Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Sermons
The Shofar by Rabbi Ilyse Glickman
An Israeli taxi driver who had a serious phobia about watches and clocks owned neither.
So how do you know what time it is asked one of his perplexed passengers
That's no problem. I roll down the window, lean out, and ask the nearest person.
But what do you do if you wake up in the middle of the night and want to know the time? persisted the passenger.
Oh, that's no problem either. I use my shofar.
Your shofar? the passenger asked.
Oh, yes, my shofar, explained the driver. When I need to know the time at night, I go out on my balcony and blow my shofar. It works real fast. Immediately, one of my neighbours yells, Are you crazy? Don't you know it's two o'clock in the morning?'
Can you imagine if this was the means by which we found out what time it was? What a cacophony we would hear all day long!
Can you imagine if you went out on your balconies or out your front doors with a shofar and did this every day?
How do you think you neighbours would react to such a spectacle?
What would they think of you blowing into an animal part, releasing such a resonating sound into the darkness.
As I think about the shofar, I wonder what connection the actions in this story have to the practices of the ancient Israelites, Jews of the biblical and rabbinic period?
I wonder how it is that the taxi driver in the story was able to connect an ancient act with modern society? And how is the ancient practice of sounding the shofar relevant to our lives today?
What meaning has the shofar had to our ancestors, and what possible meaning could we glean today?
In other words, what place does the ancient ram's horn have in our modern, technologically savvy society?
The story of the shofar is long reaching back thousands of years. It has been the ritual horn of Israel for millennia Looking back into our biblical history, it was the voice of the shofar which rang from the thick cloud upon Mt. Sinai; the walls of Jericho fell at the shofar's sound; the sound of the shofar echoed through the country of Ephraim the day Ehud slew the thousands of Moab; We know that throughout biblical times the shofar resounded on the festival of the new moon and on the first day of the month of Tishrei. In times of danger, flood or siege, the shofar even acted as a present day alarm system. The shofar also figured in rainmaking ceremonies in history.
We learn in the books of Leviticus and Numbers, that in the 7th month, we are to sound the horn loud throughout the land, and that this sacred day is commemorated with loud blasts. The mention of blowing a shofar appears in many other places in the Tanakh as well. In 5th century Babylonia, the Shofar was sounded to announce a death in the community. During the Middle Ages, it was also blown on fasts, at excommunications, and at funerals. On Friday afternoon, six blasts were sounded at various intervals. At the first teki'ah, the labourers in the fields ceased their work. At the second, shops were closed and city labourers ceased to work. The third signalled that it was time to kindle the Shabbat candles. And the fourth, fifth, and sixth were a teki'ah, teru'ah and teki'ah in succession, formally ushering in Shabbat.
The shofar is one of the earliest musical devices of humankind and may be the only one to have stayed the same through dozens of generations. To this day, it keeps its original form and use. The concept of Hiddur Mizvah (which literally means beautifying the commandments but refers mostly to the custom of making beautiful ritual objects) mysteriously has not applied to the shofar. Perhaps this yearning to make things better did not happen to the ram's horn because, generation after generation, our ancestors believed the shofar to be good enough, and even more than that, the shofar was perfect the way it was. There was simply no need to beautify the shofar; its simple design allowed for its basic function.
But why, we may ask, was the shofar created? In other words, what is the purpose of the shofar in the life of the people of Israel? According to Midrash Tanna Devei Eliyahu, the shofar was created for the welfare of Israel. The Midrash first teaches us that the Torah was given to Israel with the sound of the shofar: when the voice of the shofar waxed louder and louder. We also learn that God will personally blow the shofar for Israel's sake on two future occasions. The first will be to advise Israel of the advent of the messiah. And the second time God will sound the shofar will be at the time of the ingathering of the exiles of Israel to their place: and it shall come to pass in that day, that a great shofar shall be blown; and they shall come that were lost in the land of Assyria, and they that were dispersed in the land of Egypt; and they shall worship God the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
As to the actual construction of the shofar, we are taught that no artificially constructed piece of work may be sounded. It must be an instrument in its natural form. All naturally hollow horns of clean animals are valid for the shofar of Rosh Hashanah including those from goat, sheep, kudu, Oryx and gazelle. There is even some discussion amongst the rabbis as to the correct shape of the horn. To many, the best shape is a horn that is bent in conformity with the contrite mood of the day. Others interpret the reason for the curved ram's horn to be a symbol of our willingness to bow in submission before the will of God.
The Talmud teaches us about the mitzvah of hearing the shofar on the Yamim Nora'm: If one sounds the shofar into a well or a cellar, if he hears the sound of the shofar he has fulfilled the mitzvah, but if he hears an echo, he has not fulfilled the mitzvah. According to the Rabbis, only hearing the actual sound and not the echo fulfills the mitzvah.
Why have I regaled you with these facts about the shofar? Why did I explain how the shofar was used in the ancient world? Friends, I have done this because the question I am asking this morning is: why and how do we make something as archaic as the shofar relevant to us today? What about this animal part still speak to us today, at a time in history when we are without a Temple in Jerusalem.
It would seem that we would have no use for it in our everyday lives. (We, unlike our Israeli cabbie friend, are proud owners of clocks and watches that can help us out anytime we require the time). If this is the case if this ritual object of yesteryear (which has never been updated to roll with the times) plays no role in our everyday lives, what is its function and job? The Talmud taught us earlier that the shofar was sounded to bring labourers in from the field we don't use the shofar for that anymore. What do the labourers have? Watches!
The Torah taught us that the shofar was sounded to alert the community of danger, crisis or alarm we don't use the shofar for these things anymore either. We hear about fires from the trucks that pass us on the road; we, god forbid, learn about a burglar from the home alarm system we installed to keep our families safe. These and many more modern creations are our shofarot. So, I reiterate my original question: how are we to understand the shofar in our modern lives?
One way in which the shofar could speak to us today is by unpacking the different sounds it makes. As we will explore, there have been different interpretations put forth as to what the various sounds mean to different writers. Perhaps as you listen, one interpretation will speak to you.
Two thousand years ago in a seaside resort town called Caeserea, Rabbi Abbahu instituted the following order for the blowing of the shofar: Tekiah - a simple note, Shevam - three broken notes, Teruah - a weeping note, and, once again, a simple note. According to Rabbi Abbahu, the shofar is a symbol of hope that what was once broken can become whole again.
Likewise, according to Chasidic Rabbi Isaac Horowitz, the shofar blasts encapsulate the main themes of Rosh Hashanah: We becoming whole. Along the path of life we become broken through pain, mistakes, loss, failure, illness, and weakness. But the end is wholeness we can and will become whole again.
Rabbi Saul Lieberman, who was a professor at JTS for many years, characterizes the shofar sounds as a prayer without words.' The sounds induce in us a range of emotions that surge in the heart of thoughts that race through the mind. We are awakened by the awesome tekiah sound to the multiple dangers that threaten human life and make it so precarious. The weird, plaintive, shevarim-teruah notes, which follow, serve to remind us that the fears that we fear often come upon us, that human life is frequently the bearer of tragedy and frustration. But not for long are we allowed to wander in despondency. We are lifted to the heights of a bright hope as we hear the tekiah gedolah, the prolonged concluding blast. This hope is one of redemption the redemption of man from the inner and outer drive that threaten to efface the divine image in which he or she is made, the redemption of Israel from the yoke of exile, and the liberation of all mankind from exploitation and tyranny.
Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins writes that God calls to us in the tekiah to awake and take a good look at ourselves, to examine our deeds, look well into our souls, mend our ways, and improve ourselves this coming year. We are not eternally chained by what we have been. We can throw off the tyranny of enslaving habits. Our tomorrow can be freed from the shackles of yesterday. We can take control of our lives and direct ourselves on a better path. By choosing our way more carefully, we can strike out in more productive directions.
The shofar blasts always end with a tekiah gedolah, the symbol of liberation and peace. It sends us a message of hope. Through the mysterious language of the shofar, God reassures us that some day we will be free of pain and suffering. Someday the tekiah gedolah will be sounded to announce the coming of the messianic age, when all of our people will be free to live as Jews in peace and security. The tekiah gedolah is a prayer for a better future, a message of hope, a call for freedom.
Spanish rabbi Isaac Ben Moses Arama believed that the most important task of the shofar is to arouse spiritual awe. However, not all the sounds that come forth from the shofar are the same, for the tekiah tends to leave one in a joyful mood, while the teruah is a symbol of awe.
I wonder. Did any of these interpretations stand out to you? Did any of them stir your heart and soul? I believe that sound can have powerful sense memory. I remember an old friend calling me on the phone a while ago. We had lost touch 15 years ago, but when she called me, it was not her name that jogged my memory. It was the sound of her voice that swept me up in the memories we shared long ago.
When I hear the blasting sounds of the shofar, I hear questions related to each one swim about my eardrums. For the Tekiah, I hear what does the first sound call you to remember? For Shevarim the question it is asking me is: what felt broken in the past year? Teruah wants me to answer: what does this alarm mean for your community? And finally, Tekiah Gedolah asks: what will you devote your breath and strength to in the coming year?
The sounds of the shofar are primal and jarring. Each sound produces a different visceral response from each of us. What is the response you produce? Are you aware of it? Each of us here will understand the messages of the notes differently and take what we can from them to start off the new year. The reason that there are different notes that the shofar produces is that each asks us a different question, each makes us think of something from the past, and each pushes us to look forward to what is to come in the future.
The second way in which we might explore how the shofar can still speak to us today is through the prohibition of blowing the Shofar on Shabbat. Yesterday, Jewish communities around the world skipped over the actual horn blowing during the Rosh Hashanah service. The first question to ask is why aren't we blowing the shofar when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat? From where does this ruling arrive?
It is from the Talmud that we learn that if Rosh Hashanah coincides with Shabbat, the blowing of the Shofar is omitted. This is because the sounding of the Shofar, while not forbidden, might lead to a violation of the Shabbat.21 Our Sages, using the authority invested in them by the Torah, banned Shofar on Shabbat, lest an ignorant person mistakenly think that it would be permitted to carry a Shofar through a public domain in order to bring it to someone who would blow for him or teach him how to blow.
Of course, it boggles the mind to think of how rare such a hypothetical situation would occur. One would assume that if we did blow Shofar on Shabbat, that most (or practically all) people would be taught that you cannot carry a Shofar where there is no Eiruv (a fence surrounding a neighbourhood or area permitting carrying within its boundaries). And if a person would not know that you cannot carry a Shofar on Shabbat in the street in order to fulfill the mitzvah, then he probably wouldn't know that the Sages banned Shofar-blowing on Shabbat.
The Talmud finds support for this ruling in the fact that the Torah refers to Rosh Hashanah on two occasions. Numbers 29:1 calls it Yom Teru'ah, a day of the horn, and Leviticus 23:24 calls it Yom Zikhron Teru'ah, a day of remembrance of the blast of the horn. According to the rabbinical interpretation, when the Shofar is sounded it is Yom Teru'ah and when the Shofar is not sounded (in the case when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat), it is Yom Zikhron Teru'ah.
Even better, an historical explanation has also been posited. In ancient Palestine the Shofar was sounded on Shabbat only in the Temple and in the city of Jerusalem. After the destruction of the Temple, the sounding of the Shofar on Shabbat was restricted to the place where the Great Sanhedrin, the court, convened. When the Sanhedrin ceased to exist, the sounding of the Shofar on Shabbat was discontinued.
This ruling speaks volumes to the importance of Shabbat. In order to protect the sanctity of Shabbat against a possible violation, the rabbis forbid the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah when it coincides with Shabbat. But let us try to see beyond this reason. If one for a moment considers that the excuse of the ignoramus accidentally carrying his Shofar on Shabbat is not enough of a justification to ban blowing the shofar on Shabbat, we can see much deeper into this ruling. We must all be asking: How can the great and important mitzvah of hearing the shofar be set aside because of a worry about an unintentional violation by someone? Should we all negate this lofty mitzvah just because one individual might carry the shofar?
From a spiritual point of view, the fact that we are told not to blow the shofar on Shabbat indicates that, on a deeper level, we don't need to blow the shofar on Shabbat. What occurs spiritually on the weekday through the blowing of the shofar, occurs spiritually on Shabbat on its own, precisely because the shofar is not blown.
But this awakening does not only come from above. As the entire theme of Rosh Hashanah suggests, it too comes from humanity. However, unlike on the weekday when it comes as a result of our actions (i.e. as a result of the blowing of the shofar), on Shabbat, it comes as a result of our inaction (i.e. as a result of us refraining from the blowing of the shofar).
Let us take this relatively modern example of a time when the shofar was not blown. Abraham Isaac Kook, who was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel and who died in 1935, lay critically ill in hospital. When the month of Elul began, he insisted that the shofar be sounded each morning so that he might fulfill the mitzah of hearing the trumpet sounds. One of his pupil's suggested: if the shofar is sounded in the hospital, wouldn't the other patients be disturbed? Rabbi Kook replied: maybe you are right. If that be so, do not blow the shofar.
Even Rabbi Kook acknowledged that some things trump the shofar. Whether it is because Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, or out of respect for those around you, the act of NOT blowing the shofar need not negate its meanings and lessons. In fact, it speaks volumes to the kavod, the utmost respect, given to the very thing forbidding the shofar from being blown.
So we see that not blowing the shofar on Shabbat can be just as powerful, if not more so, than blowing it. For when Rosh Hashanah falls on a weekday, we may take it for granted. BUT, on Shabbat, we are faced with the absence of the shofar's cries and that can help us examine not only the shofar and its story, but also Shabbat in general and how we wish to observe it every week. So we are able to take the ancient Talmudic ruling forbidding us from blowing the Shofar on Shabbat and have it speak to us today. It is in embracing the lack of the Shofar's presence on Shabbat, that we can begin to understand the power of both the shofar and the holy day of Shabbat.
The ancient use of the shofar, as we have explored, was as an alarm, to caution citizens of danger or crisis and possibly to physically awaken those in harm's way. In a metaphorical way, the shofar can also act as an alarm clock, meant to awaken us emotionally, religiously, and spiritually.
Moses Maimonides, otherwise known simply by the acronym RAMBAM, wrote that the shofar comes like a trumpet of alarm to awaken us from our spiritual slumber. In his Mishneh Torah, Rambam writes awake, you sleepers, from your slumber. Rouse yourselves from your lethargy. Scrutinize your deeds and return in repentance. Remember your Creator, you who forget the eternal truth in the trifles of the hour, who go astray after vain illusions, which cannot profit. Look well into your souls and mend your ways24 Rambam used metaphor of being awake to describe the person who was sensitive to the opportunities of life, and did not sleep his or her life away.
A similar metaphor is used in other Eastern traditions. They use the metaphor of awakening as a spiritual symbol of awareness and aliveness a consciousness of God, nature, our fellow human beings and ourselves. The opposite is to be asleep, or impervious and callous, ignoring our human and natural environment. The Buddhist tradition offers us the following story:
The Buddha's disciples turned to him one day and asked:
Are you a god?
No, I am not a god, he answered.
Then are you an angel?
No, I am not an angel, the Buddha replied.
Are you a prophet? the disciples insisted.
No I am not a prophet
Then, who are you?
The Buddha answered, I am awake.
Perhaps the blasts of the shofar are asking us: are we awake? The sound of the shofar is indeed primal. Part music, part siren, part animal cry, the blasts of the shofar focus our attention like nothing else. Likened to a lifeguard at the beach who blows her whistle whenever children go out too far in the waters, the shofar is a signal to each of us not to wander too far on the ocean of life. That, many suggest, is the purpose of the hearing the shofar.
Whereas the secular New Year can be compared to a watch that tells the time, Rosh Hashanah can be compared to an alarm clock that not only tells time, but also awakens one from slumber, and bestirs one to responsibility. The shofar is physically nothing more than a ram's horn, but for the Jew it is a spiritual alarm. God is calling us to take a good look at ourselves, and seek to improve ourselves in the future.
The shofar does not only enjoin us to look within ourselves, it also summons us to see and hear the needs of others. The cries of the shofar disturb the peace, calling us to open our sleepy eyes and see the untold thousands around us who are victims of human injustice. In the pensive, sad wail of the shevarim we can hear the moans of the world, the pain and suffering which surround us. In the staccato screams of the teruah we can hear the summons to do battle. Charge! calls the shofar. Go out and do battle with injustice! Go out and make this world a better place!
And so we return to the simplest musical instrument out there, for guidance on how to live our lives and how to better the world for others.
Maybe the shofar's simplicity can teach us something about us: That at its essence, the human being is simply beautiful and perfect. Stripping down all material wealth each and every one of us is just as important and valued as the next, and it is not judged or based on what we own, who we know or what we do. It our simplest form, we are enough.
I'll end with a story: A driver took his car into the shop to be repaired and said to the repairman my brakes don't work; please fix the horn.
Perhaps there is a strong hidden message in this remark. Like our faulty automobiles, sometimes our lives are missing the brakes, the discipline, the self-restraint that we need. The shofar comes to sound an alarm and remind us that we need to take ourselves in for an annual check-up, to overhaul our sense of values, to lubricate our sensitivity, to clean up our relationships and straighten out the steering wheel of our life's direction. Or perhaps most of all, when the brakes are slipping, when our power of self-discipline is weakened, the shofar reminds us to strengthen it, and develop the moral courage to know when to say yes and when to say no. These are some of the important lessons of the blowing of the shofar.
May each sound of the shofar awaken me to the sacred presence in all things. Kein Yehi Ratzon.
