“Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year. It is also called the Feast of Trumpets. The Torah commands us to blast the shofar on the first day of the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Throughout the world, services are happening and the shofar is being blown. We are having a ceremony throwing bread crumbs in the water, reenacting the Micah 7 promise that God will cast our sins into the depths of the sea and wash them as far as the east is from the west. It is a physical reenacting of a spiritual reality. It is a moment of introspection and repentance. Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of 10 days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is a 10-day period of introspection and allowing God to reveal mistakes we have made and things we need to know. Sometimes God reveals things we didn’t know. It is also called 10 days of Awe and personally it is a time of prayer and spending time in the word. There are special prayers for repentance. I am a messianic rabbi and we believe that Jesus is the promised messiah. We recognize our sins have been atoned by the Passover lamb. We recognize as believers we sin and need to return to God. Baptism is purification from sins and a regular occurrence. Some go through immersion every Friday before Shabbat. We recognize we are flawed and fall short. You dunk yourself and take responsibility for your own life.There is a yearning in Judaism for the Mashiach, the Messiah, to come. Most of the jews today are secular with no connection to the faith. Some just go to services at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”