And in the End
Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any laborious work, but you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord.’” Leviticus 23:23-25 NASB
Seventh month – Well, it’s pagan New Year time again. When the Church absorbed the pagan Winter Solstice holidays, producing the Christian Christmas and retaining the ancient “eternal return” paganism, it erased any semblance of traces to the Jewish/Hebraic worldview—on purpose, of course. You know that Rosh Hashanah is never on December 31/January 1. Rosh Hashanah is in the Fall season, usually in our month of October, varying according to counting the new moons. The first day of the seventh month of a lunar calendar never coincides with the solar calendar (plus modifications) of pagan Christianity. So, of course, the Bible doesn’t support “New Year’s Eve” or “New Year’s Day,” despite the fact that the Western world has adopted/syncretized this pagan celebration.
But that’s the reality we live in (unless you live in Israel or in an orthodox Jewish community). So, since it’s the end of this solar cycle, and we are quite aware that it is a pagan cycle, it still doesn’t hurt too much to be reminded of things we’ve discovered in the last go-around the sun. Here are a few:
“No word is God’s final word. Judgment, far from being absolute, is conditional. A change in man’s conduct brings about a change in God’s judgment.” Heschel, The Prophets, p. 194
“Lust impedes love and creates a barrier between a person and his Creator. This is the source of the desire for ‘prohibitions of love,’ which dam up pleasures that constrict the realm of discipline and shrink reality. Beloved are prohibitions.”[1]
Finding divine humor in irony acts as a shield against despair while experiencing deep injustice.
I suppose I have learned not to confuse how life makes me feel with how God feels about me. About us. Those can be two very different things. (Larry Douglas in private correspondence)
Only God can accomplish real repentance.
No prayer goes to waste.
Recognize the symptoms of SAD: guilty – ashamed – depressed – lonely – bored – tired–remorseful – stupid – inferior – isolated – apathetic – sleepy
“The most advanced manifestations of paganism show a tendency to regard man as able to save himself by his own devices. . . Salvation . . . is his own concern, not the gods’ . . .”[2]
Fortune Cookie: “Adversity willingly undergone is the greatest virtue”
Life is a song sung sweetly in the ear – and interlude between birth and death. Learn to enjoy the music while you can.
“When life is good” – but is it really good? Is it good at the expense of best? And what do we think God means by abundant and best?
What is a severe mercy? – When God judges in order to bring restoration and the judgment is severe but with the purpose of facilitating mercy.
Perhaps you will want to add a few of your own. Better than “New Year’s Resolutions,” I think since these are reminders of things that are now incorporated into our lives. Now you get to think about these until the real “new year,” October 2 to 4, 2024.
Topical Index: New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Leviticus 23:23-25
[1]Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 740.
[2] Yehezkel Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel, p. 59.
Curses are fundamentally ironic in that they share a sense of futility or frustration; this is because the nature of a curse overturns or prevents what otherwise would be a healthy course of events or a healthy condition.
While God subjected the creation to frustration, he did not ultimately subject the creation to futility; rather, there is hope of liberation from the creation’s bondage to decay, to be brought “into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” (Cf. Romans 8:20). This hope of liberation from the bondage of servility to frustration, futility, and decay comes by means of the second Adam, for through him comes the new humanity (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17) and the new heavens and earth (Cf. John’s Apocalypse 21:1)
The hope of a new year is too often grounded in the same frustration and futility to which God subjected the creation. But it need not be so… because God wants it to be made known that in Christ— that is to say with Christ in you by the presence and power of his Spirit— one may have the true and actual hope of glory! Make this new year your year of liberation— having genuine hope and with God in the world! For “everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as that one is pure.” (1 John 3:3)
“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal encouragement and good hope by grace, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.” (2 Thessalonians 2;16-17)
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:26-29)
“In the seventh month…” being October 2-4 this year. How is the seventh month
“Now you get to think about these until the real “new year,” October 2 to 4, 2024?” The real new year?
How about March/April…
Exodus 12:2 KJV — “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.”
I agree, Ric! It is in this verse you cite that “rosh hashanah” appears. But/And, the words do not appear side by side. The first day of the seventh month in Hebrew is “zikron teruah” in the verse Skip has cited. It is “yom teruah” in Lev 29:1. Some rabbi(s) made it Rosh Hashanah; YHVH did not. Numbers 15:38-40 comes to mind. It may be time to wear tzitzit again.
As we accept our heretical stances in 2024, we must acknowledge the truth of how the Oral Torah does not align with the written Torah as well. Rosh Hashanah in the fall/autumn is just another type/form of paganism. The rabbis have created four “new years” as outlined in Mishnah Rosh Hashnah 1:1 and elsewhere. Let’s keep Yah’s!
I also find Robert Alter’s PS 81:4 translation and note quite interesting!