Next week (12th - 14th September) sees the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana, but what is this Rosh Hashana? I spoke with Seth Ben Haim and he explained more.

Seth Ben Haim

"Rosh Hashana literally means 'the head of the year'. It is the time on the Jewish calendar where we start marking the months of the year so it is our New Years day.

"Jews will look upon this day as a time of reckoning, a day where we check our hearts to see that we are in line with God and we look for ways in which we can follow him in a better way in the year to come.

"Biblically speaking Rosh Hashana is actually the Feast of Trumpets that we read about in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29 and it says you will have the Feast of Trumpets in that 7th month and it shall be a day of remembrance. We think about remembrance and recollect on our lives over the year that has passed and we look at what our life will be in the year to come.

"According to Jewish tradition it's the time when your name is written in the book of life. Now we as believers in Yesuha (Jesus) believe our lives are already inscribed in the book of life but we still find it a good time to look into our lives, to recollect; are we walking in full obedience to God and in the ways he would have us to walk?

"If you would go to the synagogue you would find long times of reading the word of God and various prayers, many of the prayers are from our special prayer book.

"The main readings we read are the birth of Isaac and the binding of Isaac, which we call the Acadah; those are key to Jewish thought. We also read portions from the book of Samuel which relate to Hannah receiving conception and the birth of Samuel, then from Jeremiah 31 which is the restoration of Israel.

"A ram's horn is also blown in the synagogue. The shofar we call it in Hebrew, is a special instrument that is used for the calling of the people together for a day of reckoning, a day of remembrance, a day of going out to war...a time of crisis and need. The shofar made from the ram's horn also reminds us of the binding of Isaac on the altar, which traditionally happened on Rosh Hashana, reminding us of the ram which was sacrificed in the place of Isaac on the altar.

"We have a process on which we blast the shofar, we blow it many many times during the service with short blasts and long blasts. Many have looked at that as the sound of a woman in labour.

"The short blasts, the woman going through the travail of labour and then that long blast the joy of the baby coming out and breathing the fresh air. As we have Rosh Hashana it's a new beginning and a new life that's born in a way and we look forward to what God would have for us in the year to come.

"In all our Jewish festivals we take it as a time to be generous with one another, we open up our homes to our many guests and friends, we give gifts of honey, honey cake and woven bread. They're all supposed to be sweet reminders of the cycle of life; we also wish that the next year will be very sweet indeed. We also take apples and dip them in honey and wish a good, sweet and blessed new year.

"In the West, New Year has become a drunken party, but in Israel the Jews look at it more as a time to reflect on God and a hope to follow God in a better way.

"My prayer for Israel over the coming year is from the book of Romans, that ALL Israel will be saved."