Thursday, September 25, 2014

Shana Tova u'metukah"



Shana Tova u'metukah" (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה) ( "a good and sweet year") or Happy New Year from Your Watchman on the Wall.


Hopefully we will be raptured out shortly and will not be celebrating very many more Feasts of the Trumpets.

Watch the terrific video by the "Fountainheads" below, one of your Watchman's favorites




I wrote the following article in response to Ron Cantor's article that follows my article. Essentially Ron and I are in agreement, I just wanted to clarify some facts about the Feast of the Trumpets and the Jewish New Year. 

Ron is correct about the Feast of Trumpets aka Yon Teruah and RoshHashanah/New Year and the Bible. However, as you will read in his article below 1 Tishrei the civil New Year coincides with the Feast of Trumpets/Rosh Hashanah.

Although we are not under the old covenant, as Christians who are grafted in to the vine, I believe the Jewish Feasts remain extremely important divine appointments with God that we must take note of and study. I believe what impacts the “Chosen People” impacts Christians. For example, to date the Jewish feasts have been fulfilled chronologically. The last fulfilled Spring feast was Pentecost.  If God continues to follow the chronological pattern then the Feast of Trumpets will be fulfilled next.

I also personally believe the Rapture will occur on the Feast of Trumpets, however, I do not know which one. I want to emphasize that is my personal opinion. I also personally believe we will hear the Shepard’s voice calling us and the blowing of the Shofar but that is just my personal opinion also.

Four Jewish new years are specified in Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1 are 1 Tishri, 15 Shevat, 1 Nisan, and 1 Elul.

1 Tishrei, this year is 25 September. The first of Tishrei serves as the New Year for several purposes, the best known being the New Year for the civil calendar, or "the new year for seasons." Rosh Hashanah literally means "the head of the year." Jewish years are traditionally figured from creation (for example, this year is considered the 5775rd year from creation, this also indicates that we are close to the Rapture as some Christians like myself believe the "Fullness of the Gentiles" will occur around the 6000 year mark.), with the New Year beginning on 1 Tishrei. Although Rosh Hashanah is not a well-defined holiday in the Torah, distinguished mostly as "a day when the horn is sounded" (Leviticus 29:1), the Talmud expanded its religious connotations to make it the Jewish New Year and the anniversary of creation. Rosh Hashanah 8a explains, "For R. Zeira said [that Tishrei is considered the New Year for years in relation] to the seasons. And this [opinion of R. Zeira] is [in consonance with the view of] R. Eliezer, who said that the world was created in Tishrei." In fact, the rabbis focused particularly on the creation of human beings, without whose perceptive ability the physical creation would go unappreciated.
As the beginning of the civil calendar, 1 Tishrei is also considered the new year for measuring the reigns of foreign kings, necessary because legal documents were dated by the current year of a monarch's reign. Rather than measuring a king's reign from the date he took office, 1 Tishrei served as a standard anniversary marking the end of a full year of rule, even if that "year" had only been part of a year.

The new year for setting the Sabbatical year, during which land may not be cultivated, is also 1 Tishrei. Look how the Sabbatical year and the Shemittah (assuming the U.S. and other nations do not repent)  still impacts the world:

2001 WTC and Pentagon attacks
2008 The Financial Meltdown
2015 ?????

The command for observing a Sabbatical year appears in Leviticus 25:2-5, "When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the Lord. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard…it shall be a year of complete rest for the land." Plowing and planting were forbidden from 1 Tishrei of the seventh year in the Sabbatical cycle, and people were allowed to gather only what the land could produce on its own, without cultivation.

Similarly, 1 Tishrei is the new year for setting the Jubilee year, the fiftieth year following seven cycles of Sabbatical years. Again see how the Jubilees effect Gentiles and Jews:
1917 Jubilee The Balfour Declaration
1967 The Jews re-capture Jerusalem
2017 ?????????

Sowing was also forbidden during the Jubilee, but, in addition, all indentured Israelites were allowed to return to their homes and all tenured land was to be returned to its original owners. The laws of the Jubilee required that all land sales in Israel be considered leases, with land costs computed in terms of the number of crop years remaining until the next Jubilee, which would begin on 1 Tishri.

1 Tishrei is also the new year for figuring the yearly tithe (ma'aser), or ten percent tax, on vegetables and grains. The Levites and priests were supported by these tithes, because they did not own land. The tithe for a particular year had to be paid with produce from the same year, thus requiring a standard date to begin and end each fiscal year. Tithing involved three steps: (1) The owner separated out the first tithe, or ma'aser rishon, and paid it to the Levites. (2) The Levites then separated out one tenth, called terumah, for the priests. (3) After separating out the first tithe, the owner had to put aside a second tithe, or ma'aser sheni, from the remainder of his produce. In the first, second, fourth, and fifth years of the sabbatical cycle, the owner was required either to consume this tithe in Jerusalem or sell it and purchase food to be eaten in Jerusalem. In the third and sixth years, the owner distributed this second tithe to the poor as a ma'aser ani, tithe of the poor. I hope this helps to remove the confusion surrounding the civil Jewish New Year and the religious Feast of Trumpets.

Ron Cantor, pictured above, of Tiferet Yeshua Congregation wrote the following article.

First, the Footnote from Ron's article: So why do the rabbis claim the first day of the Seventh Month (1 Tishrei)  is a New Year? Here is one explanation from one of the most influential Orthodox Jewish organizations:
The festival of Rosh Hashanah—the name means “Head of the Year”—is observed for two days beginning on 1 Tishrei, the first day of the Jewish year. It is 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 G‑d’s world.
This is based on bible codes and gematria (assigning numeric value to Hebrew letters to find hidden meanings). If bible codes are true at all, they are there to affirm what is already written in Scripture, not to offer hidden knowledge or new information.
One problem is the code is based on the Babylonian name for the seventh month—Tishrei. Before that, Israelites merely used number. Sunday is the first. Passover is not in Nissan, but in the first month. The second problem is that the code points to the creation of the heavens and the earth, not Adam and Eve which took place on the sixth day. (End of footnote)

Rosh Hashanah is not in the Bible but the Feast of Trumpets is Last night began Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It is a joyous time where we here in Israel greet each other with Shana Tova and Ketiva VaChatima Tova—Happy New Year and May you be inscribed for a good year. Here is the problem. According to the Bible, Rosh Hashanah comes on the first day of the seventh month!
The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord.’” (Lev. 23:23-25).
The first day of the seventh month is actually as far as you can be from a New Year. Furthermore, there isn’t even a hint in the passage that it is a New Year. The words Rosh Hashanah are nowhere to be found. It is hard to imagine that God expected us to celebrate a New Year that doesn’t exist. In truth the name of the holiday that is to be celebrated on the first day of the seventh month is Yom Teruah or, the Day of Blasting Shofars, Feast of Trumpets!
If you read the passage again, one thing is clear—it is not clear! We have no idea what we are celebrating. Every other Jewish Holiday is clear, but Yom Teruah simply tells us to have a Memorial with the blasting of Shofars. I think this made the religious establishment uneasy and thus it became the New Year.

But what is its true meaning?

I am convinced that it was unclear for a reason. All New Testament Theology has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures. The New Covenant brings it to greater light and understanding. The New covenant speaks clearly about Trumpet blasts.
And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. (Matt. 24:31)
In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For
the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Cor. 15:52)
According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
In the light of the New Covenant we can see that the Feast of Trumpets or Yom Teruah is not about remembering something that happened in the past (like Passover or Purim), but a reminder of what will happen in the future.
The Feast of Trumpets points to the coming of Yeshua, our being transformed from corruptible to incorruptible, the establishing of the Messianic Age and the setting up of the Lord’s government in Jerusalem. It is the fulfillment of what the disciples were asking about in Acts 1:6, “Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel.” Many mock the disciples for asking this, but Yeshua did not. He merely said that God knows the timing.
I am not saying that the Lord will return on the Feast of Trumpets, no man knows the day or the hour, but I can confidently say that this is a day that every believer should cry out, Come Yeshua, Come! We should blow the shofars and express our longing for redemption—not just the forgiveness of our sins, but transformation of our bodies and this earth.
Every bride yeans for her bridegroom. While we cannot force the Lord’s return, we can hasten it (1 Peter 3:12) by longing for it, praying for it and dreaming of it. Paul wrote to Titus that we should “wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Yeshua the Messiah.” (Titus 2:13)
So take some time today, even five minutes, and pour out your
heart to God. Tell him of your longing for Yeshua’s return. One day the Trumpet will blast and we will meet Him in the air. Our bodies will be transformed into supernatural bodies and we will return with him to Jerusalem (Rev. 19:11ff, Zech. 14:3-5) where he will set up His kingdom. Hallelujah! Are as excited as me about this!!!

Happy Feast of Trumpets from Tel Aviv—a 29-minute train ride from the Second Coming of Yeshua!

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