Yom Teruah

Over the last couple of days I've been confronted with some things that have shown me I have not been living the life I truly want to live. It's been a hard realization and my emotions have been all over the place in response. If I step back and look at how I spend my time and energy, it doesn't seem like I am living with a purposeful passion all the time; instead it looks like a series of Post-it notes. Read a book to the kids. Pick up the crying baby. Fix lunch. Drive to football game. Call someone about work. Etc., Etc. I long for greater simplicity, keener focus, stronger passion.

As I was lamenting my weakness and the brokenness of our lives, articles from 2 random, unlikely places caught my eye -- about Rosh Hashanah. One of the articles was this one, "Jewish community marks Days of Awe high holidays" and the idea of having "Days of Awe" was particularly intriguing. As I looked a little bit further into the origins of this holiday, I found that not only is it the beginning of the Jewish new year, but it also originates from the Feast of Trumpets in the Old Testament. THIS sounded like something I am hungry for: a new beginning, trumpets sounding, and days of AWE. I think it is amazingly wonderful that this holiday happens to be this weekend -- right when I needed it!

Pete and I did some quick research last night and found the following:

• Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets holiday) kicks off the 10-day period of the Days of Awe, or days of repentance before a holy God, that then concludes with Yom Kippur.


• Because God tied this holiday to the beginning of a new moon cycle, the Hebrews never knew quite when it would exactly start. The high priest waited until 2 witnesses told him that they started to see the first light from the new moon, and then he would spread the word that the holiday was beginning. Since it took awhile for the message to get to all the people (poor guys didn't have Facebook or email blasts), the holiday actually lasted 2 days.


• The blowing of trumpets was involved to call people to worship. So, between this and the not-knowing-when-it-would-happen aspect, it sounds a lot like some foreshadowing of Jesus' return someday!


• The Feast of Trumpets was also unique because God set it aside mainly as a time of rest, and shouting or raising joyful noise to the Lord. My kind of holiday!


• One tradition that the Jewish people have developed for this day is called Tashlich -- which is a symbolic "casting off" of sins, to show their desire to return to God. They throw bread in rivers or streams to represent this.

So, we decided that our family needed to have our own Yom Teruah today. We went to a park and talked about the meaning of this time, wrote some sins on some bread, threw it in the water, blew our own shofar, and prayed together.

I desperately need a re-focusing time, a re-set of priorities, habits, attitudes, etc. So for the next 10 days I want to practice more times of quiet -- less TV, less Facebook, less noise in general -- to have more time to be in Awe of our Great God. My theme song for this time will be one we have been singing in church:

Give me one pure and holy passion

Give me on magnificent obsession

Give me one glorious ambition for my life

To know and follow hard after You

To grow as your disciple in your truth

This world is empty, pale, and poor

Compared to knowing you, my Lord

Lead me on and I will run after you.

That is my heart's desire. May my body cooperate for a change.