What is the difference between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Teruah?
They are the same day. Yom Teruah — “day of blowing” — is the name Scripture gives it in Leviticus 23:24. Rosh Hashanah — “head of the year” — is a later rabbinic name reflecting the tradition that the civil year begins here. Same date, different name, and the names carry different assumptions.
That is the short answer. The longer one is more interesting, and it explains why two people can describe the same day and sound like they are talking about different holidays.
What Scripture actually says
Leviticus 23:23–25 gives the day in three verses. The seventh month, the first day, a sabbath-rest, zichron teruah — a memorial of blowing — and a holy convocation. Numbers 29:1 calls it yom teruah, a day of blowing.
Notice what is not there. No mention of a new year. No mention of judgment, of books being opened, of apples and honey. No mention of ten days of repentance. Every one of those is later tradition, some of it beautiful, none of it in the text of Leviticus 23.
What is there is a sound.
Where “Rosh Hashanah” comes from
The phrase rosh hashanah appears once in the Hebrew Bible, at Ezekiel 40:1, and it is not describing this festival. As a name for the first of the seventh month it enters through the Mishnah, which sets out four different new years for different purposes — one for kings, one for tithing cattle, one for trees, and one, on the first of Tishrei, for counting years and sabbatical cycles.
So the name is not arbitrary. It reflects a real reckoning. But it is a reckoning drawn from rabbinic tradition rather than from the text of the Torah, and that is the whole of the disagreement.
How the two names are used today
| Uses “Rosh Hashanah” | Uses “Yom Teruah” | |
|---|---|---|
| Rabbinic Judaism | Primary name. Coronation of the King, day of judgment, start of the Ten Days of Awe. | Recognised as the biblical name; used liturgically. |
| Messianic Judaism | Commonly used, alongside the traditional customs — apples and honey, the machzor, tashlich. | Also used, often to make the biblical basis explicit. |
| Hebrew Roots | Often deliberately avoided as a rabbinic addition. | Preferred, usually exclusively. |
| Karaite Judaism | Rejected as post-biblical. | The only name used. |
None of these positions is careless. Rabbinic tradition sees itself as preserving a reckoning transmitted alongside the text. Hebrew Roots and Karaite readers see themselves as returning to what the text alone commands. Messianic Jewish congregations generally hold both — the biblical name for what the day is, and the traditional customs as the inherited practice of their own people.
Does it matter which name I use?
Not to God, in any way Scripture indicates. It matters socially. Saying “Rosh Hashanah” in a Hebrew Roots fellowship or “Yom Teruah only” in a Messianic Jewish synagogue will both mark you as being from somewhere else. Neither is an error; both are dialects.
The customs, and where each one comes from
Worth knowing which is which, whichever you keep.
- Blowing the shofar — biblical. This is the commanded act of the day.
- A day of rest and holy convocation — biblical.
- Apples dipped in honey — traditional. A wish for a sweet year; medieval in its current form.
- Round challah — traditional. The year coming full circle.
- Tashlich — traditional. Casting crumbs into flowing water, drawn from Micah 7:19.
- The Ten Days of Awe — the count is biblical (Teruah to Yom Kippur is ten days); the customs of repentance and reconciliation around it are traditional.
- The 100 blasts — traditional. Scripture prescribes no number.
We list these plainly rather than arguing about them. A household that keeps only what is commanded and a household that keeps the full tradition are both doing something coherent.
When is it in 2026?
Sunset Friday 11 September 2026 through nightfall Sunday 13 September, on the rabbinic calendar. Households keeping the sighted moon may observe a day or two later — see why the dates differ.
Common questions
Is Yom Teruah the Feast of Trumpets?
Yes. “Feast of Trumpets” is the older English rendering, and it is slightly misleading — the instrument is a shofar, a ram's horn, not a manufactured trumpet. Silver trumpets exist in Numbers 10 and serve different purposes.
Is this the Jewish New Year?
In rabbinic reckoning, yes — the civil year and the counting of years begins here. In the Torah's own reckoning the first month is Aviv/Nisan, in the spring (Exodus 12:2), which makes this the seventh month. Both statements are true of different counts.
Should believers in Yeshua keep it?
Congregations answer this differently and we are not going to settle it here. What we will say is that the day is one of the appointed times of Leviticus 23, that it is kept by a great many believers in Yeshua worldwide, and that the question of who is obligated is a live disagreement between Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots teaching. See Find a Fellowship for who teaches what.
Why do some people write it Yom T'ruah?
Transliteration from Hebrew has no single standard. Yom Teruah, Yom T'ruah, Yom Truah are the same word. Do not read significance into the spelling.
Where to read further
- Rosh Hashanah, Yom Teruah — The Day of Sounding the Shofar — a focused study of this one day
- God's Appointed Times — Kasdan. Each feast, and how to keep it at home
- Celebrating the Jewish Year: The Fall Holidays — the traditional sources, for the customs above
Free and no signup: our full Yom Teruah page with video teachings and how to sound a shofar.