Hearing the Shofar
The sound the shofar makes is singularly primal; the shofar itself is the
most visceral item in the panoply of Jewish ritual objects, made as it is from
the horn of a ram, deliberately untreated, empty, raw. The very act calls across
the centuries and asks us momentarily, and through an act of the imagination, to
bridge the enormous divide separating us from the desert people who stood by as
the ‘blare of the horn grew louder and louder" at Sinai. Part music, part siren,
part animal cry, the shofar blasts focus us as no other part of the service
does. Children are lifted onto shoulders to watch the climax of this drama. The
shofar shakes, awakens, stirs. It directs attention: yanking us out of our
individual prayer, coaxing even the Jew most distant from tradition. Hearing the
sounds of the shofar together, we are one.
Meditation
May each sound of the shofar awaken me to the sacred presence.
Ritual
As you hear the shofar being blown, focus on the different sound
combinations.
Tekiah! What does the single long blast evoke?
Shevarim! What about the succession of three short broken blasts? Do
they sound like a code, suggesting a plan of action?
Teruah! What do the nine short broken notes whose sound wavers?
Tekiah gedolah! What spell is cast as you hear this longest deep note?
Allow all the sounds of the shofar to stir you, linking you to the past and
the future, to individuals and community, to the place where you are now and to
your commitments to the future.
Blessing
(Before the shofar is blown)
Barukh atah Adonai eloheinu melekh ha’olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav,
v’tzivanu lishmo’s kol shofar.
Blessed are You, Lord our God, who makes us holy with mitzvot and
gives us the mitzvah of hearing the sound of the shofar.
Teaching
Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of
the month—the day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout your
land. (Leviticus 25:9)
Shall the shofar be blown in the city and the people not tremble? (Amos
3:6)
Said Rabbi Abahu: Why do we sound the ram’s horn? The Holy one declared,
"Sound the horn of a ram before me, that I may recall in your favor the binding
of Isaac, and consider you as having bound yourselves, in faith, on the
sacrificial altar. (Babylonian Talmud: Rosh Hashanah 16 a-b)
Blessed are the people who understand the shofar sounds; they walk in God’s
light. (Machzor)
Tekiah! Shevarim-Teruah! Tekiah!
(CLAL Faculty)
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