NOTES for Num 29:1-39

The feast called the Day of the Trumpet Blast may seem strange and hard to understand. Indeed, what is the meaning of a feast whose whole essence comes down to a sacrifice, before and after which a trumpet is blown? And what kind of trumpets were these? Judging by the historical information available to us, this was horn music. Many peoples customarily blew horns, and the Jews were no exception.

In wartime, the horn was one of the main signaling instruments; on the battlefield people usually oriented themselves by its sounds. But in peacetime it was also used often, especially on days of feasts and celebrations. Later the sounds of the horn were replaced by the sounds of trumpets, which any of our contemporaries has had occasion to hear. Nevertheless, the question remains: why was the horn to be blown on the Day of the Trumpet Blast? What celebration was marked on that day? What feast was being celebrated?

The sacrifice is clear: it could be offered on any day, and one did not have to wait for some specific feast. Feasts were, of course, accompanied by sacrifices, but sacrifice was in a certain sense self-sufficient, becoming a feast in itself, a feast of meeting with God and sharing a meal with Him. Horn music, on the contrary, was not self-sufficient; it was meant precisely to accompany a feast. It follows that the main feast was the sacrifice itself.

At the same time, the whole people participates in the sacrifice by tribes, so that each tribe offers its own sacrifice, which can be viewed on the one hand as tribal, and on the other as part of a nationwide sacrifice. This is not simply a feast; it is the solemn standing before God of the whole people, tribe by tribe, each with its own sacrifice, so that each has its own table with God, its own meal, its own tribal celebration, and all of them merge into one whole. At this point the sounds of the shofar, as the sacred horn used during religious feasts is called in Hebrew, were quite appropriate.

It was a call to God and at the same time a testimony, a testimony to the people's readiness to follow Him, just as a warrior's response to the sound of the battle trumpet testifies to his readiness to set out on a military campaign. Of course, such readiness was required of the people always, not only for one week of the year. But even soldiers have inspections in peacetime. The Day of the Trumpet Blast was such an inspection for the people, an absolutely necessary inspection, considering that both the conquest of the promised land and life in it presuppose movement after God, steady and unceasing.