exposed before YHVH in absolute vulnerability before the day of purging and
judgment arrives.
Summary
The Torah teaches that Yom Teruah is a day to stop
working, make a noise, and appeal to the memory of YHVH. It is the moment where
human helplessness meets divine faithfulness through a collective cry.
From the strict standpoint of what the Torah actually
commands, focusing heavily on the technical dynamics of the different shofar
sounds—such as the tekiah, shevarim, and teruah—can easily
become a distraction that completely obscures the true, raw spirit of the
appointment.
The Torah introduces no complex musical formulas or
performance standards for this day. When human traditions overly internalize
and over-analyze the physical ritual, they risk missing the core spiritual
mechanics of Yom Teruah in several ways:
1. Reversing the Direction of the Call
The most profound distraction of focusing on the intricacies
of the shofar blasts is that it flips the biblical direction of the day. Modern
traditions often treat the shofar as a call directed at the congregation—a
wake-up alarm to shake human ears.
However, as established in Numbers 10:9, the Torah frames
the teruah as a sound directed upward toward YHVH ("you shall
sound an alarm... and you will be remembered before the YHVH"). When
the focus shifts to whether the blower executes the notes perfectly, the ritual
transforms into a human performance for a human audience, rather than a raw,
vulnerable cry rising to the heavens.
2. Missing the "Silence" of the Shofar in the Text
An obsession with the shofar inherently misses a shocking
reality in the text: the Torah never once uses the word "shofar" to
describe this feast.
- Leviticus
23:24 simply calls it Zichron Teruah (a memorial of making a loud
noise).
- The
sound could just as easily be a corporate human shout, a crying out, or
the silver trumpets.
By fixating strictly on the physical ram's horn and its
precise rabbinic acoustics, it becomes easy to lose sight of the fact that the
instrument is merely a vessel. The true "sound" YHVH is looking for
is the brokenness and dependency of the human heart.
3. Turning an "In-Between" Space into a
Distraction
As highlighted in historical context, Yom Teruah sits
at a delicate agricultural threshold where the old harvest is completely done
and the new rains have not yet come. It is an anxious, quiet space of complete
vulnerability.
When a service or observation becomes heavily preoccupied
with parsing out the difference between a broken sob (shevarim) and a
rapid alarm (teruah), the cognitive analysis drowns out the heavy,
spiritual weight of the silence. It replaces the deep, internal posture of a
trembling soul waiting on YHVH with a checklist of traditional acoustic cues.
The Historic Paradigm: Hannah vs. The Horns
This is why the historical readings curated for this day
contrast so beautifully. You can have the loudest, most flawless shofar blast
ringing through a valley, but if it lacks the raw, authentic spirit of absolute
dependency, it is just empty noise.
Meanwhile, as seen in 1 Samuel 1, Hannah stood in the
Tabernacle making absolutely no audible sound at all—only her lips moved. Yet,
because her heart was entirely poured out in its rawest form, the Torah's
ultimate goal was realized: "and YHVH remembered her."
Let’s explore exactly how the biblical prophets and the New
Testament address this deep tension between empty religious noise and the true
spirit of YHVH's appointments. Both sections of scripture launch a fierce
critique against letting physical rituals become a distraction from an
authentic, heart-level connection with YHVH.
1. The Old Testament Prophets: YHVH Despises the
"Noise"
Throughout the Old Testament, Israel frequently fell into
the trap of executing feasts, sacrifices, and trumpet blasts flawlessly while
their hearts were completely detached from YHVH's character. The prophets did
not mince words when exposing this hypocrisy:
- Amos
5:21–24: YHVH issues a staggering, direct rejection of religious
performance:
"I hate, I despise your feast days... Take away from
Me the noise of your songs, for I will not hear the melody of your stringed
instruments. But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a
mighty stream."
Amos explicitly calls their beautifully orchestrated worship "noise"
because it was disconnected from structural justice and true repentance.
- Isaiah
1:13–14: Isaiah records YHVH expressing physical exhaustion over empty
rituals:
"Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an
abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of
assemblies... My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing
them."
- Joel
2:12–13: In a passage deeply tied to the trumpet-blowing themes of
judgment, Joel clarifies what YHVH actually wants broken:
"'Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with
weeping, and with mourning.' Rend your heart, and not your garments..."
Rending a garment or blowing a horn is an external, easily duplicated act;
tearing open the heart requires true vulnerability.
2. The New Testament: The Spirit vs. The Letter
In the New Testament, Yahshua and the Apostles directly
build upon this prophetic critique, translating it into a structural paradigm
shift regarding how we approach YHVH's commands.
Yahshua on "Lips vs. Hearts"
In Matthew 15:7–8, Yahshua confronts the religious leaders
who were hyper-focused on the exact traditional specifications of clean and
unclean rituals. He quotes Isaiah back to them: "These people draw near
to Me with their mouth, and honour Me with their lips, but their heart is far
from Me." Yahshua constantly re-anchors every law—whether it is the
Sabbath, fasting, or tithing—back to its internal weight: mercy, faith, and the
love of YHVH (Matthew 23:23).
Paul on the "Engraving of Death"
The Apostle Paul directly addresses the danger of focusing
on mechanical, external execution over the life-giving intent of YHVH's word.
- 2
Corinthians 3:6: Paul writes that YHVH has made us ministers of a renewed covenant, "not of the
letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives
life."
- Colossians
2:16–17: Paul explicitly names the scriptural calendar cycles—festivals,
new moons, and Sabbaths—and defines their true function: "These
are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Messiah"
If a person fixates entirely on the shadow (the frequency of
the shofar notes, the precise physical calendar date, the mechanics of the
ritual), they are staring at the ground and completely missing the actual
"substance" that cast the shadow in the first place.
The Ultimate Convergence
When we synthesize the Torah, the Prophets, and the New
Testament, a beautiful, singular truth emerges about Yom Teruah:
[ Physical Ritual ] [ Spiritual Core ]
Precise Shofar
Formulas ───────► VS ◄─────── A Cry of Total
Helplessness
External
"Noise" of Feasts ─────►
VS ◄─────── An Internal "Rending" of Heart
Staring at the
Shadow ───────► VS ◄─────── Resting in the
Divine Substance
If the physical blast of a shofar does not mirror a soul
completely undone, weeping like Hannah, or crying out for mercy like the
remnant in Nehemiah, then the ritual has ceased to be a set apart
appointment—it has simply become a religious distraction.
No, it is not biblically wrong to blow the shofar on Yom
Teruah, but there is a fascinating difference between what the Torah explicitly
commands and how human traditions have evolved.
Therefore, blowing a shofar is completely permitted and
highly appropriate, but it is technically a traditional application of
the command rather than an explicitly stated rule in the text itself
In Rabbinic Judaism, if the holiday lands on the Sabbath,
the shofar is completely silenced for that day. This restriction is not found
in the Torah; it is a fence law (Gezeirah) created by the ancient
rabbis. They feared that a person might accidentally carry their shofar through
a public domain to get to the synagogue, which would technically violate the
Sabbath prohibition against carrying objects outside.
If the shofar is blown as a genuine, gut-wrenching cry to
heaven—acting as the physical amplifier for a heart that is completely
dependent on YHVH—then it perfectly aligns with the raw spirit of the Torah's
command.
No, there is no commandment in the Torah to blow the
shofar on the weekly Sabbath. In fact, regular musical instruments or horns
have no mandated role in the standard weekly Sabbath observations outlined in
the Torah.
When it comes to the other sacred appointments (moadim),
the word "shofar" (שׁוֹפָר)
is explicitly commanded by the Torah for only one specific appointment: the
Jubilee Year
The single time the Torah explicitly commands the
sounding of a shofar for a holiday is in Leviticus 25:9:
"Then you shall sound the loud shofar on the
tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) you shall
sound the shofar throughout all your lands.
This blast occurred only once every 50 years. It was
sounded on Yom Kippur to officially declare liberty across the nation
and release all indentured servants
The use of the shofar on this day is an ancient, logical
rabbinic inference (Gezera Shava). Because Leviticus 25 connects the
word teruah directly to a shofar in the seventh month, the
ancient sages concluded that the unstated instrument of the 1st day of the
seventh month must also be a shofar
For all other standard appointments—such as the New Moons
(Rosh Chodesh) and the annual pilgrim festivals (Passover, Shavuot,
Sukkot)—the Torah actually commands a completely different instrument: two
hammered silver trumpets (chatzotzrot), not a shofar.
As stated in Numbers 10:10:
"Also in the day of your gladness, and in your
solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, you shall blow with the
trumpets over your burnt offerings...
Neither the shofar blast at Mount Sinai nor the shofar
blast at the return of the Messiah are blown by human lips or produced by human
hands. They are entirely supernatural, divine signals originating directly from
heaven.
Human Shofars: Blown to warn of an invading army, to
signal a camp to pack up, or to desperately beg YHVH to remember them (Yom
Teruah).
Psa
119:165 Great peace have those loving Your Torah, And for them there is
no stumbling-block.
Nehemiah 8 is widely considered the first in-depth,
narrative account of how the first day of the seventh month (Yom Teruah / Rosh
Hashanah) was practically celebrated by the community.
While the original instructions for the holiday are given
earlier in Leviticus 23:23–25 and Numbers 29:1–6, those texts are strictly
prescriptive commands—they outline what to do (rest, blow the trumpets,
offer sacrifices) but provide no narrative on a community actually living it
out
Nehemiah 8
provides the first look at the actual ethos, emotions, and communal layout of
the day
How Nehemiah 8 Shapes the Practical Tradition of the
Feast
The chapter details exactly how the post-exilic community
under Ezra and Nehemiah marked the first day of the seventh month (Tishrei):
A Set Apatr Convocation Convocation: The entire
community—men, women, and all children old enough to understand—gathered
"as one man" at the Water Gate
Torah-Centric
Focus: Ezra reads the Torah from daybreak until noon from a specially
constructed wooden platform, demonstrating the central role scriptural
instruction took on during this holy convocation – not intricate shofar blasts.
These blasts are not wrong but should not replace YHVH’s intended purpose for
this appointment – repentance turning back to YHVH’s commandments and the joy we
express because YHVH has heard us and seen our hearts and promises to bless us
and send the rain.
The Emotional Arc (Weeping to Joy): Hearing the Law
caused the people to weep out of conviction. However, Nehemiah, Ezra, and the
Levites corrected them, stating: "This day is set apart to the YHVH your
Elohim; do not mourn or weep"
The Command to Feast: They were commanded to
celebrate by eating choice foods, drinking sweet drinks, and sending portions
to those who had nothing prepared. This dynamic established the historical
precedent that Yom Teruah is fundamentally a day of rejoicing
Are there any earlier historical mentions?
Yes, but they lack detail. Ezra 3:1–6 notes that when
the first wave of exiles returned under Zerubbabel, they built the altar and
began offering daily burnt offerings specifically starting on the "first
day of the seventh month." However, that passage focuses entirely on
the restoration of the altar and the sacrificial system rather than a detailed
description of the set apart day's assembly, teachings, or communal customs.
The Second Temple period—the very era initiated in Nehemiah
8—marked the critical turning point where the biblical Yom Teruah
("Day of Shouting/Blasting") evolved into what is widely known today
as Rosh Hashanah ("Head of the Year").
So, my dear brothers and sisters let us not teach the
traditions of men as the commandments of YHVH.
The tension between the "traditions of men"
and the "commandments of YHVH" is one of the most critical and
recurring themes in biblical history. It directly links the Second Temple era
of Nehemiah and Ezra to the explosive theological debates found later in the
New Testament.
When human customs are elevated to the same status as divine
law, it fundamentally alters the faith.
Mar 7:6 And He answering, said to them, “Well did
Yeshayahu prophesy concerning you hypocrites, as it has been written, ‘This
people respect Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
Mar 7:7 And in vain do they worship Me, teaching
as teachings the commands of men.’a Isa_29:13. Footnote: aAlso see 2Ki_17:19
and Mat_15:3-9.