Teaching Your Children About God’s Appointed Times | Rosh Hashanah
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Teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah can be a challenge, especially if you don’t know where to start. Fortunately, with God’s Word as our guide, we can seek His wisdom and discernment for teaching our children about this biblical feast. Anticipate new opportunities to teach your children about God’s goodness during this appointed time!
Remember…
Trying to explain God’s appointed times to our children can be intimidating and overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Remember that God is a God of peace, not confusion. He also discerns the heart. So, when you…
- Submit your ways to Him in prayer
- Ask for guidance
- Cover your children with prayer
- Glorify Him
…you can be certain that your efforts will bear much fruit during harvest time! Parenting and teaching with a pure and humble heart positions your children to receive the seeds you sow into their lives.
Why Teaching Your Children About Rosh Hashanah Is Important…
Teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah has several benefits. From helping them see that God desires to renew and restore them every day, and in every season, to showing them the reality of blessings that flow when we honor the Lord by aligning with His calendar… your children will be fully equipped to walk in victory as they continue to spiritually mature.
Here are a few benefits of teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah…
- New Beginnings
Rosh Hashanah is known as the head of the year. It’s an appointed time on God’s calendar that ushers in a new year (on the Hebrew calendar). Many children need to know how God makes them new, gives them new mercies, and renews their strength moment by moment. It is a time of new opportunities in the spirit. Rosh Hashanah is the perfect time to teach your children about the freshness and newness that God brings into their lives when their hearts are opened.
- Creation Celebration
Rosh Hashanah is the time on God’s calendar when we celebrate the creation of the world and us. It also celebrates God’s Word—the Bible—which is our instruction book. Honoring how God created us and the world through His Word is often overlooked. However, teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah as it relates to celebrating God as your Creator helps them see Him as the sovereign King who must be feared. We want them to fear the Lord, not man because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
- Wisdom
At Rosh Hashanah, we take time to remember and reflect on the past year. What are things we did that displayed a loving heart—a heart after God? What are things we did or situations that we were in that we need to let go of? Helping your child answer these questions opens the doors of their minds to godly wisdom. When we use God’s Word to direct these questions, you can be certain that seeds of wisdom, maturity, and discernment are planted. There will be good fruit that is produced as they grow.
- Thankful Heart
Teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah aligns their hearts with thanksgiving. At Rosh Hashanah, we thank the Lord for what He did in the past year—as we take time to remember. We also thank Him for what He will do in the year to come. When you teach your children to praise God before, during, and after a breakthrough, they will be able to battle the lies from the enemy designed to tear them down. This is battling in the opposite spirit. In our sinful nature, we are selfish, and children naturally want what they want. However, teaching them to be thankful for what they have and what is promised, helps them shift their thinking from a mindset of lack to that of abundance. This is what Jesus gives—abundance (John 10:10)!
- Anticipation of Goodness
Rosh Hashanah is all about new beginnings, leaving behind the old, and entering the new with the anticipation and expectation that God’s goodness and sweetness will be manifested in the year to come.
Teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity to provide instruction about praying God’s promises over their lives. Teaching your children how to pray God’s promises is a beautiful gift. This activation step equips them for spiritual battle by giving them the sword of the Spirit—the Word of God—to wield when the enemy attacks. They will be able to go into the Courts of Heaven and proclaim the truth as they grow and mature by cutting off the enemy’s lies. Rosh Hashanah is an appointed time to begin teaching this concept at a young age.
5 Tips for Teaching Your Children About Rosh Hashanah…
- Write down God’s promises. Think about the things that matter the most to your children. What do they need reassurance about? Are they worried about being alone? Do they struggle with selfishness or anger? Get a notebook and write down God’s promises that speak into these issues. Then, when the issues arise, direct them to the scriptures you wrote (better yet, write them down together). At Rosh Hashanah, tell them that this is an appointed time when God wants to remind them of His promises so that they can carry them into the new year.
- Read a book. Reading a book that teaches your children about Rosh Hashanah helps them understand the basics of the feast. It reveals to them God’s heart behind the appointed time and how they can respond. Additionally, a child’s book that explains Rosh Hashanah helps them see how the whole family can become involved in celebrating the feast.
- Do a craft. Kids love to do crafts. Crafts engage their senses, and the child is then better able to consume concepts, ideas, and the Word. You can make crafts such as paper apples and a papier-mâché shofar. Enjoy the time and use it as an opportunity for teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah traditions and symbols.
- Blow a shofar. Kids love to make music… and noise! Get a shofar and allow them to blast it loud, teaching them that the shofar is a symbol associated with Rosh Hashanah. It clears the atmosphere and welcomes God’s goodness.
- Eat honey and apples. Kids love crafts and love to eat, too! Pouring honey into a bowl and cutting up apples to dip into it is a way to display the sweetness they can expect in the coming year. These are symbols associated with Rosh Hashanah that remind us to anticipate goodness and greet others with a sweet word for the year to come.
When the whole family comes together to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, it gives children a picture of how God has designed a family—giving them security and building trust.
There are so many situations and people in the world today that put a child’s trust in jeopardy, but when they are part of a family that is aligned with God’s will and ways, they will be able to identify what godly trust looks like and how to be trustworthy themselves.
7 Scriptures to Remember When Teaching Your Children About Rosh Hashanah…
Below are scriptures you can write down, speak, and pray as a family to help your children experience the goodness, as well as the importance of, Rosh Hashanah.
- “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”—2 Corinthians 5:17
- “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”—Lamentations 3:22-23
- “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”—Isaiah 40:31
- “Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps truth forever…”—Psalm 146:6
- “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”—Psalm 19:1
- “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”—Psalm 119:103
- “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”—Proverbs 9:10
The Takeaway…
Teaching your children about Rosh Hashanah has several benefits… and there are many ways to help them better understand this appointed time on God’s calendar.
Teach your children about Rosh Hashanah and the symbols by writing down God’s promises, doing crafts, blowing the shofar, and eating honey and apples.
Make it a celebration of goodness with your kids and leave a legacy that will prepare them as they mature in the Lord. Teach them to see how God desires to renew and restore them every day and in every season. Show them the reality of blessings that flow when we honor the Lord by aligning with His calendar. As a result, your children will be fully equipped to walk in victory as they continue to grow in the Lord.