We know very little about Rosh Hashanah – at least from a Biblical perspective. There is no historic event connected to the holiday, no mention of repentance, the word shofar is nowhere to be found in connection to this holiday. It takes place in the middle of the year, on the first day of the seventh month, a most unusual time for a new year. In fact, the name Rosh Hashanah appears nowhere in the Bible.
The little we do know does more to confuse than clarify. In parshat Emor (Vayikra 23:24) we are told that on the first day of the seventh month should be a zichron truah, a day to remember the blowing, implying that we don’t actually blow anything, but rather recall the times when we did so. However, in parshat Pinchas (Bamidbar 29:1) we are told that the first day of the seventh month is yom truah, a day of blowing. So which is it, a day to blow or a day to remember blowing? And how did this holiday become so central to our tradition – even having a great impact on many Jews who are otherwise not very observant?
In Jewish tradition the number seven indicates G-d’s mastery over nature, His dominion over this world. We acknowledge G-d as the creator every seven days on shabbat. Every seven years we affirm that it is G-d who owns “our land” as we let it lie fallow during the shmitta year. After seven cycles of seven years we observe the Yovel year where all slaves must be freed and land reverts back to its original owner. The holidays of Sukkot and Pesach, the twin pillars of the year are seven days each, a wedding is celebrated for seven days with seven brachot and rachma litzlan, a mourner observes shiva (which means seven) for seven days.
The seventh month must be a very special month. And it is. It is the month of acceptance of G-d as our Master. Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh month is the day our Sages designated as Yom Hadin, the day of judgement, by the Master of the Universe. On Rosh Hashanah we declare that this month, the seventh month of the year, is a very special month. It is the month of Yom Kippur and Sukkot. It is the month where G-d forgave the Jewish people for the terrible sin of the golden calf, and it is the month that offers us an opportunity to repent for our sins and have them forgiven [1].
Our Sages read the Bible very carefully. While the Torah has little to say about the holiday on the first of the seventh month, it has much to say about the shofar that is to be blown on the 10th of the seventh month i.e. on Yom Kippur. However, this does not refer to the Yom Kippur that appears in the context of the holidays of parshat Emor, where there is no mention of shofar, but rather in the context of yovel.
“You shall make a proclamation with the shofor on the tenth day of the seventh month. On Yom Kippur shall this shofor-proclamation be made. throughout all your land” (Vayikra 25:9). And what exactly does this shofar proclaim. “You shall sanctify the year of the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom in the land for all of its inhabitants; it shall be for you a jubilee and each man shall return to his ancestral land and each man shall return to his family”.
By using a literary technique known as a gezeria shava, where the use of the same wording in two different contexts hints to similarities between these contexts, our rabbis derive “all the blowing of the seventh month are to be the same”. Just as we blow shofar on Yom Kippur, so too it is the shofar that must be blown on Rosh Hashanah. “The [Yom Kippur of] Jubilee Year is the same as Rosh Hashanah with regard to the shofar and the blessings [of Mussaf]” (Mishna Rosh Hashanah 3:5).
That Rosh Hashanah is a prelude to Yom Kippur is also hinted to by the only mention of the words Rosh Hashanah in Tanach, found in the 40thchapter of the book of Yechzekel. “In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, b’Rosh Hashanah, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year, after the city was smitten, on this very day the hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me there”.
The connection is much deeper than some word play. The Yom Kippur of Yovel holds the key to understanding what Rosh Hashanah is all about. Man has but one Master, our Father in heaven, and hence all slaves must be freed on Yom Kippur of Yovel. The Torah allowed “slavery” but clearly did not like it. It happens but is best avoided. One who willingly wanted to prolong his slavery had a hole drilled in his earlobe. “The ear that heard My voice on Mount Sinai when I said: 'For to Me the children of Israel are slaves' (Vayikra 25:55): And not slaves to slaves. And yet this man went and willingly acquired a master for himself. Therefore, let this ear be pierced” (Kiddushin 22b).
Rosh Hashanah is the day where we proclaim that no man can be our master. We serve G-d in heaven. He is our master. It is Malchiut, Kingship that is the overarching theme of Rosh Hashanah [2].
The shofar on Yom Kippur of Yovel also heralds the return of land to its original owner [3]. Even today, the path to wealth for many is through real estate. The number one issue for so many today is the high cost, often unaffordable cost, of housing. The Torah did not want a family to be “forever” poor because of the mistakes of someone generations earlier, mistakes that would force one to sell their land given to family upon entry to land of Israel. Hence one was given a second chance and received his land back on Yom Kippur of Yovel.
No wonder our Sages proclaimed Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of the aseret Yemi teshuva, the ten days of repentance. It is the time we get a second chance, where we return to our status before sinning. It is an opportunity to learn from our past mistakes, so we do not lose both our physical and spiritual inheritance.
Rosh hashanah is a yom truah, a day we blow the shofar. Even more importantly it is a zichron truah, a day we recall the Yom Kippur of Yoveland apply its teaching each and every year.
[1] We will leave the connection between Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot for another time.
[2] While the Mussaf Amidah is composed of two other additional sections, Zichromnot and Shofarot, a simple perusal of the Machzor makes it abundantly clear that it is Malchiut that is the overarching theme.
[3] Most beautifully it is in this context that the Torah prohibits price fraud, commanding that we price our land according to how many years are left in the Yovel cycle.
