Lest I should mislead anyone, I should probably begin by mentioning that our family is not especially concerned with celebrating the biblical feasts “correctly. ”  By that, I mean that we don’t follow Jewish traditions to the letter.  We do try to follow the instructions given by God Himself as well as we are able.  Sometimes these instructions are rather vague, though, so it’s not always easy.

Background of the Feast of Trumpets

Celebrating the Feast of Trumpets is a little tricky, as the instructions for keeping this particular feast  are some of the vaguest of all the biblical holidays.  As you’ll read below, apart from making an offering, the only thing the Israelites were told to do was to “have a memorial of blowing of trumpets.”  It was also a holy convocation & sabbath, so they were to rest from ordinary work — but that’s more a what not to do than what to do!

The (transliterated) Hebrew name for this holiday is Yom Teruah, the “day of blasting/shouting.”  (“Teruah” means both “shout” and “blast” — as in, with a voice or a horn/trumpet — often a shout or blast of war.)  It’s the first of the autumn feasts, which are often considered together as a group or “set” of high holy days.

Biblically, these comprise the second group of holidays, because God told the Israelites to begin their year in the spring (just before Passover).  But with all the various captivities, the Jews got their calendar turned upside-down and began starting their year in the fall.  So the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, is also (and more commonly known as) Rosh Hashanah, the “head of the year.”  That is, in essence, “New Year.”

There is a certain logic to this — I know the beginning of the school year has its own kind of “freshness” to me! — but it’s important to be aware of this, because God’s message in the feasts gets scrambled if we start in the middle rather than the beginning.

Celebrating the Feast of Trumpets as Christians

Before I share our list of ideas, let me offer up a couple of resources and insights, because celebrating the biblical holidays as Christians involves an appreciation for the substance these shadows point to.

The first is simply the Scripture passage from Leviticus.

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.  You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.’”  (Lev. 23:23-25)

The biblical feasts are all shadows of future (to the institution of the feasts) events.  The spring feasts foreshadow events that occurred during Messiah’s first coming: His death, resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.  The fall feasts (primarily) foreshadow His second coming.

In a little ebook about the biblical holidays by the Ellisons of Homeschool How-Tos (formerly Cross-Over), the authors make the fascinating observation that the Feast of Trumpets is the only one for which we annually do not know the day or the hour until it comes.  This is because it’s the only one that falls on the first day of a new month — and the new month, by Jewish reckoning, can’t be recognized with certainty until you see it!  (Read the ebook for a more thorough explanation.  If you prefer a printed edition, you can order that from them, as well.)

You may also have noted that “teruah” can mean both to shout and to blast — and both of these words are echoed in the New Testament description of the Second Coming:

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”  (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, underlining added)

We purchased a small shofar (ram’s horn) so we can actually “blast our trumpet.”  I’m not sure where we got ours, because it’s been a while.  There are a number of “judaica” retailers online where you can order that type of thing, but you can also get them from Christian Book Distributors, and even from Amazon.  You can get quite large & beautiful shofars, but since we just use ours on occasion within our own home, we have a pretty small one similar to that shown below.

You “play” it in a similar manner to a modern trumpet.  For those who don’t play instruments, that means you don’t wrap your lips around it.  You press your lips together firmly and blow through them almost as if you were “blowing raspberries,” with the opening of the shofar’s small end placed over your mouth with your lips largely inside it.  There’s a bit of a learning curve unless you already play this type of instrument.

If you don’t have a shofar, you might want to watch a video to hear what they sound like.

The name of the holiday is the “day of blasting,” implying war, but the Scripture says it’s to be a “memorial” of blowing trumpets.  It might be helpful for us Westerners to think about how the bugle is traditionally used here.  It sounds the alarm for battle, but it also announces the start of the day, marks the setting of the sun, and mourns the fallen.  You might notice echoes of that in the different sounds of the shofar in the video, because the shofar is similarly multifaceted.

(This video about bugle calls during the Civil War provides additional insight into what the trumpet might communicate.)

Ideas for Celebrating the Feast of Trumpets

So…blowing the trumpet/horn/shofar is obviously an important part of this holiday.  It’s also good to talk about the things previously mentioned — what does this holiday point us to?  What are some works of God that it might memorialize?  (e.g. the victory over Jericho, the death of Christ, God’s new-every-morning mercies, etc.)

We also came up with a few ideas for celebrating which are, for the most part, just “fun.”  They’re not “biblical” (in the sense that they follow biblical instructions; they aren’t anti-biblical), but they follow the theme and help(ed) our children to focus on the purpose of the day.

• Sing “Days of Elijah.”  The lyrics of this song — particularly the chorus — are very well-suited to the symbolism of this day.
• Eat Bugles.  (Special food is always good for a holiday, right? 😉 )  Or make a Chex Mix-type snack out of Bugles.
  And if, like me, you’re not really a huge fan of the flavor of Bugles, you’ll be happy to know they now come in a number of different flavors, both savory and sweet.
• Decorate by setting out an empty cornucopia.  A cornucopia is, at its essence, a horn or trumpet.  We can put the empty horn out at the Feast of Trumpets, then fill it a few weeks later when the Feast of Tabernacles comes around.
• Although it’s not the same kind of trumpet, you can keep the focus for more of the day by creating a playlist of trumpet music to listen to throughout.  (Like this, this, and this.)