Appointed time
יוֹם תְּרוּעָה
The day of trumpets
A day of loud noise and rest, with no reason attached. The Torah does not say what it is for.
In one minute
A day marked by blowing a horn, with a day off and an assembly. That is all the Torah gives it. No story, no explanation, no stated thing to remember. Later Jewish tradition made it the new year and a day of judgement, but none of that is in Leviticus.
Why this matters to anyone
There is something bracing about a day in the calendar that refuses to explain itself. It is set aside, it is loud, and the text declines to tell you why. Most traditions fill silences like that; this one was left open for a long time.
As a marker it is doing something recognisable: a sharp sound to make you look up. It sits at the head of the most demanding stretch of the year, ten days before the day of atonement, which gives it the character of a warning bell whether or not the text says so.
Read the text
Start with the words themselves, before anyone explains them to you.
Leviticus gives this day a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation, and no explanation. Numbers 29 adds the offerings. Neither text says what is being remembered, and that silence is the most striking thing about it.
The name Rosh Hashanah, head of the year, and the association with judgement and repentance are later Jewish tradition. In the Torah the seventh month is simply the seventh month, and this is its first day.
Rosh Hashanah, the new year, is the later Jewish name and framing for this day. The Torah calls it the first day of the seventh month.
“Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation.”
“Ye shall do no manner of servile work; and ye shall bring an offering made by fire unto the LORD.”
“And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no manner of servile work; it is a day of blowing the horn unto you.”
Learn three words
You do not need Hebrew to read well, but these few change what you can see.
- תְּרוּעָהteruaha blast, a shout
- Used of both a horn blast and a human shout, including a war cry and a cry of joy.
- שׁוֹפָרshofarram's horn
- The instrument itself. Not named in Leviticus 23, but named elsewhere for this kind of blast.
- זִכָּרוֹןzikaronmemorial, remembrance
- The word that leaves the day open: a memorial of what, the text does not say.
Notice what is odd
The details that do not quite fit are usually where the meaning is.
A memorial without a stated referent
The Hebrew calls it a zikhron teruah, a memorial of shouting or blasting. What is being memorialised is never said.
Sound as the substance of the day
Most appointed times are defined by an action, a food or a place. This one is defined by a noise.
It opens the heaviest month
The seventh month holds this day, the day of atonement on the tenth, and tabernacles from the fifteenth. The blast starts that sequence.
How it is kept
What the text requires, and what tradition added afterwards. Worth telling apart in both directions.
- What the Bible requires
- An assembly, no ordinary work, offerings, and the blowing of horns. Nothing else is specified.
- What it became
- In Jewish practice this is Rosh Hashanah, the new year: two days, a shofar sounded in a set pattern, apples and honey, and a long liturgy about judgement and remembrance. It is one of the clearest cases in the calendar of tradition building a whole festival on a single verse.
- The horn itself
- The shofar is a ram's horn, not a metal trumpet. Its sound is deliberately unmusical, and the patterns blown on it have names describing whole notes and broken ones.
Questions to sit with
Do not answer these quickly. A study that ends in a better question has gone further than one that ends in a tidy answer.
- 01
The Torah gives this day no reason. Is it better to supply one or to leave the gap open?
- 02
In Nehemiah 8 the people weep at hearing the law and are told not to. What is happening there?
- 03
Why might a calendar put a day of pure sound at the head of its most serious month?
Common questions
Open any that apply to you. Skipping this step is fine.
Is this Rosh Hashanah?
It is the day that became Rosh Hashanah. The Torah does not use that name for it or call it a new year, and this site keeps the two labels distinct so you can see where the tradition begins.
How can the seventh month hold the new year?
The calendar carries more than one beginning. Months are counted from Nisan in the spring, but the year number changes in the autumn. Both are in the tradition, and neither cancels the other.
Why does the Torah not explain it?
Nobody knows. Proposals include an older agricultural or civic marker whose meaning was already assumed. What can be said honestly is that the text gives a day and withholds a reason.
Go further
Pick the one that matches the time you actually have.
Ten minutes
Read Leviticus 23:23 to 25 and Numbers 29:1 to 6. Note everything the text does not tell you.
An evening
Read Nehemiah 8:1 to 12, which describes a gathering on this day where the law is read aloud and the people weep and are told to stop.
A week
Read the ten days from this day to the day of atonement as one unit, and ask what the sequence is doing.
Read it closely
There is a full worked study of The binding of Isaac (Genesis 22), its Torah reading in Jewish tradition.
Every passage on this page
- Leviticus 23:23 to 25
- Numbers 29:1 to 6
- Nehemiah 8:1 to 12
- Psalm 81:3
For a method you can use on any passage, see the method, or check the calendar for what is next.
Check yourself
Four questions, answered by clicking. You get the reason either way, so being wrong is useful.
Question 1 of 4
What reason does the Torah give for this day?