Speak to the children of Israel, saying: “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Shabbat-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation” (Vayikra / Leviticus 23:24).

The shofar is/was blown on the first of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish religious calendar. It is Yom Teruah, “the day of blowing.” Traditionally called Rosh Hashanah, it marked the year-end harvest as an occasion for the whole nation to seek relational and spiritual renewal.

The Shofar’s Call To Repentance The blowing of the ram’s-horn trumpets provided an important spiritual reminder: It was an admonition to those who had just finished bringing in the harvest by the sweat of their own labor. When workers were tempted to look at the results of their own effort and congratulate themselves for the harvest, they needed this God-centered ritual to remind them that in all of their work they were dependent on the creating and sustaining power of God on their behalf. The worker plants, weeds, waters, and waits. But it is God who gives the increase!

Of the blowing of the shofar, Alfred Edersheim, noted Jewish believer & 19th-century scholar, writes, “One of its main purposes was to rouse men to repentance. In fact, the commentator Maimonides (1135-1204) makes use of the following words to denote the meaning of the blowing of trumpets: ‘Rouse ye, rouse ye from your slumber; awake, awake from your sleep, you who mind vanity, for slumber most heavy has fallen upon you. Take it to heart, before whom you are to give an account in the judgment.’”

The Shofar’s Look To The Future Many believe that Yom Teruah also has a prophetic significance. The first four feasts have a striking correlation with final events in the life of Maran Yeshua (His first revelation as Mashiach ben Yosef). Many Bible scholars believe that the Feast of Trumpets refers prophetically to the last-days events (His second revelation as Mashiach ben David) that will call the nation of Israel, and the whole world, to repentance in preparation for His coming messianic kingdom.

Compare this messianic hope with a Rosh Hashanah prayer from an Orthodox Jewish prayer book: “May it be Your will that the sounding of the shofar which we have done will be embroidered in the veil by the appointed angel, as You accepted it by Elijah of blessed memory and by Yeshua, the Prince of the Face [i.e. Prince of God’s Presence] and the one who sits on God’s throne. May You be filled with compassion toward us. Deserving of praise are You, Lord of compassion” (Birnbaum, Behind The Curtain, p.282).

With this prayer, Synagogues have invoked on Rosh Hashanah the name of God’s coming King: Maran Yeshua. Most Rabbis insist that this reference to Yeshua [i.e. Prince of God’s Presence] has nothing to do with Maran Yeshua of the Besora Tova HaGeula (Good News of Redemption), the anglicized name for Yeshua (literally “salvation”). One reason for rejecting our Rabbi, Maran Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel has been the rabbinic opinion that God would never require—nor accept—a human sacrifice. Yet, in contrast to this teaching, there is within the tradition of many synagogues a practice that remembers a day when God did ask father Abraham to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice.

The Shofar’s Look Back To Isaac Each autumn during the High Holy Days, synagogues all over the world remember the Akeidah (Hebrew term referring to “the binding of Isaac” as described in Bereshit / Genesis 22:1-19). The preeminent symbol of Rosh Hashanah or Yom Teruah is the ram’s-horn trumpet. The rabbis see a significant connection between it and the substitutionary ram that was provided by God when Abraham offered up his only son Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah.

In many synagogues, the Akeidah (the binding of Isaac) is read every weekday of the year as a memorial, but from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur it is particularly emphasized. In the process, many rabbis teach that when Abraham offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah (the eventual site of the Temple Mount), Isaac actually died and was resurrected!

A book titled Rosh Hashanah: Its Significance, Laws, And Prayers states, “A reading of the Talmudic sources makes clear that God thinks of Isaac as if he had actually been sacrificed and his remains burned on the altar” (p.31). One story claims that Isaac was so terrified that he died of fright, but at the sound of the voice of the Angel of the Lord he came to life again. If we read the biblical account in Bereshit 22:1-19, we do not find any indication that Isaac died or that his body was burned or resurrected. We do learn, however, some provocative similarities between Isaac and another Son who, according to Besora Tova HaGeula witnesses, was offered as a sacrifice by a loving Father.

Consider the comparison between Isaac and the our Rabbi, Maran Yeshua of the Besora Tova HaGeula. Both were sons of promise. Their comings were heralded by angelic beings. Both came into the world by means of a miraculous birth. Through both men the entire world was to be blessed. Both were beloved sons of their fathers. They were blameless—neither one deserving capital punishment.

Both had to carry the wood of their judgment on their shoulders.

Many believe that both Maran Yeshua and Isaac were in their early to mid-thirties at the time of their trials. Both were brought to a mount for their sacrifice. Both went willingly to the slaughter, without saying a word in their defense. These are just a few parallels of the many we can find between the Hebrew Scriptures and the stories of the pages of the Besora Tova HaGeula.

If we add to our comparison the Orthodox Jewish view that Isaac was sacrificed, died, and was resurrected, we find even more striking parallels. Some of the rabbis even teach: “Isaac’s ashes are before [God] always a living reminder of Isaac’s covenant—because an ascent to such spiritual heights as the Akeidah never dies. Therefore, too, Isaac’s life after the Akeidah was of a different order than any other. He was a living sacrifice, sanctified, and spiritual” (Rosh Hoshanah—Its Significance, Laws, & Prayers, p.31).

Are these comparisons, whether scriptural or traditional, mere coincidences? Or has God placed within rabbinic theology and tradition a clue to the identity of His own Messiah?

Days Of Awe In the fall holiday season, Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of a 10-day period known as the “Days of Awe.” In Jewish communities, the blowing of the shofar is followed by a time of introspection, when worshipers look into their own hearts for misdeeds against others and for transgressions in thought or deed against God. They are days of repentance, when individuals attempt to right the wrongs they have committed. It is a time to prepare for the coming Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

The Shofar of Mashiach: After Avraham was told not to sacrifice Yitzchak, the Torah writes, "And he looked and saw a ram, אַחַר / later, entangled in the bushes by its horns." What does the word "later" mean here? (Breishit 22:13. Sources: Jer. Talmud, Pirkei D’R. Eliezer 31) Rabbi Chunah said in the name of Rabbi Chinnah bar Yitzchak that the whole day Avraham watched the ram getting caught up in the bushes and then setting itself free. HaShem told him, "Like this ram, your descendants will get caught up in their sins and pass from one exile to another." Avraham asked, "Will this last forever?" HaShem answered, "In the end they will be redeemed with the horns of this ram," as it is written, "And HaShem shall sound the shofar (and take them out of exile)." (Zechariyah 9:14)

Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa said that every part of that ram was used:

• The veins were used to make the 10 strings of King David’s harp.
• The skin was used to make a belt for Eliyahu HaNavi.
• The left horn was used to make the shofar that was blown on Mount Sinai.
• The right horn will be the shofar which HaShem will blow at the time of Redemption.

In the temple period this national time of repentance and restitution was an annual event, and it continues today as a serious practice among those who observe the holidays of God. May the shofar of this Rosh Hashanah be also the great shofar, the shofar of Mashiach.

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