The Days of Awe: Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish knowledge of Time – Part Four
Rosh
Hashanah and the Jewish Celebration of a New Year
During the medieval era, the Sages and rabbis began to comb all the historical records that were known to exist. Having extensive resources in the Middle East where most of these records of great antiquity were still in existent, the Jewish scholars reviewed the Biblical records left by the Jewish clerics surrounding the court of Ezra the Scribe as Prince Zerubabbel was rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of Zerubabbel.
The sages reviewed in extensive detail all the biblical records of the genealogies and personal life spans of the Jewish and Israelite ancestral forefathers. They, in a very literal historical sense matched these records as modern genealogical researchers would do today.
They compiling all the records from several rabbinic sources back to the “seven days of Creation” which they treated as seven literal days. At the same time, they knew full well that that these could have been “time eras” of long duration where the days were actually stages of creation.
But how did the Jewish people find meaning to historical time in their daily lives? When was their year to begin, and how were they to govern their agrarian season, their festival season and their beginning of their calendar year?
In the Torah, it mentions that the 1st month of the Jewish calendar year would be the month of Nisan, the months of Passover. There is no mention of Rosh Hashanah as being the New Year, but rather puts it on the 7th month, the month of Tishri. Considering that the number 7 is an important number, the number of G-d then we are not surprised that every 7th day, month or year had a special significance.
The Hebrews and later the Jewish people had a weekly calendar of 7 days, called the Sabbatical week of days. Then there came the rotation of the weekly Seventh day Shabbat (Sabbath) that came every 7th day. The Jews then had the Sabbatical Week of Years which every 7 years for the past three thousand years since the days of Kings David and Solomon, they waited on the Shemittah 7th Year for the revealing or the coming of the “Maschiah” (Messiah) called the Maschiah ben Dovid (Messiah son of David). At this time the “Land” was to get a year to rest and rejuvenate before entering another agrarian cycle of plantings and harvests.
The Torah does mention that the 1st day of Tishri, the 7th month of the Jewish calendar year was to be called a holy Day of Remembrance (Yom Hizikaron) and the Sounding of the Shofar (Yom Teruah).
With all of these “beginnings”, the Hebrew time cycle began at Creation. This is when literal historical time began with the creation of the first ancestral human; Adam and Chavah (Eve). According to the traditions from the dim and mystical past heralding from the mists of antiquity; that cosmic event called Creation began on the 1st day of Tishri.
This was an epic event, where 7 literal days, or 7 epochs of time all began at Creation. Not only that, Creation began when G-d spoke it into existence while standing on Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered his son, Isaac as a sacrifice to G-d. Today this is where the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is located; the designated Solar Rex Capital of HaShem on Planet Earth.
According to the Mishna text in Rosh Hashanah 1:1, it lists actually four separate New Year Days in the Jewish calendar. They include:
- The 1st day of Nisan was the New Year day for Kings, for in spite of whatever day they took over the royal throne of Kings David and Solomon, their reign would begin its 2nd year beginning on the next 1st day of Nisan. The 1st of Nisan was also the New Years Day for the Yearly Festival Season that marked also the beginning of the yearly spring harvest season. As such, Passover was the first festival to be celebrated of the festival year.
- The 1st of Tishri was the New Year for Years. The Sabbatical Week of Years began on this day, as well as the calculation of their Jubilee Year. The question to be asked here; even if the Jews were living in the land, would they have to wait until they had possession of all the capital city of Jerusalem before a Jubilee Year could be celebrated? If so, would 50 years from 1967 give us the next Jubilee Year as the year of 2017 and the coming of the Maschiah ben Dovid (Messiah son of David)?
- The 1st day of Elul was the New Year for the tithing of animals; and
- The 15th day of Shevat was to be the New Year for Trees.
The conclusion; the G-d of Israel was, is and will be the G-d of all times, the Sovereign King of the Universe and the One G-d who controlled their destiny then and today. Even if other nations of the world had only one New Years Day, the G-d of history would give his “chosen people” four New Years.
What made the Jewish people so special was the fact that they have lived through and experienced every imperial culture that has dominated the history of the world. So we will review these ancient imperial epochs of history and show how the Jews participated in each of them; making them the only national peoples who have walked, talked, lived, raised children, and prayed to their G-d during all of these eras.
Even their imperial oppressors from every era from the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greece, Romans and Islam had to go back to the historical archives of the Jews and by using the Jewish histories were able to learn and recreate their own ancestral histories of past eras.
You might be Interested to Read the Rest of the Series:
“The Fall Festivals of the Jews: Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish knowledge of Time”
Part One – “The Days of Awe - How the Ancients Recorded Time”
Part Two – “The Apostate Lost Israelite’s influence on Roman Christian Historical Postscripts of Historical Dating of Time”
Part Three – “The Jewish Calendar of History began not in Egypt but at Creation”
Part Four – “The Jewish New Year on the 1st of Tishri”
Part Five – “The Jewish Babylonian Exilarchs and their Intimate Access to Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Islamic Imperial History”
Part Six – “The Unprecedented Access of Jewish Sages to the Alexandrian Library Historical Archives”
Part Seven – “The Jewish Fate in the Roman Annals of Ancient History”
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The legitimacy of the Jewish people and their relevancy to give us a vignette of history from the Egyptian Empire in the days of Jacob and Joseph to today is summed up in one thought; they were there when every empire of the world made their bid to be the rulers of the world. They all disappeared and today once again are reasserting their rights to rule the global “New World Order”. Yet, the G-d of Israel has proclaimed that in the end, they all will disappear and Messianic Age of the Messiah in Jerusalem will rule the whole world.
As we have seen the world is quickly polarizing between “The Jews” and the “Nations of the World”. In the end that will be only two choices; we are either for the Hebrew Israelites; both now part of the Jews of the house of Judah and the Lost Israelites of the house of Israel or we will be against them. This comes to one sobering conclusion, if you are a descendant of the Lost Ten Tribes of the House of Israel and you despise your brothers, the Jews, you will be left cohabitating with peoples who will have a genetic hatred to you even though you think you want to be a part of them.
So today, the G-d is whistling you to come back to the brotherhood of Klal Yisra’el (All Israel). To learn more about this redemptive process, you are Welcome to Contact “Kol Ha Tor”, the Voice of the Turtledove. Here is a joint Orthodox Jewish and 10-Triber Mission to bring awareness of the imminent fulfillment of the Biblical Prophecies regarding the Redemption of all Israel (12 Tribes Re-conciled and Re-United). This super Event of all Times will entail establishing in the region of Shomron (the Ancient Bible Heartland of the Patriarchs) and the Judean Wilderness into a new homeland for the Return of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel when All Israel will finally be redeemed.
For inquiries about Kol Ha Tor Vision for the Lost Tribes of Israel, Visit – “Shomron Lives!”, a Spiritual Retreat and Guest House in Samaria, that hosts Shomron (Samaria) Tours to reacquaint the Returning Lost Tribers of the House of Israel.