Beth HaDerech; Messianic Jewish Congregation, Toronto, Canada

Sound The Great Shofar: Helping To Bring Mashiach

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:...