Rosh HaShana – the Feast of God the Father

Christians sometimes say: there are feasts of the saints, there are numerous feasts of Jesus, there is a feast of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Trinity, but there is no feast of the Father… However the Feast of the Father does exist, Christians have simply forgotten it. This feast is Rosh HaShana.

Clearly, in a certain sense, all the Jewish feasts are feasts of the Father. However, Rosh HaShana is the feast of the Father par excellence because it is the celebration of the paternity of God who is Creator, King and Judge.

"So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them…" (Genesis 1:27-28). This is precisely what we celebrate on Rosh HaShana: the sixth day of the Creation – the day of the creation of the human person, called to be son of the one whose image and likeness he bears. Grateful son of the one who gave to him not only life but also everything necessary in order to live: the agreeable climate of Eden, the fruits of the earth for nourishment, the beauty and freshness of the garden, a respectable profession, and even the domination of all the animals of the earth, and a mate who would accompany him because "it is not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18). The human person was given all this as well as the grace to live in the presence of and in communion with the Father. All that a good father gives to his child, or at least all that he desires to give, God gave to the human person in abundance.

Do we know how to use these gifts properly? This is the question that we are faced with when, on the day of Rosh HaShana, God sits on his throne as Judge. In other words, here is the image and the likeness in which I was created (and we, Christians, see it very clearly in Jesus – the perfect Son) and here I am as I am today. Can this image and likeness still be seen in me? Or is it totally deformed as if it is reflected in a distorted mirror? This is the day of Judgment and yet it is also and at the same time the feast of filial confidence. Even if I might be a bad son or daughter, even if I am very bad, I remain always son or daughter. And if the Father judges me, it is never in order to condemn me, but rather so that I might become conscious and return to him. He is awaiting my return, my teshuva (return/answer/repentance). Thus, even if Rosh HaShana is Judgment Day, there is always the hope of mercy because the Judge is our loving Father who said: "Return, O faithless children, says the Lord, for I have contracted a relationship with you … I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful" (Jeremiah 3:14.12). Jewish readers of the Gospel might well have composed a midrash that it was at Rosh HaShana that the Prodigal Son returned to the father and was restored to the image and the dignity of the son.

God judges the world because he is its Creator and Master. At Rosh HaShana, the first step is to return to him and to recognize him as King and as Master of all Creation, and that includes me too.

The One and Only God who created all humanity rules over all. Rosh HaShana is the day of universal judgment, when God calls all to conversion. Here there is "no Jew and no Greek, no slave and no freeman, no man and no woman"… Every people and every human person must answer for the talents that were confided to him or her.

"Our God and God of our fathers! Reign over the whole universe in your glory and in your splendor be exalted over all the earth. Shine forth in the majesty of your triumphant strength over all the inhabitants of your world, that every form may know that you have formed it, and every creature understand that you have created it and that all that has breath in its nostrils might say: The Lord God of Israel is King and his dominion rules over all" (Amidah (prayer) for Rosh HaShana).

All this reminds us of the central symbol of Rosh HaShana: not the apple and honey but rather the shofar (ram's horn). The shofar's very name is derived from the same root as the verb "to please or to be pleasant" (lishpor) – to be please the King and the Master of the Universe – and also from the verb "to improve, to correct" (leshapper) and "to correct oneself or to reform oneself" (lehishtapper). This is the objective of Rosh HaShana. However, the root can also be related to the word for "beauty" (shefer), that of the sixth day, when God saw all that he had done "and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). The shofar was sounded in order to call the people to battle (and here it sounds for the spiritual battle). It was sounded at the moment of the crowning of the kings (and here for the King of Kings). It will be sounded on the Day of Judgment "when the books will be opened" (cf. Daniel 7:10 and Apocalypse 20:12). The sounding of shofar reminds us of the day of the covenant at Sinai, the day of the Resurrection of the dead and the final triumph of the Messiah come in glory (Matthew 24:29-31, 1Corinthians 15:51-52, 1Thessalonians 4:16-17, Apocalypse 11:15).