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Rosh Hashanah: Sept. 4th to Sept. 6th What Is It To Christians? “Shanah Tovah”

By C. J. Refsland on September 3, 2013 • ( 0 )

I wanted to do a post on the Jewish Festival Rosh Hashanah, because I feel it’s important. There are many pre-trib adherants that believe Jesus will return on this festival of trumpets. I don’t hold to a pre-trib rapture, but this does give us information that is valuable to us. This is a time that God calls everyone to repentance and judgment. We as Christians know that When the Messiah returns He will judge all peoples and the Nations. So we need to reflect on this Holy Day for Israel, and also heed the call to repentance before judgment. It’s coming.

“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”

Here is some basic information on Rosh Hashanah from Wikipedia:

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎, literally “head [of] the year”), is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora’im (“Days of Awe”) which usually occur in the early autumn of the Northern Hemisphere. Rosh Hashanah begins on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. The day is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and their first actions toward the realization of mankind’s role in God‘s world. Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram’s horn) and eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to evoke a “sweet new year”.

The Mishnah contains the second known reference to Rosh Hashanah as the “day of judgment”. In the Talmud tractate on Rosh Hashanah, it states that three books of account are opened on Rosh Hashanah, wherein the fate of the wicked, the righteous, and those of an intermediate class are recorded. The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, and they are sealed “to live.” The intermediate class are allowed a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to reflect, repent and become righteous; the wicked are “blotted out of the book of the living forever.”

In Jewish liturgy, Rosh Hashanah leads to Yom Kippur, which is described as “the day of judgment” (Yom ha-Din) and “the day of remembrance” (Yom ha-Zikkaron). Some midrashic descriptions depict God as sitting upon a throne, while books containing the deeds of all humanity are opened for review, and each person passes in front of Him for evaluation of his or her deeds. The Talmud provides three central ideas behind the day:

“The Holy One said, ‘on Rosh Hashanah recite before Me [verses of] Sovereignty, Remembrance, and Shofar blasts (malchuyot, zichronot, shofrot): Sovereignty so that you should make Me your King; Remembrance so that your remembrance should rise up before Me. And through what? Through the Shofar.’ (Rosh Hashanah 16a, 34b)” This is reflected in the prayers composed by the classical rabbinic sages for Rosh Hashanah found in all machzorim where the theme of the prayers is the strongest theme is the “coronation” of God as King of the universe in preparation for the acceptance of judgments that will follow on that day, symbolized as “written” into a Divine book of judgments, that then hang in the balance for ten days waiting for all to repent, then they will be “sealed” on Yom Kippur. The assumption is that everyone was sealed for life and therefore the next festival is Sukkot (Tabernacles) that is referred to as “the time of our joy” (z’man simchateinu).

The Temple Institute

This is the way in which the Priestly blessing is delivered to the people of Israel in the Holy Temple, and the Shechina (the Divine Presence) dwells over their hands. There’s nothing satanic about it, Heaven forbid, that is ridiculous and just another attempt to blaspheme things that are holy: