Book One – The Call of the High Holy Day By ... - What is Shofar?

HEARING SHOFAR: 

THE STILL SMALL VOICE OF THE RAM’S HORN 

Book One – The Call of the High Holy Day 

By Michael T. Chusid 

Hearing Shofar – Volume 1 Page 1 © 2009, Michael T. Chusid

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

FRONT MATERIAL 

Title Page 

About the Author 

Notices 

AcknowledgementsFrontMaterial.htm 

Forward – by Rabbi Dr. Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi 

BOOK ONE – THE CALL OF THE HIGH HOLY DAYS 

Prelude 

PART ONE – The Call of Shofar 

1-1 An Awakening: A personal account of how shofar awakens spirituality. 

1-2 Five Translation Challenges: Biblical and rabbinic basis for shofar. 

PART TWO – The Shofar of Elul 

1-3 My Shofar is My Beloved’s: Teshuvah and preparation for the Days of Awe. 

1-4 Meditations for each Day of Elul: Warm-up exercises for the spirit. 

PART THREE – The Shofar of Rosh Hashanah 

1-5 Blast, Break, Shatter, Blast: The blessings, the calls, and the code. 

1-6 The Ram’s Midrash: What the Akedah teaches about listening to shofar. 

1-7 The Ewe’s Horn: Shofar speaks in both masculine and feminine voices. 

1-8 Our Father, Our King: Stories about kings, children and shofarot. 

1-9 Remembering Shofar: To blow, or not to blow, that is the Shabbat question. 

PART FOUR – The Shofar of Yom Kippur 

1-10 The Dinner Bell and One Last Blast: An encore and a separation. 

1-11 Azazel and the Goat that is Set Free: Two goats and two paths. 

1-12 The Jubilee and the Prophet’s Words: The call for justice. 

1-13 From the Belly of a Wail: Jonah revisited. 

1-14 Epilogue – Elul Story 

BOOK TWO – FOR THE SHOFAR BLOWER Click here. 

BOOK THREE – THE PEOPLE OF THE RAM Click here. 

This copyrighted book is offered as a free download. If you receive value from this work, please consider making a 

tax-deductible donation to support Shofar Corps. Visit www.HearingShofar.com or click here to donate. 

© 2009, Michael T. Chusid 

Cover Illustration: Sefer Minhagim (Book of Customs), Amsterdam, 1722, 

www.library.yale.edu/exhibition/judaica/brbml.20.html, January 7, 2006. 


Prelude 

Here we go a davening, 1 

These are the Days of Awe. 

Soon we will be fasting 

According to the Law. 

Health and peace be to you, 

And to you a good year too! 

L’Shanah tovah v’tikatevu. 

L’Shanah tovah v’tikatevu. 2 

(To the tune of the traditional 

English New Year carol, 

“The Wassail Song.”) 

RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1 Yiddish for “praying.” 

2 “L’Shanah tovah v’tikatevu” translates as “To a good year and [may you] be written [into the Book of Life],” a 

traditional greeting during the Jewish New Year season. 


PART ONE – The Call of Shofar 

“The great shofar is sounded and a still small voice is heard.” 3 


3 From the Un’taneh tokef” prayer recited on Rosh Hashanah. Illustration is from a French book published 

about 1845. www.jhm.nl/objecten.aspx?database=museumcollectie&jhmnr=7439 SEPTEMBER 7, 2009 


Chapter 1-1 – An Awakening 

“What is the sound of a shofar no one hears?” 4 

When, from time-to-time, a friend asks me, “Do you have a spiritual path?” I reply, “Yes, 

I am Jewish.” Being well meaning, my friend might reply, “I didn’t ask about your 

religion; I wanted to know if you had any spiritual practices.” 

Until a fifteen year ago, I might have seen the dichotomy between Judaism and 

spirituality in the same way. For while I intensely identified with the Jewish people and 

was active in a synagogue, all I knew about spirituality was a vague, unnamed longing. 

This emptiness was most apparent when I attended synagogue services on Rosh 

Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the High Holy Days of the Jewish calendar. 5 While 

desperately wanting to know the Eternal, all I experienced was the eternity of sitting (and 

standing and sitting and standing) as I passively listened to a Rabbi drone on in an 

unfamiliar language and a performance by a choir of operatic wannabes. Towards the end 

of the day, I noticed people around me started getting excited that they would soon hear 

the shofar, and I figured it was because it meant they would soon be able to go home. 

Now, I eagerly look forward to the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. The High Holy Day 

services are filled with almost every emotion except the boredom and alienation I used to 

experience. And when I hear the shofar, I am filled with the awe and trembling of which 

our liturgy speaks. And not only do I hear the shofar; I blow it. I sound shofar both in the 

synagogue for the congregation and throughout Elul, the month preceding Rosh 

Hashanah, as a personal meditative practice. 

The shofar is a musical instrument made from a hollowed horn of an animal, usually a 

ram. Hearing it blown is central to the observation of the Jewish New Year and the 

Jewish people’s identification with its voice is ancient and deep. 

My personal discovery of the power of shofar and of other spiritual practices in Judaism 

began during a period of personal trial during which I had to learn to depend upon a 

higher power for strength. Then, as they say, “when the student is ready, the teacher 

appears.” I was exposed to wonderful guides to Jewish spirituality including Rabbis 

Jonathon Omer-Man who introduced me to Jewish meditation traditions, David A. 

Cooper who lifted a few of the veils from the mystical paths of kabbalah, and Moshe 

Halfon whose drumming workshops helped me connect unspoken sound with prayer. 

From them and many fellow travelers on spiritual paths, I learned that prayer could be 

transformed from rote recitation into an intimate conversation with the Eternal; that 

Judaism was such a big tent that its devotional traditions ranged from sitting in silence to 

4 Jewish koan. In Zen practice, a “koan” is a question or statement used to provoke thought. 

5 Rosh Hashanah, Hebrew for “Head of the Year” is the beginning of the Hebrew Calendar and marks one 

of several “New Year” days in the Jewish tradition. It is observed on the first day of the Hebrew month of 

Tishrei and typically occurs around September. Yom Kippur translates as “Day of Atonement” and occurs 

on the 10 th of Tishrei. The ten day period is called the Yamim Noraim, meaning “Days of Awe,” is a period 

for heightened spiritual introspection and making amends for our errors that have injured others. 


dancing with ecstasy; and that I had the opportunity, perhaps even the obligation, to reexamine 

Jewish rituals to find a way to breathe fresh life into them. It was within this 

context that, if you will excuse a pun, a full-blown passion for shofar arose in me. 

When I was a child, my neighbor, Mr. Shapiro, blew shofar for our little congregation in 

the soybean fields on the fringe of the Chicago suburbs. Mr. Shapiro was a big man with 

a full beard and a European accent who conveyed an aura of Old World Jewish traditions 

that most of my Jewish neighbors in our multi-cultural community had lost. I had not yet 

developed into a religious cynic, and the loud noise and the exotic custom of the shofar 

excited me. After the holidays, I asked to borrow his shofar and he lent it to me. I did not 

ask for instructions, and none were offered. With great expectation, I blew into the horn, 

and heard nothing. So I blew harder, and then harder still. I was quickly exhausted, and 

my checks and sinuses hurt and I had developed a headache. I returned the shofar to Mr. 

Shapiro, convinced that it was a very difficult instrument to play and that the skill it 

required was beyond my ken. Being a shofar blower, I figured, required years of training 

– like being a rabbi. 

Fast forward thirty years, and I found myself led to spend the High Holy Days with 

Makom Ohr Shalom (www.makom.org), a Los Angeles, California congregation 

affiliated with Aleph (www.aleph.org) and the Jewish renewal movement and where, for 

over a decade, I have had the privilege of celebrating the High Holy Days with Rabbi 

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, an inspiring teacher who brings ancient traditions alive in a 

contemporary context. Inspired by Reb Zalman, Makom’s services offered one delightful 

surprise after another: Instead of being shushed in shul, I was actually encouraged to talk 

with the people sitting next to me to discuss my shortcomings of the past year and to set 

out my intentions for the new one! Congregants brought tambourines and got up and 

danced when the spirit moved them! In the afternoon of the Yom Kippur fast, we had a 

“hands-on” healing meditation! And when it came time to hear the shofar, more than a 

dozen shofar blowers came forward. Oy! You should have heard the loud, wonderful, 

soulful noise their combined blasts made. I was as excited again as I had been as a kid 

that very first time I heard the loud, wonderful, soulful shofar blasts. For the first time in 

decades, the sound pierced my calloused psyche and awoke a sleeping soul. 

That year, I purchased a shofar of my own. To my delight, it turned out to be amazingly 

simple to blow. Instead of having to puff my cheeks and huff with all my might, I just 

had to let my lips vibrate as I exhaled into the horn. Like so many other obstacles in my 

life, the only thing I had to overcome was an attitude problem and a little bit of 

ignorance. When the next Rosh Hashanah came, I joined the congregation’s choir of 

shofar blowers. 

My learning about shofar had only just begun. As my studies of Jewish spirituality 

continued, I was introduced to the practice of blowing shofar daily throughout Elul, the 

month leading to the start of the new year. I began to understand that teshuvah – the 

process of making amends for our flaws in character and behavior and for seeking and 

giving forgiveness – takes time. We are given the month of Elul to take inventory of our 

lives and make amend for our errors. The daily practice during Elul of blowing (and 


listening to) shofar encourages me to meditate for a few moments and consider where I 

need to take action to do teshuvah or allow healing to occur. 

A side benefit of this spiritual practice was that it also facilitated “practice” of the 

rehearsal type. At the beginning of Elul, the toots emanating from my shofar are weak 

and wavering. But with daily attention, the tones became purer and higher on both the 

acoustical and spiritual planes. As Rosh Hashanah draws nearer, my daily practice takes 

on added fervor. And by the final tekiah gedolah 6 of Yom Kippur, my shofar and I are 

ready to blast-off! 

Over the years, I started getting recognition as a ba’al tekiah – a “master blaster” – of the 

congregation. This opened a still deeper level of shofar insight, since people started 

asking me to teach them to blow shofar. While working one-on-one with students, I 

developed the “Chusid Method” that enables me to teach most individuals to get a 

satisfying toot from their shofarot (the Hebrew plural of “shofar”) in as little as five to ten 

minutes. “The rest,” I tell them, “is commentary. Go and study.” 7 

For those who wanted to go deeper into the practice, I began teaching workshops at the 

University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University), to synagogue groups and 

chavarot (study groups or social clubs), and at gatherings in private homes. So far, I have 

taught nearly a thousand people to sound the shofar and have had a 98% success rate 

among my students. (How’s that for tooting my own horn!) Makom Ohr Shalom has 

formed a Shofar Corps that visits hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and individuals who 

are unable to leave their homes to sound the shofar for them. And by listening to and 

sharing feedback with their class and corps mates, participants also deepen their ability to 

hear the shofar. 

The call of the shofar is imprinted into the spiritual DNA of the Jewish tribe. It is to the 

children of Israel what the didgeridoo is to the Australian aborigines, the conch shell 8 is 

to the peoples of Polynesia and South Asia, and the council drum is to the First Nations 

of North America. It is the technology we use to assemble our community, call to our 

higher power, and to bring down blessings from heaven. 

Tradition tells us that we all stood at Mt. Sinai, even generations not yet born, when God 

revealed Torah to us accompanied by the blasts of the mighty shofar. 9 Those blasts 

continue to resonate within you and me, seeking to emanate through our lips so that God 

can enjoy hearing them again and we can be reminded of our Covenant. 

6 

A long, sustained blow, see Chapter 5 – Blast, Break, Shatter, Blast. 

7 

Hillel, Shabbat 31a. 

8 

Conch trumpets also existed in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean. Braum says, “The only 

trumpet-instrument frequently attested archeologically in ancient Israel/Palestine is the one made from the 

shell of the Charonia tritonis nodifera…” from the late Bronze Age on and serving as both a cultic 

instrument and as a means of communication or signaling. (page 181-183) 

9 

Exodus 19 and 20. 


We are a nation of priests 10 and, as we strive to live with mitzvah-consciousness, we each 

gravitate to special areas of holiness where we can share our gifts with our community. 

As I look around the sanctuary during the High Holy Days, I see members of my 

community singing in the choir, caring for children in the nursery, bringing home-baked 

challah for the break fast, and helping with the myriad administrative details it takes to 

transform an assembly hall into a sanctuary; each is helping to raise the sparks of the 

Divine. In the same spirit, the deeper I take my practice of shofar, the higher the prayers 

of the entire congregation can go. 

This book is written primarily for Jews and about Jewish practices and teachings. The 

New Testament of the Bible 11 , the Qur’an 12 , and the ancient religions of Northern 

Europe 13 also contain teachings about horns and the trumpets that were patterned after 

horns, however, and members of other religions also use horns in their rituals. I hope 

readers of all faiths will find some value in this book. If, as Rabbi Nachman of Breslov 

said, “the Holy Spirit shouts forth even from the tales of the gentiles,” 14 then there is hope 

that the tale of a Jew can speak to those who travel different paths. Let us learn from and 

respect each other’s horn blowing traditions; as the kabbalist Moses Cordovero said, 

“each type of bird sings a different language, but all sing to the Divine.” 

I hope this book will inspire you to listen more closely to shofar, to deepen your spiritual 

practice by raising your own horns, and to join the cadres of shofar blowers serving our 

communities and our planet. 


10 Exodus 19:6. 

11 For example, Matthew 24:31 – “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they 

shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” King James 

Version. 

12 For example, Qur’an 6.73 – “And He it is Who has created the heavens and the earth with truth, and on 

the day He says: Be, it is. His word is the truth, and His is the kingdom on the day when the trumpet shall 

be blown; the Knower of the unseen and the seen; and He is the Wise, the Aware.” Translation by Shakir. 

www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/006.qmt.html#006.073, January 3, 2006. 

13 The Norse god, Heimdal, had a horn named “Gjallarhorn” that could be heard throughout heaven, earth, 

and the lower world. It was believed that he would sound the horn the end of the world. See: 

www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/259662/Heimdall June 21, 2009. 

14 Quoted by Zalman Schacter-Shalomi in Fragments of a Future Scroll, 1975 


Chapter 1-2 – Five Translation Challenges 

“Why do we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah? Why do we blow it? The All-Merciful 

told us: ‘Blow.’” 15 

Why do Jews blow a shofar during the High Holy Days? For many, “tradition” is an 

adequate answer. Indeed, memories from childhood of hearing shofar while in the loving 

embrace of parents or grandparents create a powerful momentum from generation to 

generation. A friend recalls with warmth, “The first time I remember hearing the shofar, I 

was a little girl, standing next to my father during the High Holidays, and he leaned down 

and gathered me into his tallit.” That shared embrace implanted an indelible memory of 

blessing, protection, and love. 

Shofarot made from animal horns decay rapidly when buried in earth, and none have survived from 

antiquity. However, this ivory trumpet found at Megiddo is from the 14 th century BCE, and is testimony 

that horns have been part of Semitic culture for hundreds of generations. 

For many, the significance of a religious tradition is not in understanding it’s meaning, 

but simply in the observance of its rituals. At Sinai, after all, we said, “We will do” 

before we said, “We will hear,” even without understanding God’s commandments. 16 It 

has been observed that, “Provided the worshipper fulfilled the ritual with accuracy, no 

one cared what he believed about its origin.” 17 Or, as Tevye the milkman says, “Where 

do our traditions come from? I’ll tell you. I don’t know. But it’s a tradition.” 18 

“The mitzvah of shofar has profound kabbalistic significance, which the saintly sages had 

in mind during the shofar blowing. But in Heaven, the simple intention of blowing the 

shofar because HaShem commanded it is cherished greatly.” 19 

15 

Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 16a. 

16 

Exodus 24:8 

17 

Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, London, 1901 as quoted it Theodor Reik, 

Ritual: Four Psychoanalytic Studies, page 17f. 

18 

A character in Fiddler on the Roof, based on Sholom Aleichem’s book, Tevye’s Daughters. 

19 

Ma’or Vashemesh, Rimzei Rosh Hashanah, quoted in Meisel, pg 90 


Many contemporary Jews, however, have a spiritual hunger that drives them to ask 

fundamental questions. Rapid changes in society make it necessary to reexamine ritual 

and rejuvenate them so they remain vital in our lives. Heschel says: 

“There are spiritual reasons that compel me to feel alarmed when hearing the terms 

‘customs’ and ‘ceremonies.’ What is the worth of celebrating the seder on Passover 

Eve if it is nothing but a ceremony? An annual re-enactment of quaint antiquities? 

Ceremonies end in boredom, and boredom is the great enemy of the spirit. A 

religious act is something in which the soul must be able to participate; out of which 

inner devotion, kavanah, must evolve. But what kavanah should I entertain if 

entering the sukkah is a mere ceremony?” 20 

The word, “Kavanah,” in the above quotation is Hebrew meaning “intention, mindset, or 

intentionality.” A shofar blast with the kavanah of fulfilling the mitzvah of shofar will 

have a very different meaning than a shofar blast used as a sound effect in a movie, even 

if the two blasts sound the same. Delving further into questions about why we sound 

shofar can help develop a clearer kavanah with regards to the ritual and attune our 

listening to the shofar’s voice. 

Because God Tells Us To 

The sound of the shofar is the approved soundtrack for the Days of Awe. The Torah 

makes it clear that sounding shofar on the High Holy Days is a mitzvah, a commandment 

from God. 

The pertinent clause governing Yom Kippur is: 

“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 and you shall hallow the fiftieth year.” Leviticus 25:9 21 

While translated as “horn,” the Hebrew says “shofar.” The verse requires the blowing of 

the shofar on Yom Kippur every fiftieth year, the Jubilee year. 22 Torah prescribes a 

sabbatical every seven years during which the land is to be left fallow. The Jubilee occurs 

after seven cycles of sabbaticals and adds several additional requirements: slaves are to 

be freed and land is to be returned to the family or clan to whom it was originally given. 

20 

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man’s Quest for God, 1954 as cited in The Wisdom of Heschel, Ruth Marcus 

Goodhill, editor, 1975, page 232. A “sukkah” is a semi-enclosed structure in which Jews are commanded to 

sit during the autumn harvest festival of Sukkot. 

21 nd 

Bible translations are from JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 2 Edition, Jewish Publication Society, 1999 

unless otherwise noted. 

22 

Some sources say the Jubilee is the forty-ninth year after the previous Jubilee, equal to the fiftieth year 

since the start of the previous Jubilee. I like the power of squared Numbers, so I side with the 49 th year 

interpretation. From a practical side, this avoids the hardship that would occur observing a sabbatical in the 

forty-ninth year and the Jubilee the following year since crops cannot be planted in either. 

Hearing Shofar – Volume 1 Page 10 © 20

While we (unfortunately) no longer observe the Jubilee, we now sound shofar on Yom 

Kippur to memorialize this commandment and to symbolize our emancipation from sin 

through atonement on the Day of Atonement. More will be said on the shofar of Yom 

Kippur in Part Four of this Book. 

Two other Torah verses lay the basis for blowing shofar on Rosh Hashanah: 

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the Israelite people thus: In the 

seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a 

sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts.” Leviticus 23:23-25 

“In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred 

occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. You shall observe it as a day 

when the horn is sounded.” Numbers 29:1 

While the sense of these two English verses is accurate, they present us with several 

translation challenges. 

1. The first is in the translation from Hebrew to English. Neither verse actually 

mentions a “horn” or the word “shofar.” Instead, they both prescribe “teruah,” a word 

that can be translated as “blast” or “blowing.” 23 Leviticus, in other words, commands us 

to “remember the blowing,” and Numbers commands that the first day of Tishrei, Rosh 

Hashanah, shall be a “day of blowing.” 

2. The second translation problem is in interpreting the intent of the original 

language; what are we to “blow”? The clue is the reference to “remembering” – the 

blowing we are to remember is the call of shofar at Mount Sinai: 

“When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they [the people] may go up on the 

mountain.” 24 

“On the third day, as morning dawned, there was thunder, and lightning, and a 

dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast of the shofar; and all the 

people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp 

toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount 

Sinai was all in smoke, for the Lord had come down upon it in fire; the smoke 

rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently. The 

blare of the shofar grow louder and louder. As Moses spoke, God answered him 

in thunder.” 25 

23 Teruah is related to the Hebrew word ruah and can also mean to make a loud noise, cry aloud (as in 

weeping), shout, sound an alarm, or blow a trumpet or shofar. It is derived from the root “to break” or “to 

shatter,” alluding to the fragmented blasts of teruah. The term if further defined in Chapter 10 – Blast, 

Break, Shatter, Blast. 

24 Exodus 19:13 

25 Exodus 19:16-19 


“All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the shofar and 

the mountain smoking…” 26 

The original production of The Ten Commandments had even better special effects than 

the movie and was, the critics say, “unforgettable.” Tradition teaches us that “all the 

people witnessed” God’s revelation, including you and me. How could we not remember 

the teruah of shofar? 

Now that we understand that the Torah bids us to observe teruah on Rosh Hashanah with 

a shofar, our next two translation challenges are: 

3. What, exactly, is meant by the word, “shofar”? And, 

4. What is a “teruah” supposed to sound like? 

There are two ways we determine the answers to these questions: 

First, we can rely on tradition, the living Torah, as alluded to in the introduction to this 

Chapter – we know the answers because “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and 

handed it down to Joshua; Joshua to the Elders; the Elders to the Prophets; the Prophets 

handed it down to the Great Assembly.” 27 They, in turn, taught the rabbis, who told their 

students, who told me, just as I now tell you. 

The second technique is to search the written Torah for evidence that can be constructed 

into proofs, a search that has produced the Talmud – particularly Babylonian Talmud’s 

Tractate Rosh Hashanah – and twenty-five hundred years of commentaries. 

Either methodology yields the same answers: 

• A shofar is the hollow horn of an animal, preferably a ram and definitely not a cow or 

bull, with a bore through the tip that allows us to blow through the horn and produce a 

sound. 

• Teruah is a fragmented blast of the shofar that can be compared to the sound of 

crying or wailing. 

These definitions will be augmented throughout this book. 

5. The final challenge is to translate the sounds of shofar so they have spiritual 

meaning and motivate us toward teshuvah – the process of making amends to those we 

have harmed, correcting our defects of character and seeking and giving forgiveness. 

Trumpets 

Before we proceed, however, there is at least one more Torah passage that dictates 

blowing on Rosh Hashanah. As the first day of the month of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah is 

26 Exodus 20:15 

27 Pirke Avot 1:1 


also a Rosh Hodesh, the head of the month marked by the first appearance of the new 

moon, and governed by the following commandment: 

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Have two silver trumpets made: make them of 

hammered work. They shall serve you to summon the community and to set the 

divisions [of the Tribes] in motion. When both are blown in long blasts, the whole 

community shall assemble before you at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting; and 

if only one is blown, the chieftains, heads of Israel’s contingents, shall assemble 

before you. 

“But when you sound short blasts, the divisions encamped on the east shall move 

forward, and when you sound short blasts a second time, those encamped on the 

south shall move forward. Thus short blasts shall be blown for setting them in 

motion, while to convoke the congregation you shall blow long blasts, not short 

ones. 

“The trumpets shall be blown by Aaron’s sons, the priest; they shall be for you an 

institution for all time throughout the ages. 

“When you are at war in your land against an aggressor who attacks you, you 

shall sound short blasts on the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the 

Lord your God and be delivered from your enemies. And on your joyous 

occasions – your fixed festivals and new moon days – you shall sound trumpets 

over the burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being. 

“They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I, the Lord, am your God.” 28 

  

Silver trumpets used by the Aaron’s sons may have been like this one, found in Pharaoh Tutankhamen’s 

tomb. 29 . 

Like other commandments prescribed for the priests in the Mishkon and Temple, this 

ritual is no longer observed in its original form. When Jews need to blow today, we use 

the humble ram’s horn instead of silver trumpets. (I doubt the redactors of Torah 

anticipated the silver trumpets we now blow at Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties and other 

simchas or celebrations.) Still, these verses establish the precedent for blowing to 

assemble our congregations and call us to action, to sound the alarm to struggle against 

sin and injustice, to create holy noise at times of celebration, and to remind God of our 

needs and prayers. 

28 Numbers 10:1-10 

29 www.touregypt.net/featurestories/music.htm, August 15, 2006. 


  

The drawing shows a trumpet being used in Egyptian military maneuvers. 30 

Shofar and Trumpet 

The silver trumpets described in Torah are called “ĥatzotzrot” in Hebrew. Scripture 

makes clear distinction between the two instruments; there is no verse that says, “sound a 

shofar or a trumpet.” 

Over the years and through translations, however, the distinction has become blurred. “It 

is noted 31 that since the destruction of the Temple, the names for the shofar and the 

trumpet had been confused. The same complaint may be made against the 

Septuagint…” 32 

Another scholar says, “Given the similar function and symbolism associated with the two 

instruments, one can probably say that a certain continuity of tradition does obtain 

between them. At the same time, the [ĥatzotzrot] was clearly a cultic instrument and a 

symbol of the institutionalized, sacral-secular and autocratic power of the second temple, 

while the [shofar] was from time immemorial an instrument associated with the magical 

and mystical phenomenon of theophany” 33 

Silver trumpets have not played a major part in Jewish spiritual life during the past two 

millennia. Throughout this book, I have taken the liberty of assuming that the meaning 

and role of the ĥatzotzrot is now carried in the voice of the shofar. 

30 hem.passagen.se/humba/sid5.htm, September 15, 2007. 

31 Shabbat 36a. Compare Sukkah 34a. 

32 Cyrus Adler and I.M. Casanowicz, “Trumpet,” Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, pg 268, 

www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=349&letter=T&search=shofar, July 22, 2006. Translation is 

also complicated because of the variety of trumpet-like instruments. “As a rule "shofar" is incorrectly 

translated "trumpet" or "cornet"; its etymology shows it to signify either "tuba" (comp. Jastrow, "Diet.") or, 

more accurately, "clarion" (comp. Gesenius, "Dict." ed. Oxford).” (From Adler, et al, “Shofar,” ibid, pg. 

301, www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=653&letter=S&search=shofar, July 22, 2006.) Writings 

and sermons on shofar make frequent references to “the clarion call of shofar.” The meaning of this phrase, 

seems to be lost on the current generation, few of whom know that the clarion is a medieval trumpet or that, 

when used as an adjective, it means “brilliantly clear” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary). As 

an idiom, “clarion call” means “a strong and clear request for people to do something” (Cambridge 

International Dictionary of Idioms, Cambridge University Press, 1998, cited at 

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/clarion+call, January 12, 2008). 

33 Braun, Joachim, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine, translated by Douglas W. Stott (William B. Eerdmans 

Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002) page 16. 


  

The trumpets from the Temple are shown in this relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome, showing the Roman 

booty from the destruction of the 2 nd Temple. 

New Moon 

The injunction to blow a horn on Rosh Chodesh – the new moon – is restated in Psalm 

81:4: 

“Blow the shofar on the new moon… because it is a decree for Israel, a judgment 

for the God of Jacob…” 

One commentary on this verse makes it clear that, in the final analysis, it is not necessary 

for us to fully understand why we blow shofar. “The Hebrew word for decree’ usually 

alludes to a Torah law the reason for which is not revealed in Scripture. The Hebrew 

word for ‘judgment,’ on the other hand, alludes to a law that has a readily understood 

rationale. Thus, the mitzvah of shofar is a decree to Israel, for God has not revealed His 

reasons for the commandment. Nevertheless, we are certain that to Him, in His infinite 

wisdom, it is a judgment with a clear and logical base.” 34 

Translating Psalm 81 35 

In Hebrew, Psalm 81:4 is: 

“Tiku ba-hodesh shofar ba’keseh l’yom chagaynu.” 

A direct translation would be: 

34 

R’Shlomo Hakoen of Radomsk in Tiferes Shlomo, quoted in Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, 

and Prayers, pg 58. 

35 

Psalm 81 is traditionally read as part of the morning service on Thursdays. 


“Blow in the month a [shofar], In the new moon, at the day of our festival”. 36 

There is uncertainty, however, about the meaning of “ba-keseh”, the fourth Hebrew word 

in the verse and translated above as “In the new moon.” This translation links the verse to 

Rosh Hashanah, a feast day that occurs on the new moon of Tishrei. Indeed, Rosh 

Hashanah is also called, “Yom Keseh”, The Day of Concealment. The name emphasizes 

that Rosh Hashanah is the only major festival to occur when the moon is concealed. It 

also invites mystical interpretations: On other festivals, the Jewish people can be 

compared to the radiance of the full moon; on Rosh Hashanah our light is eclipsed as we 

stand in awe of the Day of Judgment. We do not blow shofar on the day before Rosh 

Hashanah in order to conceal the court date from Satan. And God conceals our sins to 

grant us forgiveness. 37 

The connection to Rosh Hashanah is also implied by Rash’s translation of “ba’keseh” to 

mean, “at the appointed time.” 

Alternatively, “our festival” could refer to the celebration of Rosh Hodesh in general. 

This is implied in the translation: 

“Sound the Shofar on the New Moon; in the dark of the moon, which is our festival.” 38 

It has been said that, “The Moon in our tradition represents Shechina, the Divine 

Presence that is always present but sometimes hidden in shadow. The sound of the shofar 

calls Shechina out from her hiding place and welcomes her back into our awareness.” 39 

Among the primitive tribes of our foreparents, I imagine the darkness of the full moon as 

a time of fear and mystery when loud blasts would be used as magic to scare away dark 

and harken the rebirth of light. 

Most modern translations, however, interpret “keseh” as having something to do with 

“fullness.” For example: 

“Blow the shofar on the new moon, on the full moon for our feast day.” 40 

36 Young’s Literal Translation, 1898, http://www.ccel.org/bible/ylt/Psalms/81.html August 14, 2009. 

37 http://jhom.com/calendar/tishrei/concealment.htm August 8, 2009, 

38 Solomon B. Freehof, “Sound the Shofar: ‘Ba-Kesse’ Psalm 81:4”, The Jewish Quarterly Review, New 

Series, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Jan., 1974), pp. 225-228. The paper goes into additional detail on this subject, 

including another translation: ‘Sound the Shofar on the New Moon; in the dark of the moon for (fixing) the 

date of our festivals.” 

39 Rabbi Shefa Gold, “The Call of Shofar”, Rosh Hashanah 5769/2008, 

www.rabbishefagold.com/RHSermon2_2008.html, August 14, 2009. 

40 JPS 


This could suggest that shofar should be blown on the pilgrimage holidays of Sukkot and 

Passover, both of which begin on full moons. Indeed, I embrace this translation in 

Chapter 3-6 – The Ram’s Horn of Passover because it suits a position advanced there. 

A beautiful contemporary translation seeks a resolution to the conflicting meanings of the 

verse: 

“Sound a shofar at the New Moon… at the moment of concealment/potential for our 

Celebration Day.” 41 

The author suggests that it is at the moment of newness that one has fullness of potential 

and all hidden possibilities are present. 42 

More Reasons for Shofar 

Saadiah Gaon 43 articulated the following reasons for shofar: 44 

“There are ten reasons why the Creator, blessed be He, commanded us to sound 

the shofar on Rosh Hashanah: 

1. “Because this day is the beginning of creation on which the Holy One, 

blessed be He, created the world and reigned over it. Just as is with kings at the 

start of their reign — trumpets and horns are blown in their presence to make it 

known and to let it be heard in every place — thus it is when we designated the 

Creator as King on this day. As David said: ‘With trumpets and sounds of the 

horn, shout ye before the King the Lord.’ 45 

2. “Because the day of New Year is the first of the ten days of repentance, 

the shofar is sounded on it to announce to us as one warns and says: ‘Whoever 

wants to repent — let him repent; and if he does not, let him reproach himself.’ 

Thus do the kings: first they warn the people of their decree; then, if one violates 

a decree after the warning, his excuse is not accepted. 

41 Rabbi Shefa Gold, www.rabbishefagold.com/PsalmsPractice.html August 8, 2009. 

42 Rabbi Shefa Gold, telephone conversation with author, August 14, 2009. 

43 Lived 882 to 942 and was head of an academy (ga’on) in Babylonia. 

44 Sefer Avudarham (Amsterdam, 1726). From The Rosh Hashanah Anthology, JPS 1993. Cited at 

www.jhom.com/calendar/tishrei/shofar.html, January 7, 2006. Compare Agnon, pp 70-72. 

45 Psalms 98:6. 


3. “To remind us of Mount Sinai, as it is said: ‘the blare of the horn grew 

louder and louder,’ 46 and that we should accept for ourselves the covenant that our 

ancestors accepted for themselves, as they said ‘we will do and we will obey.’ 47 

4. “To remind us of the words of the prophets that were compared to the 

sound of the shofar, as it is said: ‘Then whosoever hears the sound of the horn, 

and takes not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be 

upon his own head... whereas if he had taken warning, he would have delivered 

his soul.’ 48 

5. “To remind us of the destruction of the Temple and the sound of the 

battle-cries of the enemies, as it is said: ‘Because you have heard, O my soul, the 

sound of the horn, the alarm of war.’ 49 When we hear the sound of the shofar, we 

will ask God to rebuild the Temple. 

6. “To remind us of the binding of Isaac who offered his life to Heaven. 50 

We also should offer our lives for the sanctification of His name, and thus we will 

be remembered for good. 

7. “When we will hear the blowing of the shofar, we will be fearful and we 

will tremble, and we will humble ourselves before the Creator, for that is the 

nature of the shofar — it causes fear and trebling, as it is written: ‘Shall the horn 

be blown in a city and the people not tremble?’ 51 

8. “To recall the day of the great judgment and to be fearful of it, as it is said: 

‘the great day of the Lord is near, it is near and hastens greatly...a day of the horn 

and alarm.’ 52 

9. “To remind us of the ingathering of the scattered ones of Israel, that we 

ardently desire, as it is said: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great 

horn shall be blown; and they shall come who were lost in the land of 

Assyria...and they shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.’ 53 

10. “To remind us of the resurrection of the dead and the belief in it, as it is 

said: ‘All ye inhabitants of the world, and ye dwellers on the earth, when an 

ensign is lifted up on the mountains, see ye; and when the horn is blown, hear 

ye.’” 54 

46 Exodus 19:19. 

47 Exodus 24:7. 

48 Ezekiel 33:4-5. 

49 Jeremiah 4:19. 

50 Genesis 22. 

51 Amos 3:6. 

52 Zephaniah 1:14-16, 

53 Isaiah 27:13. 

54 Isaiah 18:3. 


“Saadiah Gaon’s ten reasons for the shofar focus our attention on the aspects of existence 

that, taken together, include all of life – from beginning to end of time and space, with the 

most dramatic of archetypal mythic events in between. The shofar teaches past, present, 

and future. It heightens consciousness and awareness of self – the self alone as well as the 

self in relation to the universe.” 55 

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe left us the following additional reasons for shofar: 

11. Its sound is compared to that of a child crying out to his/her parent (and, in 

turn, to our crying out to God, our Father). 

12. The use of an animal’s horn reminds us that even our most hardened 

“animal-like” instincts are included in the service of God. 

13. Although many ritual vessels can become “tameh” (ritually impure), the 

shofar cannot – the shofar is the device with which we express our innate 

connection with God; this connection can be neither severed nor sullied; it 

remains intact and is always ready to be drawn upon. 

14. The shofar preferably has a bend in it, symbolizing our willingness to 

bend our will to that of God. 

15. The mitzvah of shofar is only fulfilled when it is blown with the intent of 

connecting to Godliness; the same is true of all mitzvot – they are not simply tasks 

to be blindly carried out, but rather are spiritual tools to connect with God in a 

meaningful way. 56 

Drawing upon the stories of women that inform our hearing of shofar (see Chapter 7 – 

The Ewe’s Horn), we can add: 57 

16. To remind us of our mother Sarah who, upon hearing what God had asked 

of her husband and son, sobbed and wailed like the cries of a shofar, and then 

died. 

17. To remind us of our mother, Hannah, whose horn was exalted when God 

answered her heartfelt prayers. 

I find the following additional reasons: 

18. To remind us that there is “a time for war and a time for peace.” 58 A time 

for war as it is written, “When you hear a trumpet call, gather yourselves to me at 

55 The Jewish Catalog, pg 69 

56 Fred Toczek, “Rosh Hashanah: Selected Thoughts,” www.anshe.org/parsha/rosh-hashanah.htm, June 3, 

2006. 

57 Edwards, page 42. 

58 Ecclesiastes 3:8. 


that place; our God will fight for us!” 59 And a time for peace, as it is written: 

“Joab then sounded the horn, and all the troops halted…and stopped the 

fighting.” 60 

19. To remind us that Judaism evolved from and is still connected to the 

Earth-based, shamanistic practices of a tribal cult. 

20. To see that our journey through life follows a spiral path of growth. 61 

21. To help exorcise the dybbuks – demons – that we may bear. 

22. To remind us that when the Holy One calls, we may hear light and see 

sound. 62 

23. To renew us in the Covenants of Noah, the Akedah, and Sinai. 

24. To remind us, as God said to Cain, we can master the urge to sin. 

25. To maintain a legacy of the High Priest’s Yom Kippur ritual with the two 

goats, one sacrificed and the other sent to Azazel. 

26. To call forth with the voice of a sheep to acknowledge our Shepherd. 

These explanations for shofar form the scriptural and rabbinic basis for hearing shofar. 

But the reasons we still respond to its call – may be even older than the written Law. This 

topic will be explored in Book 3 of Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s 

Horn. 


59 Nehemiah 4:14. 

60 II Samuel 2:28 

61 The “sacred geometry” of shofar will be discussed in Book 3 of Hearing Shofar. 

62 Exodus 20:15 


PART TWO – The Shofar of Elul 

“A hasid once hurried past his rabbi on the first day of Elul. The rabbi asked him, ‘Why 

are you hurrying?’ 

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must look in the Machzor and put my prayers in order.’ 

“‘The prayer book is the same as it was last year,’ replied the rabbi. ‘It would be far 

better for you to look into your deeds, and put yourself in order.’” 63 

God is Opening all of the Gates 

Rabbi Sholom Brodt 64 

“What is Elul all about? Doing good. God is opening all of the gates. 

“I want you to know that the teshuvah of Elul is not teshuvah for sins. That is for the ten 

days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In Elul the important thing is, I am doing 

teshuvah for all the gates that were open to me and that I didn't enter. 

“Let me say something very deep. Can you image what kind of gate God opened to us on 

Mt. Sinai? The deepest gate in the world. The gate was so wide open, the Gemara says, 

that there was no longer any death in the world. We could have gone straight into Eretz 

Yisrael. We could have fixed the entire world. But instead what did we do? We made the 

Golden Calf. We said to God, we are not interested in Your gates. 

“Gevald! How could we do that? How could we do that to God? So Moshe had to go 

again to Mt. Sinai to re-open all the gates. In former good days, every city was closed 

with gates. When they were opened, they blew the shofar. In Elul we blow the shofar to 

let the world know, to let ourselves know, God is opening all the gates, God is re-opening 

all the gates.” 

“Rosh Hashanah is coming. I am so not ready. The other day, someone remarked to me 

that Elul is coming early this year. I think he must have been joking; Elul comes early 

every year.” 65 


63 Agnon pg. 38 attributes this to Rabbi Mordecai of Nadvorna and Likkute Mahariah. Translation is from 

Bernard S. Raskas, Heart of Wisdom, 1962, Burning Bush Press, pg 344. 

64 www.ruach.org/shofarline.php, November 17, 2007. 

65 http://rabbiwithoutacause.blogspot.com/2007/08/shofar-practice.html, August 11, 2007. 


Chapter 1-3 – My Shofar is My Beloved’s 

“In Psalm 150, ‘praise God in His sanctuary,’ the word ‘hallelu’ [praise], occurs 

twelve times, corresponding to the twelve months of the year. Elul, the sixth month 

of the year, matches the sixth Hallelu, ‘praise Him with the blast of the shofar.’ This 

alludes to the custom of blowing the shofar during the month of Elul.” 66 

Many Jews hear the shofar daily throughout the month of Elul – the Hebrew month that 

precedes Rosh Hashanah – to stimulate spiritual preparations for the Days of Awe. The 

exceptions to this are that shofar is generally not sounded on Shabbat, nor on the last day 

of the month (the day before Rosh Hashanah). 

The tradition is linked to our hearing shofar at Mt. Sinai: 

“After the sin of the golden calf, Moses pleaded with HaShem for forty days. At 

the end of that period, on Rosh Hodesh Elul (the new moon beginning Elul), 

Moses was told to ascend the mountain and remain in Heaven for forty days and 

forty nights to receive the second Tablets. During each of those forty days, the 

shofar was sounded throughout the camp, and an announcement was made: 

“Attention please! Let it be known that Moses went up the mountain. He will not 

return before forty days and forty nights!” this was done to prevent the people’s 

miscalculation that occurred when Moses ascended to Heaven the first time, 

which led to the making of the golden calf. To commemorate the month-long 

sounding of the shofar, we blow the shofar during the month of Elul.” 67 

The thirty days of Elul plus the ten days of the Days of Awe represent the 40 days of 

Moses’ sojourn on Mt. Sinai. 

Spiritual Preparation 

Elul is the secret to unlocking the power of the New Year. It is a time for self-inventory 

and an opportunity to draw closer to God through spiritual preparation for the New Year. 

The importance of this is summarized in the following poem: 

Accounting of the Souls 68 

Reading the Torah is like reading your bank statement; 

You know it's important, but it is indecipherable. 

Some of what you read is obviously significant. 

Much appears not to be. 

Yet, if a single number or letter were to be different, 

The Truth of the Total would be lost, 

And all would be changed. 

66 Yeitev Panim, quoted by Meisels, pg 9. 

67 Tur Orach Chaim, quoted by Meisels, pg 10. See also Pirke DeRabbi Eliezer 46 

68 By Billbob, aka Dr. Bill Finn, author of “Where Will the Atheists Pray? – Life and Laughter in Israel.” 

Originally published in The Aquarian Minyan’s Newsletter, Sh'ma Kolaynum, Summer – Fall 1994. 


Somewhere in the past you made an error. 

You search the text, seeking to restore balance. 

The longer you wait to reconcile your accounts, 

The harder it is to reconcile. 

Some walk into their accountant's office once a year, 

And throw a box of loose, unexamined receipts upon them. 

Some appear before God once a year, unprepared and untidy. 

They expect the Rabbi to do the reckoning. 

But in the end, each of us stands alone before God. 

Either your check is covered or not. 

May none of you cash in this year. 

May all of you be inscribed 

in the balanced checkbook of life. 

An older teaching also uses a financial metaphor to explain the shofar’s significance in 

the spiritual work of the month: 

“Beit din [rabbinic court] gives a debtor a thirty-day deferment to pay his bills 

before his property is confiscated. Similarly, the shofar blasts of Elul remind us to 

pay the debts we have accumulated with our shortcomings. We “pay off the debt” 

by doing teshuvah, tefillah and giving tzadakah. We have thirty days to settle our 

accounts, so we will not be found wanting on Rosh Hashanah.” 69 

The Alarm 

Sounding shofar during Elul helps to rouse us to do the work that will prepare us to stand 

trial on the Day of Judgment. The sense of this is explained in the following story: 

“A native villager, born and reared in an obscure rural environment, came to a big 

city for the first time and obtained lodging at an inn. Awakened in the middle of 

the night by the loud beating of drums, he inquired drowsily, “What's this all 

about?" Informed that a fire had broken out and that the drum beating was the 

city's fire alarm, he turned over and went back to sleep. 

“On his return home he reported to the village authorities: ‘They have a 

wonderful system in the big city; when a fire breaks out the people beat their 

drums and before long the fire burns out.’ All excited, they ordered a supply of 

drums and distributed them to the population. 

“When a fire broke out some time later, there was a deafening explosion of drum 

beating, and while the people waited expectantly for the flames to subside, a 

number of their homes burned to the ground. 

69 Rabbi Moshe Galant, Elef Hamagen, quoted by Meisels, pg 10. 


“A sophisticated visitor passing through that village, when told the reason for the 

ear-splitting din, derided the simplistic natives: ‘Idiots! Do you think a fire can be 

put out by beating drums? They only sound an alarm for the people to wake up 

and take measures to extinguish the fire.’ 

“This parable, said the Maggid of Dubno, applies to those of us who believe that 

beating the breast during the Al Het (confessional), raising our voices during 

worship, and blowing the shofar will put out the fires of sin and evil that burn in 

us. They are only an alarm, a warning to wake up and resort to heshbon ha-nefesh 

(soul-searching), so that we may merit the favor of God.” 70 

In Hebrew, “Elul” is an acronym for the verses: “And God, your Lord, will circumcise 

your heart and the hearts of your descendants;” 71 “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is 

mine;” 72 and “Sending gifts from a person to his friend and giving presents to the poor.” 73 

“Thus the verses allude to the three services: repentance, prayer, and charity which must 

be eagerly performed in the month of Elul. ‘And God will circumcise…’ alludes to the 

service of repentance. ‘I am my beloved’s…’ alludes to the service of prayer, which is ‘a 

song of lovers.’ ‘Sending gifts…’ alludes to the service of charity.” 74 

A Daily Ritual 

Shofar is incorporated into the weekday synagogue prayer service during Elul. Not only 

is shofar sounded within the minyan, Psalm 27 is also read stating: 

“I sacrifice in His tent with teruah (shofar blasts) of joy, 

Singing and chanting a hymn to the Lord. 

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; 

Have mercy on me, answer me.” 75 

Adopting these shofar practices as a personal daily meditation during Elul provides a 

structure and discipline that has become essential to my preparation for the High Holy 

Days. 

70 

Jacob ben Wolf Kranz, the Dubner Maggid, Paraphrased from The Rosh Hashanah Anthology, JPS, 

1993, translator Alexander A Steinbach, www.jhom.com/calendar/tishrei/parable2.htm, July 9, 2006. 

www.geocities.com/afinkle221/tales2.html, January 11, 2008 says the story is "The Alarm" by the Maggid 

of Dubnow, condensed from the story by I. L. Peretz in I.L. Peretz Reader, Ruth R. Wisse, editor (Yale 

University Press, 2002). 

71 

Deuteronomy 30:6. 

72 

Song of Songs 6:3. 

73 

Esther 9:22. 

74 

Based on Kitzer Shulchon Oruch, Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried translated by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger, Chapter 

1281:1, Moznaim Publishing Corporation, 1991 

75 

Psalms 27:6-7. Some translations interpret “teruah” as “shouts.” While this is more poetic in English, it 

misrepresents the central importance of hearing shofar as a wake-up call in the month prior to Rosh 

Hashanah, the Day of Teruah, and ignores the blowing of shofar that occurred in “His tent” when sacrifices 

took place. 


My regimen is simple, and you are encouraged to modify it to suit your temperament and 

practices. I spend a moment getting centered in my body, feeling the earth beneath my 

feet and the air coursing in and out of my lungs. If there is some aspect of my life in 

which I want to stimulate the process of teshuvah, I say a prayer to ask God to help me 

hear whatever it is I need to hear and to find the conviction to take appropriate actions. 

Then I recite the blessing for hearing the shofar, and blow tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah. 

(See Chapter 5 – Blast, Break, Shatter, Blast for an explanation of the shofar blasts.) 

And then I listen. 

I listen as the shofar calls’ vibrations spread out into the universe and decay. I listen for 

responses that ripple through my body. I listen to whatever images, thoughts, or feeling 

come to my awareness. I listen to the arguments of my mind telling me that I should 

ignore any pain, resentment, or sin around which I need to pursue teshuvah. I just listen. 

Then I put away the shofar and I go about the rest of my day. 

It is seldom that I have cosmic revelations during this practice. Instead, I have a slow 

coming to grips with areas of my life that need reconciliation. Perhaps I realize that I 

have to apologize to or forgive someone. Or I will remember a pledge I made that I have 

not yet fulfilled. Or I realize that I have been holding onto a belief or attitude that is no 

longer serving me. Teshuvah can be a slow process, and listening to shofar during Elul 

has helped me, blast-by-blast and step-by-step, seek the “at-one-ment” with my self, my 

neighbor, and with God that is the substance of atonement. 

By the end of Elul, when Rosh Hashanah arrives, my shofar and I have both been 

awakened, my lips are tuned, my heart is attuned, and I am ready to both sound and hear 

the great shofar. 

Meditations 

For help in developing your own shofar practice during Elul, please see the meditations 

for Elul in the next Chapter. Reading and reflecting on these meditations may help you 

find more meaning in a daily shofar practice. 

This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared 76 

“YOU ARE WALKING THROUGH THE WORLD HALF ASLEEP. It isn’t just that 

you don’t know who you are and that you don’t know how or why you got here. It’s 

worse than that; these questions never even arise. It is as if you are in a dream. 

“Then the walls of the great house that surrounds you crumble and fall. You tumble out 

onto a strange street, suddenly conscious of your estrangement and your homelessness. 

76 Rabbi Alan Lew, www.twbookmark.com/books/46/0316739081/chapter_excerpt17383.html, July 22, 

2006 


“A great horn sounds, calling you to remembrance, but all you can remember is how 

much you have forgotten. Every day for a month, you sit and try to remember who you 

are and where you are going. By the last week of this month, your need to know these 

things weighs upon you. Your prayers become urgent. 

“Then the great horn sounds in earnest one hundred times. The time of transformation is 

upon you. The world is once again cracking through the shell of its egg to be born.” 

Priming the Gong 77 

“Though the shofar is the Jewish sound-symbol par excellence for this time of year, the 

gong offers an explanation (by analogy) of why we blow the shofar daily during Elul. 

“Percussionists know that gongs are slow starters. With most musical instruments, a 

physical action immediately creates a sound. But the big flat Chinese-style gongs are 

different. If you take a mallet and strike a gong hard, you get some noise – a clank or a 

clunk – but the sound is squashed, not loud, ringing, or deeply sonorous. 

“To get a full, rich, ringing tone you have to prime the gong before you need the sound. 

You do this by repeatedly tapping it with the mallet. Each tap reinforces the vibrations 

already in motion. The sound slowly builds, layer upon layer, so that when the time 

arrives to strike the big note, a strong slap of the mallet sends the metal disk into an 

explosive “braaaaAAAASH" that reaches its peak up to several seconds afterward. To the 

listeners it sounds as though the whole ocean crashed over us at once, but the truth is that 

the wave spent a long time gathering strength out at sea before it broke upon the beach. 

“Sounding the shofar repeatedly during Elul serves the same purpose for us. If Yom 

Kippur arrives without preparation, it is as though we are struck suddenly. All the heavy 

prayer-language of God's sovereignty, the lists of our sins, and the gut-wrenching 

sacrifices of the ten martyrs – all of these together make a hefty mallet, and we, being 

unprepared, respond with a clunk. Like gongs, we need to be primed. 

“Each day of Elul when we hear the shofar, our souls vibrate a little more strongly, 

resonate a little more in synchrony with the holy purpose of this season. With each 

preparatory step, we grow more attuned to the music of teshuvah. When Rosh Hashanah 

and Yom Kippur arrive, we are primed and ready for the big moment, quivering – no, 

buzzing – with anticipation. The liturgical mallet makes contact with a human instrument 

already alive and pulsating, and we respond with a resounding crescendo of teshuvah. 

Our soul-wave breaks, splintering old patterns of behavior with a mighty roar.” 

Finally, “May you be shofar-driven to a good, sweet year...” 78 

77 Rick Dinitz, “That Elul Time Of Year,” August 25, 1993, 

www.mljewish.org/cgi-bin/retrieve.cgi?VOLUME=3&NUMBER=38&FORMAT=html, December 30, 

2007. 



78 Arnie Gotfryd, 30 August 2007, http://arniegotfryd.com/content/view/246/51/ December 26, 2008 


Chapter 1-4 – Meditations for Each Day of Elul 

“In the few days remaining of this year, let us be smart enough to choose the 

proper thoughts to concentrate upon during Rosh Hashanah.” 79 

It is a richly rewarding tradition to hear the shofar daily during the Elul, the month 

preceding Rosh Hashanah. If you participate in a morning minyan – communal prayer 

service, that is the best time for shofar. Otherwise, take a few moments to sound and 

listen to shofar yourself or with your family. 

Reading and reflecting on these meditations may help with the inner work or required to 

spiritually prepare for the Days of Awe, and with the external work required to make 

amends to yourself and others. 

It is customary to not blow shofar on Shabbat. Instead, either skip that day’s reading or 

read the meditation and try to remember the voice of shofar without sounding one. (See 

Chapter 9 – Remembering Shofar.) 

Meditation for First Day of Elul 

“In the beginning…God said…” 80 

The world was not created by thought, but by action. God’s speaking created a vibration, 

a ripple in the cosmos, that continues to move outward from its source and exchange 

energy with everything it contacts. 

When we blow shofar, we are acting in God’s image, creating change in the world 

through sound. 

In the physical world, sound vibrations transfer mechanical energy and generate minute 

amounts of heat due to molecular friction. In the physical world, the energy of shofar, 

like any other sound, entropies, dissipating until its impact is lost and forgotten. 

In the higher worlds, however, the vibrations of shofar becomes amplified when they are 

heard and act as a stimulus for teshuvah, the process of making amends for our sins 

(missing the mark) and returning to a life more in alignment with divine purpose. 

Hearing is more than the passive registration of acoustic energy by our auditory nerve; to 

hear shofar requires us to be spiritually present. We must become so receptive that the 

vibrations enter our minds, hearts and souls and move us towards taking the actions that 

produce teshuvah. 

79 Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, www.breslov.org/dvar/zmanim/rosh3_5758.htm, July 11, 2006 

80 Genesis 1:1-3. 


Teshuvah is not created by thoughts alone; action is required. For sins between us and 

God, we must ADMIT our error, FEEL regret and RESOLVE to not repeat the sins. For 

sins between us and another person, we must also ASK forgiveness and MAKE 

restitutions. 

If we do not actively hear shofar in a way that prompts teshuvah, then the vibrations 

merely pass through us, doing little else than imperceptibly raising our body 

temperatures. 

Years ago, a professor gave me the assignment to calculate how much sound energy was 

required to heat a cup of tea. During Elul, the month proceeding Rosh Hashanah, we can 

do better than that. We can use the energy of shofar to move us to brew an entire pot of 

tea, and then to sit down and share a cup with our family, neighbors and associates to 

settle old scores, heal festering wounds, ask for forgiveness for our offenses, and forgive 

those against whom we may hold grudges. 

When we do this, we are truly acting in the image of God, moving against the flow of 

entropy to create a new world. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, visualize sitting down with a cup of tea with your worthy 

opponents. What would you like to say and hear that may lead to healing? 

Meditation for Second Day of Elul 

“The Lord God formed man… He blew into his nostrils the breath of life…” 81 

This is the breath we return when we blow shofar. 

The connection between breath and knowledge of God is so deep that it is rooted in our 

languages. In English, “respiration” and “spiritual” share the same root. In Hebrew, 

“neshamah” (soul) and “neshēmah” (breath) share the same root, while “ruach” can 

mean either “wind” or “spirit.” 

One could reasonably assume that a powerful exhalation is the breath required to produce 

a strong shofar blast. As a shofar blower, however, I have found that the most important 

breath is my inhalation before blowing shofar. 

On the practical level, filling my chest with air provides the substance that will later be 

channeled into the shofar. Plus, it oxygenates my blood so I do not faint during a 

prolonged tekiah gedolah. 

But on a deeper level, the inhalation fills us with life. In that first breath, Adam had to 

inhale to receive the breath God blew into his nostrils. In the same way, inhaling 

continues to fill us with the spirit of life. 

81 Genesis 2:7. 


We are reborn with every inhalation. Then, like a newborn baby, we cry. Our cry is the 

voice of shofar announcing the birth of a New Year, a new world. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, feel the spirit flowing through your body with each breath. 

Meditation for Third Day of Elul 

“And the Lord said to Cain, 

‘Why are you distressed, 

And why is your face fallen? 

Surely, if you do right, 

There is uplift. 

But if you do not do right 

Sin couches at the door; 

Its urge is toward you, 

Yet you can be its master.’” 82 

The voice of shofar blares out of the story of Cain, introducing fundamental themes that 

resonate throughout the liturgy of the Days of Awe. 

11 th Century Romanesque ivory bas-relief shows God accepting Abel’s sacrifice of a sheep over Cain’s 

offering of grain, and the events that followed. 83 

82 

Genesis 4:6-7. 

83 

Photo: Gérard Blot. Location: Louvre, Paris. Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux /Art Resource, NY, 

Reference: ART155406, 

www.artres.com/c/htm/CSearchZ.aspx?o=&Total=68&FP=578425&E=22SIJMY9NY3CV&SID=JMGEJ 

NTMACX93&Pic=39&SubE=2UNTWAO9C8N7, 

August 12, 2006.) 


The story of Cain is not usually associated with shofar and the High Holy Days. But 

consider the evidence; Genesis introduces four motifs that are interwoven into the Days 

of Awe: 84 

1. The sacrifices offered by Cain and Abel are the first instance of WORSHIP in Torah. 

2. Abel’s slaying is the first mention of SIN in Torah. 85 

3. God’s exhortation to Cain, above, is the first place in Torah that lays out the basic 

tenets of TESHUVAH, an individual’s opportunity to chose to do right. 

4. When Cain prayed, “My punishment is too great to bear!” we have the first instance 

in Torah where God, by placing a mark of protection on Cain, shows MERCY. 

Further: 

• Abel was a keeper of sheep, and his offering was accepted while Cain’s offering from 

the fruit of the soil was not. This is the first mention of sheep in Torah and 

foreshadows the myriad instances in which sheep are woven into the historical and 

spiritual identity of the Jewish people, including: the binding of Isaac 86 , the blood of 

the lamb that marked our doors on the night of the Passover, the blaring of the ram’s 

horn at Sinai. 

• From Cain descended Jubal, the father of all musicians. Talmud explains that his 

name means “ram”, signaling the significance of the ram’s horn in our tradition and 

tying the generations of Cain to the shofar. 

• We are told that both Cain and Abel (and their twin sisters) were born on Rosh 

Hashanah. 

• Legend has it that the mark God placed on Cain was a horn. 

When I blow shofar on Rosh Hashanah, I viscerally experience God’s declaration, “Hark, 

your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” While shofar’s sound is produced 

by buzzing my lips, I feel it as a vibration rising out of the earth, coursing through my 

body, and rushing out the shofar to create a conduit between heaven and earth. 

We are the children of Cain, “a restless wanderer on earth.” Yet in the sound of shofar, 

we remember that we can be masters of the evil inclination. There is sin, but there is also 

teshuvah and mercy. There is hope. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, ask for strength and courage to master your urge to sin. 

Meditation for Fourth Day of Elul 

“Let us, then, go down and confound their speech there, so that they shall not 

understand one another’s speech.” 87 

84 Genesis, Chapter 4. 

85 Adam and Eve’s fall is not considered sin because they had innocence of right and wrong. 

86 The Moslem tradition identifies the sheep sacrificed by Abel as the same one sacrificed by Abraham 

during the Akedah. See Chapter 6 – The Ram’s Midrash. 



The shofar is a tool for amplifying and modulating sound. Perhaps anthropologists can 

tell us which came first, spoken language or the use of tools; spoken prayer or horn 

blowing. I do not know. 

However, I do know that before any of these things, we did quite well communicating 

emotions using non-verbal sounds and body language. Like many other animals, we 

expressed ourselves with grunts and growls. Thumping our chest and puffing our chests. 

Flailing our extremities and shaking heads. And roaring and howling – just as shofar still 

does. 

Hearing shofar enables us to return to a time before Babel when we all shared a common 

language. Now, as then, we understand clearly the raw emotions and instinctual 

behaviors aroused by shofar: fear, awe, love, courage, bewilderment, passion, 

commitment, release, joy, and… 

There is no need to process the voice of shofar through the higher speech centers of our 

minds, only to hear it. 

The Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgies are floods of words. Even if we read 

Hebrew, Aramaic, and the other languages in which our prayer book is written, how 

many of us really understand them? Do the words have the same meaning to me as they 

do to you? Can they possibly have the same meaning now as when first spoken on the 

other side of the world and the millennia? 

Halfway through services, are we even capable of hearing more words? Or have they 

become burnt hard like bricks and stacked one on top of the other in an attempt to build a 

tower of words with its top in the sky? 

But then shofar sounds. The tower of words tumble and we return, if only for an instant, 

to an ancient primal language we all understand. We look at each other and know that 

nothing we propose to do will be out of our reach. 

Stripped of our words and reduced to naked souls, we stand trembling together. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, quiet the flood of words in your mind and simply hear sound. 

Meditation for Fifth Day of Elul 

“…but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” 88 

The wild sheep of the ancient world was an important source of protein, fat, and hide. But 

it was also a terrifying animal that was strong, fast, and crowned with powerful horns that 

outmatched the primitive weapons of our ancestors. The creature was literally the source 

of life and death to the Paleolithic hunter, and inspired magical attempts to influence its 



ehavior. Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man has said that the early humans who attributed divine 

qualities to the forces of nature were the “spiritual geniuses” of their age. 89 The ram was 

a god to the ancient Semites that wandered between the Tigris and Nile Rivers. 

Later, when horned animals were domesticated, they were no longer seen as gods beyond 

human control. Yet the memory of an all-powerful ram still existed; a god that still 

demanded death to be propitiated. By then, our agriculture had advanced enough to 

afford the sacrifice of an animal now and then, especially since our flocks yielded more 

males than were needed for breeding. 

This was the world in which Isaac was reared. His father’s god was no longer in the 

shape of a beast, but still demanded blood, smoke, and the crackle of sizzling fat. 

Still later, we were taken as slaves into Babylon, and we no longer had the fat of the land 

to burn. Worship turned from Temple-based sacrifice, to the offering of all we had left to 

give – our voices. Yet the memory of the ram still existed. And then, as today, we mark 

the vernal New Year with a charred bone of a sheep, and the autumnal New Year with the 

voice of sheep, shofar. 

There is a story about the Hasidic master who, on the New Year, would go to a certain 

spot in the woods, and recite a particular blessing, and it was enough. Later, his disciples 

no longer knew the certain spot in the woods, but would welcome the New Year with the 

particular blessing, and it was enough. Today, we no longer know the certain spot in the 

woods or the particular blessing. But we tell the story, and it is enough. 

When we now blow shofar to welcome the New Year, it tells the story of nearly six 

thousand years of spiritual growth. And it is enough. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, let the modern self and your primitive self embrace. 

Meditation for Sixth Day of Elul 

“Go to the flock and fetch me two choice kids, and I will make of them a dish for 

your father, such as he likes…and she covered his hands and the hairless parts of 

his neck with skins of the kids.” 90 

Our sages tell us that, when we hear shofar, the ram’s horn should remind us to meditate 

on the faith of Abraham and how he was tested. The Akedah, the binding of Isaac, is a 

story of infinite significance, yet sometimes I question why it was singled out to be read 

every year on Rosh Hashanah. The entire Torah is sacred, after all, so what would it be 

like if we read a different story on the New Year? 

If, instead, we read about Esau and Jacob, on what would we then meditate when we 

heard the ram’s horn? 

89 Class at Metiva, Los Angeles, circa 1994. 



Meditation often produces surprising leaps of creative association, and our thoughts may 

turn to Chad Gadya, the allegorical Passover song about the “one kid my father bought 

for two zuzim,” two coins. Except that in this story, there are two kids – Esau and Jacob – 

who bought one zuz – their father’s inheritance. 

These two kids fought each other from the womb like rams in rutting season. Moreover, 

they are both symbolically offered as a sacrifice when Rachel makes a meal for Isaac 

with “two choice kids” from the flock. When the father eats the sacrifice, he gives a 

blessing that is along the lines of what the Patriarchs hoped to receive when they offered 

a kid to The Father. During the Days of Awe, we too pray for a blessing from Father. 

The Pesach song can be understood as a parable about how powerful regimes fall, one 

after another, just like the estates of Esau and Jacob fall one to the other. Was the mix-up 

in Jacob’s blessing due to just the machinations of a mother playing favorites, or is the 

unseen hand of God working behind the scenes. The answer is implied in our question 

during the High Holy Days, “Who shall be humbled, and who exalted?” 

The competition between the sons of Isaac turns to hostility and then to threats of death. 

The family is torn apart, and the brothers do not see each other for 20 years. Eventually, 

Jacob decides to seek reconciliation with his brother. While Jacob is returning to his 

homeland, a divine messenger renames him Israel. From this, we learn the 

transformational potential of teshuvah, a Hebrew word that means, “to return.” 

Israel makes amends to his brother by gifting him with flocks and bowing to the ground 

to ask forgiveness, and is accepted in love by his brother. What started as a dreamy 

meditation now comes into focus as a tale about blessings, standing in judgment before 

God, and teshuvah – the process of healing rifts and returning to wholeness. 

Then came the Holy One, blessed is He. Chad gadya, chad gadya. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today meditate on the unseen hand shaping your destiny. Where is 

there estrangement in your life? To where or what must you return? 

Meditation for Seventh Day of Elul 

“When Joseph came up to his brothers, they…cast him into a pit.” 91 

The Talmud says, “If one blows a shofar into a pit… the law is as follows: If he heard the 

sound of shofar without an accompanying echo, he has fulfilled his obligation. But if he 

heard the sound of shofar’s echo, he has not fulfilled his obligation.” 92 

For most of us, the image of blowing shofar into a pit seems so preposterous, that we may 

not immediately grasp why the sages considered it. But time and again, it has been 

91 Genesis 37:23-24. 

92 Rosh Hashanah 27b. 


necessary for Jews to perform the mitzvah of shofar clandestinely, hiding in cellars and 

caves, to circumvent oppression. 

What did Joseph do while at the bottom of the pit? Perhaps he napped and had another 

prophetic dream. Or did he pray for release? For courage to face his ordeal? For 

compassion to forgive his brothers? Or for… 

If he prayed, would his prayers have ricochet off the walls of the cistern? And if so, 

would his prayer echoes have become invalidated before God heard them? 

Topologically, a shofar is a tube, a hollow space that acts as a megaphone to modulate 

and amplify vibrations. Understood this way, Joseph was at the bottom of a huge earthbased 

shofar. Dug vertically into the ground, the pit was on an axis passing through the 

planet’s center and straight into the heavens. His prayers from the bottom of the pit, even 

whispered, would have been amplified far beyond any tekiah gedolah (big shofar blast) 

emanating from an ordinary ram’s horn. 

But there is a qualification. Joseph’s prayers would only have escaped the gravity of selfpity 

or recrimination if his kavanah, the intention behind his prayer, was inclined towards 

teshuvah – making whole the worlds. 

Otherwise, his words would have done little more than bounce from one wall to the other. 

Inside the pit, the reverberation would make his voice sound big and booming; very 

satisfying to hear on a superficial level, but not nearly as effective as the still small voice 

of the heart for communicating with the One. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, meditate on the pits in which you are confined. Are you dozing 

or praying? What is your kavanah? 

Meditation for Eighth Day of Elul 

“I am the Lord your God…” 93 

A more literal translation of the Hebrew is, “I am Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay, your God…,” using 

the four letter name of God that is beyond translation and beyond pronunciation. 

Rabbi Arthur I. Waskow has written about pronouncing The Name and asks, what if there 

are no vowels in The Name, only the consonants yud, hay, and vav? Pronouncing these 

letters sounds like, “yyyyyyyyy-hhhhhhhh-vvvvvvvv-hhhhhhh,” a rush of air that is only 

slightly modified by our lips and tongues. 94 

The voice of shofar is, similarly, only a rush of air slightly modified by our lips and 

tongues and amplified by a conical horn. It is, perhaps, as much of The Name as we are 

93 Exodus 20:2 

94 Arthur I Waskow, Godwrestling-Round 2: Ancient Wisdom, Future Paths, Jewish Lights Publishing, 

1998. 


able to hear as humans, the rest of the name is on spiritual or dimensional bandwidths to 

which mortals cannot attune. 

While the Temple still stood, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies on Yom 

Kippur and utter The Name. Now, during the Days of Awe, we must each be our own 

high priest and enter the Holy of Holies that is indwelling within each of us. There, we 

can hear “yyyyyyyyy-hhhhhhhh-vvvvvvvv-hhhhhhh” – the Eternal Exhalation of shofar 

– as The Name whispered in a rush of air. Amen. 

When you hear shofar today, remember standing at Sinai and hearing, for the first time, 

“I am yyyyyyyyy-hhhhhhhh-vvvvvvvv-hhhhhhh, your God…” 

Meditation for Ninth Day of Elul 

“...the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God.” 95 

Most Jewish communities do not sound shofar on Shabbat. The rabbinic prohibition 

against doing so is assurance against someone carrying shofar or doing anything else that 

might be construed as work; it is a fence around Torah to protect the sanctity of the day 

of rest. 

Even if you drive or do other “work” on Shabbat, you may want to refrain from shofar 

blowing on Shabbat as a symbolic way of embracing the day of rest. 

Hearing shofar is a call to make teshuvah, the making of amends for our errors. But on 

Shabbat, we do not have to make anything; we simply have to be. 

While teshuvah is a worthy goal, pursuing it relentlessly may be counterproductive. I 

have heard that a historian studied the records left by the wagon trains of American 

settlers moving west across the great plains and mountains. The records indicate that the 

groups that observed the Sabbath, resting themselves and their horses one day out of 

seven, actually made the journey in less time, on average, than those who hitched-up their 

wagons every day. Amen. 

When you hear shofar today, unhitch your wagon to enjoy the blessings of the moment. 

Meditation for Tenth Day of Elul 

“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall cease from 

labor, in order that your ox and your ass may rest…” 96 

Including a day of rest for animals was one of the ethical revolutions of the Torah. In this 

restatement of the Fourth Commandment, animals are not just a beneficiary of the 

95 Exodus 20:9. 

96 Exodus 23:30. 


Sabbath; they are the reason for it. While the ox and ass are named in this verse, we 

should understand it to apply to all livestock, including sheep. 

A shofar can be made from the horn of any animal whose horn has a bone core, with the 

exception that it cannot be made from horns of the cow, ox or similar bovines. Most 

often, it is made from the horn of a sheep, particularly a ram’s horn. 

Long before Sinai, when our ancestors discovered that blowing into a horn could produce 

sound, they made its call a central feature of their primitive rituals. They believed that 

blowing the horn enabled them to magically acquire the animal’s power and gain control 

over the forces of nature. 

Our rituals have become more sophisticated today, and we do not recognize animals as 

avatars of the divine. If we listen, however, we can still hear the voice of the animal 

resonating from its horn whenever we blow shofar. The essence of the living animal that 

remains in the horn is what distinguishes the sound of a shofar from that of a metallic 

trumpet. 

When you rest on Shabbat, let the essence of the animal from which your horn came rest 

too. Amen. 

When you hear shofar today, offer a blessing in honor of the animals that provide horns 

for shofarot. 

Meditation for Eleventh Day of Elul 

“You shall make the altar… Make its horns on the four corners, the horns to be of 

one piece with it; and overlay it with copper.” 97 

There are spiritual lessons hidden in even the most prosaic verses of Torah; what can we 

learn from the altar horns that will illuminate our understanding of shofar horns and our 

blasts during the Days of Awe? 

Some scholars say the horns are vestiges from when our altars were shaped like horned 

animals such as the Golden Calf. Others posit that the beaten metal horns are a legacy 

from when altars were decorated with horns of animals that had been sacrificed upon 

them. Certainly, horns are symbolic of power and fertility and have been used in 

mythology and ritual since very primitive times. From this we learn that shofar connects 

us to one of the oldest, most deeply rooted needs we have as humans. If the use of horns 

did not serve us, the practices would not have survived thousands of years. 

The altar horns are called “keren” in Hebrew. Keren means “horn,” but also “ray” or any 

sort of eminence. From “keren” comes the Latin “cornu” meaning “horn” or “point” and 

97 Exodus 27:1-2. Other Torah verses that refer to the horns of the altar are: Exodus 29:12 and 38:2, 

Leviticus 4:18, 4:34, 8:15, 9:9, I Kings 1:50:51, 2:28 and Psalms 118:27. Horns are also on the altar 

described in Ezekiel’s vision, Ezekiel 43:15 and 43:20. 


the English word “corner.” Architecturally, the altar horns are part of the ancient tradition 

of erecting prominences at the corners of structures, like the acroteria that add emphasis 

to corners of classical Greek pediments. Where structure meets sky, the horns act as a 

sort of visual and spiritual lightning rod or antennae to join heaven and earth. 

That they were copper suggests the horns could conduct electromagnetism, so why not 

other energetic fields as well? From this we learn that shofar blasts, in the acoustical 

spectrum of the electromagnetic field, serve as focal points to our worship at the altar of 

prayer. 

Perhaps the Temple’s alter had horns similar to these on the corners of a small limestone altar from 

Megiddo in Israel, dating from the Iron Age (1000-586 BCE). 98 

There were four keren on the altar, and four calls on shofar – tekiah, shevarim, teruah, 

and tekiah gedolah. Talmudic discourse indicates that shofarot are made of keren, the 

horn of an animal. But not all keren, such as the horns of cattle, are acceptable for use as 

a shofar. Keren is of the physical plane; shofar enters the spiritual plane when it channels 

our prayers. From this we learn that we must breathe life and intention into our horns in 

order to imbue them with ritual meaning. 

From other references in Torah, we know that blood of sacrificed animals was dashed 

against the horns during Temple rituals, and that someone grasping the horns was to be 

granted asylum and refuge from attackers. From this, we learn that shofar sounds must be 

energetic blasts, just as the blood was dashed against the horns and not dribbled. Also, 

that hearing the blasts of shofar offers us relief and protection from the evil inclination. 

Finally, we learn that the shofar has to be of one piece with our worship. We must enter 

into the shofar blasts and hear them, feel them, and become one with them. Our offerings 

on the altar, then and now, are made holy by wholeness. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, visualize yourself grasping the horns of the altar. From what 

do you seek refuge? 

98 Location: Israel Museum (IDAM), Jerusalem, Israel, Photo: Erich Lessing /Art Resource, 

www.artres.com/c/htm/CSearchZ.aspx?o=&Total=428&FP=600929&E=22SIJMY9NQMX3&SID=JMGE 

JNTMAZKIT&Pic=255&SubE=2UNTWA79GTX8, August 12, 2006. 


Meditation for Twelfth Day of Elul 

“In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete 

rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts…and you shall bring an 

offering by fire to the Lord.” 99 

This is one of the injunctions establishing the Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah. An “offering 

by fire” originally required the sacrificial burning of an animal on the altar in the 

Mishkon, the Tent of Meeting, and later at the Temple in Jerusalem. 

How are we to observe this commandment today when we no longer observe Templebased 

rites? 

Now, our offering is tefillah, prayer. However the mere recitation of words from the 

prayer book does not satisfy the requirement. To serve as our sacrifice, our prayers must 

be offered with our souls on fire. 

The High Holy Day liturgy says “Teshuvah, Tefillah and Tzadakah” – repentance, prayer 

and performance of good deeds – temper the harsh decree as our record is reviewed by 

the Judge. Taking this T-cubed path can reduce sin to ash that is rich in nutrients that can 

be mixed into the soil of our soul to support growth. 

Authentic prayer is a catalyst that creates transformation without mechanical effort, 

allowing us to pray while still observing complete rest. It is also, like fire, an exothermic 

reaction that releases energy in the form of teshuvah. The loud blasts of shofar amplify 

our prayer; it is the bellow that blows air onto a spark to create flame. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, breathe deeply to fully oxygenate your blood and stoke the fire 

of teshuvah. 

Meditation for Thirteenth Day of Elul 

“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…You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall 

be a jubilee for you; each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall 

return to his family.” 100 

“Jubilee” is derived from the Hebrew “yovel,” a word that also means “horn.” In ancient 

Israel, the yovel created a periodic redistribution of economic wealth. It blocked the 

establishment of a landed aristocracy, for example, because land-use rights that had been 

acquired over five decades returned to the clan to which the land had originally been 

assigned. Slaves and indentured servants were granted their freedom. Debts were 

forgiven. And everyone had an equal opportunity to make a new beginning. 

99 Leviticus 23:39. 

100 Leviticus 25:9 –10. 


What would our country be like if we observed a nation-wide yovel? Would the land be 

returned to the Sioux, Chumash and Iroquois? Would the time remaining until the yovel 

be so factored into loans as to make the forgiveness of debts meaningless? Would it 

really be justice if giving freedom to the indentured meant turning them out onto the 

street without the means to support themselves? 

There is one aspect of the yovel that is still available to us, and we can enjoy its blessing 

each Yom Kippur and without waiting until the fiftieth year – the opportunity to make a 

new beginning. 

We are granted the right to return to the spiritual home of our ancestors; I am not 

referring to the Land of Israel, but to live in a sukkot shalom – a divine shelter of peace. 

Our emotional debts – all the baggage we carry about the “could haves,” “should haves,” 

and “would haves” of human existence – can be blasted into forgiveness by shofar. And 

we are granted the right to choose freedom from our servitude to addictions and false 

gods. We truly have an opportunity to make a new beginning. 

Some of us may feel so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the opportunity presented by 

the yovel that we become paralyzed and choose to stay in bondage. So here is a 

suggestion. It is not essential, nor is it likely, that we will be able to completely liberate 

ourselves in a single moment of atonement. Be we don’t have to – it is enough to take 

even a small step into the yovel. You will have another opportunity next year, God 

willing, to take another step along the spiraling path towards liberation. 

Rabbi Mordecai Findley has put it this way: instead of praying to be freed from all sin in 

the coming year, “pray for a better class of sin,” for the ability to make better choices and 

take healthier actions in our lives. 101 When we do this for ourselves, we also become 

better able to “proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof.” 

Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, meditate on the meaning of the yovel in your life. What can 

you do to liberate yourself? How can you help others enjoy the blessings of liberty? 

Meditation for Fourteenth Day of Elul 

“Have two silver trumpets made; make them of hammered work. They shall serve 

you to summon the community and to set the divisions in motion. When both are 

blown in long blasts, the whole community shall assemble before you at the 

entrance of the Tent of Meeting; and if only one is blown, the chieftains, heads of 

Israel’s contingents, shall assemble before you. But when you sound short blasts, 

the divisions encamped on the east shall move forward; and when you sound short 

blasts a second time, those encamped on the south shall move forward. Thus short 

blasts shall be blown for setting them in motion, while to convoke the congregation 

101 Sermon, Makom Ohr Shalom, circa 1995. 


you shall blow long blasts, not short ones. The trumpets shall be blown by Aaron’s 

sons, the priests; they shall be for you an institution for all time throughout the 

ages. When you are at war in your land against an aggressor who attacks you, you 

shall sound short blasts on the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the 

Lord your God and be delivered from your enemies. And on your joyous occasions 

– your fixed festivals and new moon days – you shall sound the trumpets over your 

burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being. They shall be a reminder of you 

before your God: I, the Lord, am your God.” 102 

Rosh Hashanah occurs on the new moon of Tishrei, the first day of the seventh month of 

the Hebrew calendar. 

Torah commands us to sound two kinds of wind instruments; the ram’s horn (shofar) and 

the silver trumpets described in this verse. Now, the only Jewish rites in which we still 

use silver trumpets are during b’nai mitzvot, wedding parties, and other joyous occasions. 

When we need a more spiritually potent instrument, we rely today on shofar. 

During the High Holy Days, shofar still summons us to assemble. The blasts call us to 

teshuvah, to set ourselves in motion to return to wholeness. In our struggles to overcome 

moral weakness, fear, addiction, and other character defects, shofar remembers us to our 

Higher Power and strengthens us in our struggles with our enemies within. 

Happy are the people who know the sound of shofar, for we will enjoy the new moon of 

Tishrei as a day of sounding and remembering shofar, and will experience a sacrifice in 

honor of our well-being. Happy are the people who sound and hear teruah, shofar blasts, 

as “an institution for all time throughout the ages.” Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, meditate on what you will offer as your sacrifice of well-being. 

Meditation for Fifteenth Day of Elul 

“Surely, this instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too difficult for you, 

nor is it far off. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go 

up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may hear it?’ Neither 

is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who among us can cross to the other side 

of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may hear it?’ No, the thing is 

very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.” 103 

In an important way, shofar is not the horn, but the energy that flows through the horn. It 

is both the mechanical energy of acoustic vibration and the spiritual energy of prayer. 

Many people have told me, “I could never blow shofar, it’s just too difficult. I could 

never get to where I could sound it. I guess it is just not in me.” I remind them of the 

above words of Moses. Then I add, “The shofar is already in you. You are the shofar.” 

102 Numbers 10:2-10. 

103 Deuteronomy 30:11-14 


In physics, objects each have a fundamental frequency at which they will vibrate. If the 

pitch of a sound impinging on an object is a harmonic of the object’s fundamental 

frequency, the sound will set the object into motion. As the sound continues, more and 

more of its energy is transferred into the object, and the amplitude of the object’s 

vibration increases. This is called resonance. 

In the same way, each soul has a fundamental frequency that resonates to the sound of 

shofar. Our fundamental frequencies are not across the sea or in the heavens; they are 

programmed into every one of us. Activated by the harmonics of shofar, the amplitude of 

our vibrations increases and causes us to tremble. 

This effect only occurs, however if we hear and listen to the sound. Otherwise, our 

inattentiveness and distractions act as dampers to suppress any spiritual resonance. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, remove all stops from your hearing and tune into shofar’s 

resonance with your soul. 

Meditation for Sixteenth Day of Elul 

“On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing 

the horns. And when a long blast is sounded on the horn – as soon as you hear that 

sound of the horn… the people shall advance, every man straight ahead.” 104 

I am not a pacifist, for I understand the need to take up arms in self-defense. Our taking 

of Jericho and the rest of Canaan, however, was an outright war of conquest. The words, 

“God is on our side” have been spoken by too many aggressors for them to justify our 

actions. We can only redeem our history if we learn from it to improve our character – 

individually and as a nation. 

One way we can do this is by hearing shofar as a call for peace. 

104 Joshua 6:7. 


“Shalom al Yisrael – Peace upon Israel” appears in mosaic floor of 6 th century synagogue in Jericho. Note 

lulav, menorah, and shofar – ritual implements from the Temple and common graphic motifs in early 

synagogues. 

Jericho has fallen and been rebuilt many times throughout the ages. During the Roman 

era, a synagogue was built in the city with a tile mosaic of a shofar and Hebrew letters 

spelling out, “For the peace of Israel.” 

In my meditation, I see a conference table. The descendents of Jacob and the descendents 

of Ishmael 105 sit around it, each clan stiff-necked and barricaded behind stony walls of 

suspicion and intransigence. When their words no longer translate, one tribe stands, and 

walks around the conference table, an exercise that allows them to see their adversary and 

the possibilities from all possible angles. Then, the other tribe walks around the table and 

also gets new perspectives. 

For six days, wordlessly, they take turns circumambulating and watching the other and 

looking into their own hearts. Then, on Friday evening, at the intersection of the seventh 

day of the Islamic calendar and the seventh day of the Hebrew calendar, the customary 

Jewish proscription against shofar on Shabbat is suspended because the mitzvah of 

making peace is given precedence. The two tribes circle the table together, seven times, 

like a bride and groom under a chuppah – bridal canopy, each taking in the full essence 

of the other. 

Then, when a long blast is sounded, the walls of separation fall. Each people advances, 

every man and woman straight ahead, to embrace cousins. Together, they rebuild a new 

Jericho with an inscription, “For the peace of all the children of Abraham.” 

It is only a vision, but I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the promising land 

of peace. May it come speedily and in our own lifetime. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, listen closely for someone who is responding with his or her 

call for a truce, forgiveness, and peace. 

Meditation for Seventeenth Day of Elul 

“[Gideon] divided the three hundred men into three columns and equipped each 

with a ram’s horn and an empty jar… Gideon and the hundred men with him 

arrived at the outposts of the camp… They sounded the horns and smashed the jars 

that they had with them, and the three columns blew their horns and broke their 

jars…[and] they shouted… They remained standing where they were, surrounding 

the camp; but the entire camp ran about yelling, and took to flight. For when the 

three hundred horns were sounded, the Lord turned every man’s sword against his 

fellow…and the entire camp fled…” 106 

105 According to Jewish tradition, the Jewish people are descendants of Jacob (also known as Israel); 

Arabic people are descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son. 

106 Judges 7:19-22. 


There is nothing like the surprise attack to confound an adversity. Mindful of this 

principle, our shofar blasts have been designed to yield maximum strategic value in our 

struggles with Satan, the evil inclination and angel of death, who acts as the chief 

prosecutor arguing the case against us when we are judged by God on Rosh Hashanah. 

Our sages offer many strategies for confounding Satan. We are told, for example, that 

God will slay the angel of death at the end of time and that, since “The Great Shofar” will 

herald the end of time; our vigorous and repeated blasts during Rosh Hashanah bewilder 

Satan into thinking its time is up. 

In the synagogue, we announce the approach of each new month on the Sabbath before 

the new moon. But we do not announce the coming of Tishrei because it coincides with 

Rosh Hashanah and we do not want to remind Satan of this fact. Similarly, we do not 

sound shofar on the final day of Elul, the day before Rosh Hashanah, in order to confuse 

Satan into thinking it has missed its date in court to testify against us. 

I cannot attest to the effectiveness of these gambits. However, there is a spiritual 

offensive in which I do have faith: teshuvah, returning to the light of Torah. Shofar calls 

us to create teshuvah, and hearing shofar daily throughout Elul gives us many 

opportunities to atone for our sins. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson 

says, “When a Jew repents properly prior to the onset of Rosh Hashanah, then he is 

already assured that he will be written and sealed in the Book of the Righteous. In other 

words, by repenting prior to Rosh Hashanah, his judgment for the good was already 

assured during the month of Elul.” 

When this happens, the prosecutor shows up in court only to be surprised that the case 

has already been dismissed. Amen. 

When you hear shofar today, remember that cases can be settled before the Court date. 

Make the most of this opportunity for teshuvah. 

Meditation for Eighteenth Day of Elul 

“Abner then called to Joab, ‘Must the sword devour forever? You know how 

bitterly it’s going to end! How long will you delay ordering your troops to stop the 

pursuit of their kinsmen?’ …Joab then sounded the horn, and all the troops halted; 

they ceased their pursuit of Israel and stopped the fighting.” 107 

In too many chapters of Torah, the ram’s bugle calls the charge into battle. Fortunately, it 

can also sound the call for a truce. We must be like Abner and speak the truth to 

warmongers and those who profit from fear. There are no winners and losers in war, only 

the dead and the survivors. 

107 II Samuel 2:26-28. 


We are given a choice between life and death, and are commanded to choose life. To the 

question, “Must the sword devour forever?,” we must answer, “NO!” 

A Christian once asked me to blow shofar in his church where they were trying to 

understand the meaning of the shofar blasts at Sinai. Most of the preaching during the 

Sunday worship service was in a language I did not know, but I was startled by the 

minister’s frequent shouts, fist in the air, for, “Victory!” Sensitized by history and the 

congregation’s unfamiliar ethnic culture, I became frightened and wondered if he was 

exhorting his congregation to go to war against Jews. 

Eventually I realized that, indeed, he was calling them to battle. But the enemy was not 

you nor I, anyone nor any nation. It was a call for victory in the eternal struggle against 

temptation to do wrong and an exhortation to his flock to struggle against the evils of sin, 

oppression, and injustice. His call for “Victory,” in reality, was what we also hope to hear 

when we blow shofar during the Days of Awe. 

In reflecting on how his words had seemed, initially, like a threat, I realized how often 

the sword is drawn simply because neighbors do not understand their neighbors, even 

when they and we are calling for the same things. It is my prayer that we are allowed to 

hear shofar as the voice of “Victory” announcing the end of fear and that the sword had 

been forever sheathed. Amen. 

When you hear shofar today, listen for the call of Victory in your life. 

Meditation for Nineteenth Day of Elul 

“David whirled with all his might before the Lord…Thus David and all the House 

of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts and with blasts of the horn.” 108 

My sister, Hanna Chusid, quoting her teachers, explains why we remember the yahrzeit – 

the anniversary of a person’s death – rather than their birth date by saying, “When a 

person dies, their essence becomes more available to all of us.” Applying this concept to 

the Temple in Jerusalem, the reality of its loss makes its sanctity more accessible to each 

of us. 

In David’s time, only the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. Now, 

we are each capable of entering the inner precincts through prayer and meditation. 

Then, the King and the priests performed the sin offerings to propitiate the Lord. Now, 

we must each perform teshuvah, tefillah and tzadakah – repairing the rifts in our soul, 

offering sincere prayer, and performing acts of justice – as our sacrifice. 

Then, the presence of the Eternal was most accessible within the walls of a structure. 

Now, we can also know the indwelling presence of Spirit. 

108 II Samuel 6:14-15. 


It is fitting and proper that we mourn the destruction of the Temples. Yet we redeem the 

loss whenever we worship with all our might before the Lord and praise God with cheers 

and blasts of shofar. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, visualize yourself in the presence of the Ark and offer praise. 

Meditation for Twentieth Day of Elul 

“But Absalom sent agents to all the tribes of Israel to say, “When you hear the 

blast of the horn, announce that Absalom has become king in Hebron.” 109 

“Joab…took three darts in his hand and drove them into Absalom’s chest. Absalom 

was still alive in the thick growth of the terebinth, when ten of Joab’s young armsbearers 

closed in and struck at Absalom until he died. Then Joab sounded the horn, 

and the troops gave up their pursuit of the Israelites; for Joab held the troops in 

check.” 110 

This pair of verses marks the beginning and end of Absalom’s rebellion against King 

David. The references to shofar do not, at first reading, advance the narrative or appear to 

impart spiritual or moral instruction. 

Regarding Biblical references to shofar, Cyrus Adler says in his scholarly paper, “The 

Shofar – Its Use and Origins,” published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1893, that, 

“the shofar is not as frequently mentioned as the constancy of its use for certain purposes 

might lead us to expect. The infrequency of its mention is in a way, however, a sort of 

evidence of the frequency of its use. The blowing of the bugle is as regular a part of a 

charge as the horses on which the cavalry is mounted. Its picturesqueness would naturally 

strike the mind of a poet and so references to the shofar in the prophetical books are 

numerous.” 

Understood this way, these references to shofar are used as literary devices to mark the 

beginning and end of an episode. 

We can still use shofar this way, to mark the beginning of new chapters in our lives and 

the end of behaviors or attitudes that are no longer healthy or useful to us. This is shofar’s 

call to teshuvah, a call to end our inner struggles with the parts of ourselves that are in 

rebellion against our higher purposes. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, hear its voice announce a new beginning. What rebellion – 

against yourself, your family, your community, or God – are you ready to end? 

109 II Samuel 15:10. 

110 II Samuel 18:16. 


Meditation for Twenty-First Day of Elul 

“And in that day, a great ram’s horn shall be sounded; and the strayed who are in 

the land of Assyria and the expelled who are in the land of Egypt shall come and 

worship the Lord on the holy mount, in Jerusalem.” 111 

Sounding shofar recalls the prophetic vision of the ingathering of exiles. May the day not 

be distant, of course. But meanwhile, what are we to do until the Messiah comes? 

The answer is, create tikkun olam – the healing of the world. 

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi has compared the world to a living organism. Within 

the world, each nation or tribe is an organ vital to the well-being of the organism. 

Similarly, each person is like a cell necessary to the functioning of the nation or tribe. If 

too many cells become unhealthy, the organ becomes diseased and can no longer do its 

part to sustain the whole organism. 

Each of us lives, to one degree or another, in exile from ourselves. Our hearts argues with 

our heads. Our feet don’t follow our visions. And it is all too easy to close our eyes to 

truth. We put on psychological armor when we need extra protection, but forget to take it 

off when we among friends and loved ones. 

We do not need to wait for the “great” ram’s horn to get started; even a very ordinary 

shofar will suffice. By hearing and heeding shofar’s call to teshuvah – the return from our 

exiles – we can move towards health and wholeness. 

Then, when we pray, “May the one who creates peace in the heavens create peace on 

earth,” the reverse will also be true: by creating peace – wholeness – on earth, we create 

wholeness throughout all the worlds. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, listen for the faint voices of the parts of you that are in exile. 

Allow shofar to be a beacon to guide your fragmented self back into wholeness. 

Meditation for Twenty-Second Day of Elul 

“Cry with full throat, without restraint; 

Raise your voice like a ram’s horn! 

Declare to My people their transgression. 

To the House of Jacob their sin. 

“To be sure, they seek Me daily. 

Eager to learn My ways. 

Like a nation that does what is right, 

That has not abandoned the laws of its God, 

They ask Me for the right way, 

111 Isaiah 27:13. 


They are eager for the nearness of God: 

“Why, when we fasted, did You not see? 

When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed? 

“Because on your fast day 

You see to your business 

And oppress all your laborers! 

Because you fast in strife and contention, 

And you strike with a wicked fist! 

Your fasting today is not such 

As to make your voice heard on high. 

“Is such the fast I desire, 

A day for men to starve their bodies? 

Is it bowing the head like a bulrush 

And lying in sackcloth and ashes? 

Do you call that a fast, 

A day when the Lord is favorable? 

“No, this is the fast I desire: 

To unlock the fetters of wickedness, 

And untie the cords of the yoke 

To let the oppressed go free; 

To break off every yoke. 

It is to share your bread with the hungry. 

And to take the wretched poor into your home; 

When you see the naked, to cloth him, 

And not to ignore your own kin.” 112 

The words of the prophet are as urgent today as when first spoken. In our individual quest 

to feel the nearness of God, we must not forget the needs of others. Our liturgy for the 

Days of Awe tells us that we do not merit Divine mercy by prayer and repentance alone; 

we must also perform tzadakah. While often translated as charity, a fuller meaning of this 

concept is to take actions that lead to justice. When we hear shofar, it calls us to 

tzadakah. 

Even when we do not hear shofar, we must be the shofar and cry out against injustice 

with our own voices. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, become the shofar and raise your voice as a call to action. 

What steps will you take today and in the coming year to create justice? 

Meditation for Twenty-Third Day of Elul 

“Thus said the Lord; 

Stand by the roads and consider, 

112 Isaiah 58:1-7. 


Inquire about ancient paths: 

Which is the road to happiness? 

Travel it, and find tranquility for yourselves. 

But they said, ‘We will not.’ 

“And I raised up watchmen for you: 

‘Harken to the sound of the horn!’ 

But they said, ‘We will not.’ 

“Hear well, O nations, 

And know, O community, what is in store for them.” 113 

The road to happiness is not the road of comfort and ease sought by so many in our 

society. Instead, the prophet maps for us the road of living according to God’s 

commandments and in moment-to-moment Torah-consciousness. 

The ancient path is rigorous. It requires us to perform acts of loving kindness without 

measure. To seek peace and pursue it. To leave the corners of our fields unharvested so 

the widow and orphan can feed themselves. To care for the sick. To love the stranger in 

our midst. To maintain fair weights and measures. To redeem the enslaved. To refrain 

from poisoning the land. To remove the stumbling blocks before the blind. 

Torah-consciousness is Jewish spirituality. There is a prevailing illusion that the spiritual 

path goes from peak to peak of blissful awareness of the Divine. If we pursue only those 

moments of awe, we loose sight that all of life is holy, and that we can sanctify every 

moment by observing mitzvot and lifting up holy sparks. 

The watchman has blown the shofar: The ice caps are melting, yet we maintain our 

addiction to fossil fuels. We do not maintain the levees because we cannot afford 

sandbags, yet war profiteers stuff their sacks with gold. Our leaders lie and are caught in 

their lies, but are not held accountable. 

Soon after Jeremiah issued his warning, we were led away as captives to Babylon. Today, 

as I write this, we are again captives in Babylon, in the quagmire of a war without end in 

sight. 

Oh, indeed, the watchman has sounded the horn. Hear it well for the prophet has told us 

what will happen if we fail to head its clarion call. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, reflect on how you can help our nation return to the path of 

happiness. 

113 Jeremiah 6:16-18. 


Meditation for Twenty-Fourth Day of Elul 

“All you peoples, clap your hands, raise a joyous shout for God… God ascends 

midst acclamation; the Lord to the blast of the horn.” 114 

This Psalm is typically read in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy just before the blowing of 

shofar. It is an appropriate verse for the occasion because of its reference to shofar and 

reiteration of two major themes of the High Holy Days: God’s coronation (malchuyot) 

and glorification (shofarot). Beneath the surface, however, it is also a parable about the 

power of teshuvah, repentance. 

While most Psalms are attributed to King David, this is one of eleven written by or 

dedicated to the “Sons of Korah.” Numbers 115 tells how Korah orchestrated a rebellion 

against the leadership of Moses. While the language of his challenge is an intriguing 

appeal to a more egalitarian society, midrash expounds that Korah was a demagogue who 

clothed himself as a populist to advance his own agenda. God, apparently, agreed, for the 

ground, “opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households.” 

Yet, when Korah’s story is restated several chapters later, we learn that, “the sons of 

Korah, however, did not die.” 116 Not only did they become psalmists, they merited 

producing the prophet Samuel among their descendants. 

Midrash explains the discrepancy by saying the sons honored their father by appearing to 

follow his lead, but realized that his cause was, ultimately, a rebellion against God. This 

led the sons to feel remorse and to feel the stirring of repentance in their hearts. While 

they remained in the rebel camp, even this small stirring of teshuvah, repentance, was 

sufficient to merit God’s mercy. Instead of going to Sheol, the pit, when the earth 

swallowed them, they were preserved in a special place in Gehenon – a place of perdition 

– where they composed and sang their songs of gratitude and praise to God. 117 

During the Days of Awe, we are like the sons of Korah, neither condemned to Sheol nor 

fully pardoned, dependent upon God’s mercy. We read their Psalm for its reassurance 

that there is yet hope for us. If the sound of shofar creates even a small stirring of 

repentance in our hearts, there is yet hope for us. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, have the courage to look into even the darkest corners of your 

soul and know that there is yet hope. 

114 Psalms 47:2, 6. 

115 Numbers, Chapter 16. 

116 Numbers 26:11. 

117 See Sanhedrin 110a. Also, "The Song of the Shofar: The Lesson of the Sons of Korach," Hubscher, 

Malka. Vehigadet Levitekh, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, http://jofa.org/pdf/uploaded/373- 

BVGD9535.pdf, February 5, 2006 


Meditation for Twenty-Fifth Day of Elul 

“Happy is the people who know the joyful shout; O Lord, they walk in the light of 

Your presence.” 118 

This verse is read in many congregations after shofar is blown. 

The shofar blast is a joyful shout. 

We do not know what tomorrow brings, but we have had the gift of life for the past year; 

so we shout with joy. 

We have enough breath within us to blow the horn. The Ba’al Shem Tov says that “the 

difference between nature and miracles is its frequency.” So we shout for the miracle of 

breath. 

Despite our disappointments with God, our fears of God, and even our anger at God, we 

still shout. Rabbi Jonathon Omar-Man says, “God always answers our prayers, even if 

sometimes the answer is ‘No’.” So we shout with joy because our God is a true God. 

Oy! We have sinned. The alphabet is not long enough to enumerate all the ways we have 

missed the mark. But we know that through tzadakah, tefillah and teshuvah – acts of 

justice, prayer, and sincere effort to improve our ways – we can avert the harsh decree. 

So we shout with joy because we have a merciful God. 

There is no problem too enormous, no attitude too intractable, and no problem too 

complex to resist being bathed and purified in the sonic mikvah of the shofar. Happy, 

happy, happy are the people who know how to release their cares into the joyful shout. 

Even when it cries, the shofar blast is a joyful shout. It is the raucous, joyous cry of a 

newborn year. 

Yes, the shofar blast is a joyous shout. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, feel the joyous shout wash your soul. 

Meditation for Twenty-Sixth Day of Elul 

“Nebuchadnezzar spoke… ‘Now if you are ready to…worship the statue of gold 

that I have set up when you hear the sound of the horn…well and good; but if you 

will not worship, you shall at once be thrown into a burning fiery furnace, and what 

god is there that can save you from my power?’” 119 

118 Psalms 89:16. 

119 Daniel 3:14-15. 


In most of these meditations, I have used the first person plural, “we,” after the manner of 

making our confessions as a people during the Days of Awe. Here, however, I am 

confronted with a personal recognition that I must confess as an “I.” 

In my enthusiasm to understand all the teachings of shofar, I have come perilously close 

to making it into an idol or at least a physical presence in which I recognize the divine. 

As I read the story in Daniel of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, a tongue of the 

super-heated furnace in which they were tested leaps out and singes me as a warning 

against worshiping a physical object, whether made of gold or of common horn. 

It is not the instrument that makes shofar precious. Neither does the breath that animates 

the calls nor even the blasts that we are commanded to hear – they too are of the physical 

realm. What makes shofar dear is the kavanah, the intention we have to obey the 

HaShem’s commandment to remember shofar. 

Maimonides says the following about the kavanah of shofar: “If the person hearing had 

the intention of fulfilling his obligation, but the person blowing did not have the intention 

of facilitating the latter’s performance of the teshuvah, or the person blowing had the 

intention of facilitating his colleague’s performance of the teshuvah, but the person 

hearing did not have the intention of fulfilling his obligation, the person hearing did not 

fulfill his obligation. Rather, both the person hearing and the one allowing him to hear 

must have the proper intention.” 120 

Hearing a blast of the horn had no power over our three friends in Babylon because it was 

neither sounded nor heard with the kavanah of remembering God’s revelation at Sinai. 

Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, concentrate on your intention to hear its voice in fulfillment of 

the mitzvah – God’s commandment. 

Meditation for Twenty-Seventh Day of Elul 

“As for the builders, each had his sword girded at his side as he was building. The 

trumpeter stood beside me. I said… ‘There is much work and it is spread out; we 

are scattered over the wall, far from one another. When you hear a trumpet call, 

gather yourselves to me at that place; our God will fight for us!’” 121 

I was only eight or nine years old the first time I read the story of Ezra and Nehemiah in 

my Child’s Book of Bible Heroes. There was something that set the two of them apart 

from other Bible heroes, something attractive to me even as a young child. 

Many of the heroes in the book were men (that’s how they taught it back then) of faith 

who wrestled with ideas I could not yet understand. And others were exciting action 

figures who could triumph against seemingly impossible odds. However, the resolute 

120 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Shofar 2:4 

121 Nehemiah 4:12-14. 


pioneers who returned to Zion from exile in Babylon had the best qualities of all the other 

heroes combined. Moved by faith, they built something tangible, practical, and 

magnificent while fighting off an enemy at the same time. They were our good guys, and 

they were cool! 

Now, I too wrestle with ideas that I still don’t understand. And against all odds, I am also 

a survivor of too many struggles to recall. But Ezra and Nehemiah and their followers are 

still my heroes. 

Only now I know that the true heroes are not just those we read about in books. Heroes 

are also very ordinary men, women and children who quietly and steadfastly live their 

lives one day at a time, build their communities, create tikkun olam – the repair of the 

world, and defend the weak, the hungry and the needy even while struggling with 

questions of faith they do not understand. 

It takes a real hero to listen to the call of the trumpet. Shofar asks, “Will you respond 

when your community needs you?” “What are you building?” “Are you engaged in a just 

struggle?” “With what tools have you girded yourself?” “Is this a wall that should be 

built or a wall that should be removed?” “Have we spread ourselves too thin?” “Are we 

too far from one another?” 

The prophet says, “Our God will fight for us.” But first, he says, we have to respond to 

the trumpet call. The Hebrew term for, “that place” – “Ha’ Makom” – is also used as a 

name for God. Are you ready to gather at “That Place”? Are you listening for the call? 

Amen. 

When you hear shofar today, listen to hear where you are called. 

Meditation for Twenty-Eight Day of Elul 

“Whoever would not worship the Lord God of Israel would be put to death, whether 

small or great, whether man or woman. So they took an oath to the Lord in a loud 

voice and with shouts, with trumpeting and blasts of the horn.” 122 

Asa, the King of Judah, was King Solomon’s great grandson. We are told that, “Asa did 

what was good and pleasing to the Lord his God.” 123 He rid Judah of altars to other gods, 

built defenses so “the land was untroubled for ten years,” 124 won a stunning victory over 

a much larger invading force, and restored the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. 

We are also told that, “He ordered Judah (the nation) to turn to the Lord God of their 

fathers and to observe the Teaching and the Commandment,” 125 and that, “All Judah 

122 II Chronicles 15:13-14. 

123 II Chronicles 14:1. 

124 II Chronicles 13:23. Compare 14:5. 



ejoiced over the oath, for they swore with all their heart and sought Him with all their 

will.” 126 (Emphasis added.) These two statements seem at odds with each other. 

If the people were in a mood to rejoice over their oath, why did they have to be ordered at 

the price of their lives to take the oath? Can true teshuvah, the return to God’s ways, 

really be ordered at the edge of a sword? It does not seem to work when Jews are forced 

to convert to another religion. During the Spanish Inquisition, for example, many people 

who sang the loudest in church continued to practice as crypto-Jews at home. One of the 

origins of the Kol Nidre prayer we recite on Yom Kippur was to release ourselves from 

vows that we were forced to make in order to preserve our lives. 

Perhaps the reason for Asa’s ardor in imposing his Faith was that he, himself, had little 

faith. We are told that he eventually stopped trusting in God, bringing wars upon the 

country and illness upon himself as a consequence. 127 

Asa was not trying to convert gentiles; his order was to members of the tribes of Judah 

and Benjamin whose allegiance to the God of Israel had lapsed. Perhaps there may have 

been a more effective way for him to promote teshuvah. Instead of forcing the fallen to 

take an oath and then hear shofar, he should have tried blowing shofar first. For over 

three thousand years, its cutting cry had turned the children of Israel back to the Lord, 

God of their fathers and mothers, even without the threat of blood. 

In the language of 12-Step programs, shofar’s calls work by “attraction, not promotion.” 

It’s the nonviolent alternative in teshuvah. Amen. 

As you hear shofar today, feel gratitude for the freedom you have to decide for yourself 

whether “to observe the Teaching and the Commandment.” Then, make the right choice. 

Meditation for Twenty-Ninth Day of Elul 

Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah. It is customary to refrain from sounding the shofar on this 

day. 

There are many legends that say this abstention is done to confuse the Satan – the 

accusing angel – so Satan will not know when to appear before God to present the 

evidence against us. For example: 

“Not blowing the shofar on erev Rosh Hashanah confuses Satan, the Accuser. 

When he does not hear the shofar blasts on erev Rosh Hashanah, he becomes 

bewildered. He wonders if Rosh Hashanah has already passed. He believes that he 

missed the day on which HaShem judges the world, and that he passed up his 

chance of denouncing the Jewish people. Baffled and perplexed, he is speechless 

and remains silent.” 128 


127 II Chronicles 16. 

128 Magein Avraham, quoted in Meisels, pg 18 


Others offer a more prosaic explanation. For example: 

“We do not blow shofar on erev Rosh Hashanah to make a distinction between the 

sound of the shofar during Elul, which was instituted by the Rabbis, and the sound 

of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, which is a mitzvah of the Torah.” 129 

I find more inspiration from another explanation rooted in human nature: After nearly a 

month of hearing shofar, we may have become habituated to its sound. By refraining 

from blowing shofar today, the blasts we hear tomorrow will seem fresher and more 

powerful. Amen. 

May you be written and sealed for a good year. 


129 Turei Zahav, quoted in Meisels, pg 18 


PART THREE – The Shofar of Rosh Hashanah 

Areshet S’fataynu Prayer 130 

May the utterance of our lips be pleasant before You, exalted One. 

You understand and give ear. 

You see and you harken to the sound of our shofar. 

Accept with favor and compassion our meditations on 

Malchuyot – Majesty, Zichronot – Memory, and Shofarot – Redemption. 

131 

As Below, So Above 

“Once, when Rav Abba was studying with Rav Shimon, he said to him, ‘I have often 

enquired about the significance of the shofar but I have never yet received a satisfactory 

answer.’ Rav Shimon replied, ‘When the Supernal Shofar – that which contains the 

illumination of all – removes itself and does not shine on the people, then judgment is 

awakened. But when the people return to the Divine Will accompanied by the sounding 

of the shofar below, the sounds ascend on high to awaken the Supernal Shofar of mercy. 

Subsequently, judgment is removed.’” 132 


130 From Rosh Hashanah Shofar Service. Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers, pg 123, 

says, “According to Midrash Tehillim… the Hebrew word for “utterance” is related to the Hebrew word for 

“permission or authority,’ and refers to the authority granted God’s chosen to issue requests which He will 

fulfill. Thus, ‘areshet s’fataynu’ means ‘the authority vested in our lips.’” 

131 Artist unknown, illustration from first decade of 20 th Century, New York. 

132 Zohar, Emor 99a-100a, translation from The Zohar, Vol. V, pp 124-127, Soncino Press, (1934) 1973. 

My source is Wosk. 


Chapter 1-5 – Blast, Break, Shatter, Blast 

“On Rosh Hashanah you must be joyous… and on Rosh Hashanah you must 

weep.” 133 

There are four traditional patterns or types of blasts for sounding shofar on Rosh 

Hashanah: tekiah, shevarim, teruah, and tekiah gedolah: 

PATTERN GRAPHIC NOTATION RYTHYM 134 

Tekiah _____________ tuuuuuu 

Shevarim ____ ____ ____ u-tuuu, u-tuuu, u-tuuu 

Teruah _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ tu, tu, tu, tu, tu, tu, tu, tu, tu 

Tekiah Gedolah ___________________ tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu 

These calls are also notated as follows, read from right to left: 

135 

The first three motifs should have approximately the same overall duration. That is, each 

of the three parts of shevarim is about 1/3 the duration of tekiah, and all the trills in a 

teruah add up to the same duration as the tekiah. The tekiah gedolah should be sustained 

for a great a duration as possible. Examples of these motifs can be heard at 

www.HearingShofar.com and elsewhere on the internet. 136 There are many ethnic and 

regional variations of the calls; one, from the Ashkenazi tradition, is scored as follows: 

Medieval manuscripts gave graphic depictions of the blasts: 

133 Rabbi Nachman’s Wisdom 21. 

134 Based on The Book of Customs, 2004, Scott-Martin Kosofsky. 

135 www.JewishEncycleopedia.com. 

136 Jewish National and University Library – National Sound Archive has examples from several different 

Jewish communities at http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/music/holydays/holydays_eng.htm#shofar, January 28, 2006. 

137 JewishEncyclopedia.com. 

Hearing Shofar – Volume 1 Page 57 © 20 

137

13 th – 14 th Century: Great Machzor of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Israelitische Houfdsynagoge uses acronyms 

and symbols (in second line) to notate shofar blasts. 138 

13 th Century: Codex Adler, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, Codex no. 832, fol. 21b. 

138 Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 14, pg. 1443. 


10 th Century: Siddur of Saadiah Gaon, Oxford, Codex Hunt 448, fol 149r. 

Tekiah translates approximately into “blow” or “blast,” and describes a loud, single blow 

of the shofar. Tekiah shares its root with the word takua means “set” or “fixed” in its 

place, and can be translated as “to be fixed, driven into the ground,” in the sense that a 

blow with a mallet can drive a peg into the earth. 139 From this, we can understand that 

tekiah, in the sequence of shofar blasts, grounds us; it gives us a place of beginning and 

then helps anchor us in a new state of being after hearing the broken notes of shevarim 

and teruah. 

“Tekiah also means to rivet, to connect with force. We want to connect our lives to the 

hidden realm, the world beyond renewal.” 140 

The duration of tekiah is typically two to three seconds, about the same time as an 

exhalation in normal breathing. Tekiah should be loud and piercing, as if you shouting 

forcefully to get someone’s attention, sound an alarm, or startle someone awake from a 

deep slumber. 

Shevarim is the plural of the word shever that translates as “broken” Indeed, the single 

blast of tekiah is now broken into a sequence of three shorter wavering blasts delivered 

within a single breath. It is as if someone was insistently calling to you, “Wake up! Wake 

up! Wake up!” or, depending on where you are in your process of teshuvah, “Beware! 

Beware! Beware!” 

Teruah translates approximately as “shattered” and minces the shofar blast into very 

rapid short bursts of sound. In musical terms, teruah is a “tremolo,” a quivering effect 

produced by the rapid reiteration of the same tone. 141 

Teruah comes from the same root word as ra’uah that means “shaky" or “tremor” and 

brings to mind the trembling or powerful emotions one might feel while one is being 

139 Symbols of Judaica, Marc-Alain Ouaknin, Editions Assouline, Paris 1995 pg 62. 

140 Moshe A. Braun, The Jewish Holy Days: Their Spiritual Significance, page 14, based on the teachings 

of Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter – the Sfas Emes. 

141 Encyclopedia Judaica 1971, 14:1444 describes shevarim as a tremolo and teruah as a staccato, 

descriptions that are at odds with my understanding of the traditional shofar blasts or the meanings of the 

musical terms. If authors living in the same century can differ on how best to describe or transmit the 

shofar, it is easy to imagine how the sages working across a millennium might differ in their descriptions of 

shofar. 


judged or during a time of rapid transformation. It is also related to teraim, the Hebrew 

word for “shatter” as in, “Shatter them (tero’eim) with an iron rod.” 142 

With very different and equally meaningful connotations, teruah is also related to the 

Hebrew for “‘affection and friendship’ as in, ‘and the friendship (veteruot) of the King is 

with him.’ 143 The commandment to blow the shofar expresses God’s great affection for 

us.” 144 

“Rosh Hashanah is called Yom Teruah, rather than Yom Tekiah, for the sound of the 

teruah – the whimpering sound of remorse and inner turmoil – perfectly symbolizes the 

spirit of Rosh Hashanah.” 145 

“Gedolah” means “BIG” or “GREAT,” and tekiah gedolah is distinguished from regular 

tekiah by being drawn out for as long as possible. It is analogous to the long blast of 

Exodus 19:13 that marked the departure of the Shechinah – Devine Presence – from Mt. 

Sinai after the acceptance of the Torah. 146 

“The long blast of the tekiah gedolah awakens HaShem’s mercy. The Torah tells us that 

at the giving of the Torah, “there was a sound of a shofar, increasing in volume to a great 

degree.” 147 The sages comment that the longer the sound went on, the stronger it became. 

This was unlike the sound produced by man: the longer he blows, the weaker the sound 

becomes. We blow a long tekiah with diminishing strength. What message are we 

sending with the diminishing sound of the shofar? After 210 years of Egyptian bondage, 

the Children of Israel did not listen to Moses, ‘because of shortness of breath [also 

translatable as “broken spirit”] and hard work.’ 148 All the more so is it hard for us, after 

two thousand years of exile and oppression, to obey HaShem. The steadily weakening 

sound of the tekiah gedolah conveys this plea for HaShem’s compassion.” 149 

Shofar and Teshuvah 

The High Holy Day liturgy says we have three tools that can help us avert the harshness 

of the decree by the divine Judge, and shofar is implicated in all three: 

1. Teshuvah (repentance and correcting the errors of our ways) – Teshuvah requires 

us to take personal inventory, make amends for errors we have made, offer 

forgiveness to ourselves and to others, accept the genuine apologies of others, and 

set the intentions by which we wish to live in the coming year. Yet each of us is 

stuck, to one degree or another, in our ways. We do not change course easily. 

142 

Psalm 2:9. 

143 

Numbers 23:21. 

144 

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, Sefer Ham’amarim Kuntreisim, Vol. 1, pg 124 as cited in Days of 

Awe, Days of Joy, pg 34. 

145 

Menoras Hama’or 293 quoted in Meisels, pg 55. 

146 

Maharil quoted in Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers, pg 119. 

147 

Exodus 19:19. 

148 

Exodus 6:9. 

149 

D’var Hameluchah, quoted by Meisels, pg 98. 


Shofar, then, is likened to the alarm that wakes the sleeping soul to take account 

of itself and return to the right path. 

2. Tefillah (prayer and supplication) – Shofar is a type of unspoken prayer. The 

shofar service proclaims the majesty of God, begs that we be remembered with 

compassion, and pleads, in the metaphoric voice of a bleating sheep, that we are 

allowed to pass under the staff of our Shepherd. 

3. Tzadakah (observing God’s commandments, including performance of charitable 

acts) – Hearing shofar fulfills the central mitzvah – commandment – of Rosh 

Hashanah. In addition, shofar blowers perform tzadakah when they enable others, 

especially the ill and shut-in, to fulfill the mitzvah of hearing shofar during the 

Days of Awe. There is a great need in most communities for shofar blowers who 

will visit the homes of the sick and the hospitals, nursing homes, prisons. 150 

When understood in this way, further metaphors can be employed to understand the 

relationship of shofar and teshuvah. For example, our sins often feel as weighty and 

unyielding as a huge block of stone. How can we ever be free of the burden? 

• We begin with tekiah, which is like a mighty blast with a sledgehammer that can 

break the stone into chunks. 

• Next, shevarim are like the repeated blows used to shatter each of the chunks into still 

smaller pieces. 

• Then teruah is the rapid striking used to pulverize each of the pieces into small 

particles. As it is written, “My word…is like a hammer that shatters rock!” 151 

Through teshuvah, our huge, immutable shortcomings are reduced to dust. 

• But we should not leave our environment polluted with the dust of our sins. Instead, 

we can recycle the particles by gathering them together like cement and reshaping our 

intentions, our spirit, and our actions into a new, solid commitment for mindful 

living. This is the purpose of the tekiah that is sounded after each sequence of broken 

notes. 152 

There are other metaphors that are gentler yet no less effective. For example, our sins are 

like klipot, Hebrew for shells or husks; like barnacles, they have a hard shell and grip our 

souls tenaciously. 153 Shofar can remove them by immersing us in a sonic mikvah (ritual 

bath). Like the ultrasonic and acoustical techniques used in industry for cleaning, 154 the 

psychological, spiritual, and physical vibrations of the shofar blasts can wash away the 

grip of our sins so we can find the freedom or courage to perform teshuvah. While 

teshuvah work can occur anytime of year, the focused intensity of being in community 

150 

This topic will be discussed in Book 2 of Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn. 

151 

Jeremiah 23:29. 

152 

Based on R. Zalman Schacter-Shalomi, Makom Ohr Shalom, late 1990s. 

153 

Rabbi Jonathon Omer-Man, Metivta Academy, early 1990s. 

154 

The metal horns used in acoustic cleaning are sometimes curved and bear a striking visual resemblance 

to a ram’s horn. One manufacturer explains the principal of their technology, stating, “Acoustic cleaning 

encompasses the realm of sound transmission through solids. It is best described by the creation of rapid 

pressure fluctuations. These pressure fluctuations are transmitted into the particulate matter or ‘bonded’ dry 

material causing the solid particles to resonate and dislodge from the surface they are deposited on or 

bonded to. Once dislodged, the materials fall, either due to gravity or are carried away by the gas or air 

stream within the process.” www.primasonics.com/acoustic_cleaning.htm, January 10, 2009. 


for the High Holy Days infuses our efforts towards teshuvah with extra intensity. Still, 

people report that they spend the Days of Awe still feeling trapped by the sins of their 

past. For many of them, the spiritual wave of the shofar’s sonic mikvah provides energy 

that, in an instant, can free them from the grip of their past, give them hope, and boost 

their teshuvah-making into high gear. 

Maimonides on the Shofar’s Call to Teshuvah 

Awake, O you sleepers, awake from your sleep! O you slumberers, awake from your 

slumber. Search your deeds and turn in teshuvah. Remember your Creator, O you who 

forget the truth in the vanities of time and go astray all the year after vanity and folly that 

neither profit nor save. Look to your souls, and better your ways and actions. Let every 

one of you abandon his evil way and his wicked thought, which is not good. 155 

ANOTHER TRANSLATION 

“Awake, ye sleepers, and ponder your deeds; remember your Creator and go back to him 

in penitence. Be not of those who miss realities in their pursuit of shadows and waste 

their years in seeking after vain things which cannot profit or deliver. Look well to your 

souls and consider your acts; forsake each of you his evil ways and thoughts, and return 

to God so that He may have mercy upon you.” 156 

The Code 

The sequence in which the four types of blasts are sounded on Rosh Hashanah is a code. 

When understood, it provides a guide through the emotional and spiritual work of the 

High Holy Days. The code can be understood in many ways: 

“Each series of blasts begins and ends with tekiah - a whole note. In between is shevarim 

and teruah - broken notes. This reflects a theme of Rosh Hashanah: We begin whole. 

Along the path of life we become broken (through pain, mistakes, loss, failure, illness, 

weakness, etc.). The end is whole; we will be whole again. There is hope.” 157 

“HaShem created man upright and flawless. Through his sins, man became warped and 

twisted. By turning to the shofar in teshuvah, he is straightened out again. This thought is 

reflected in the sounds of the shofar: tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah. The first tekiah, a 

straight, clear sound, represents man’s original rectitude and virtue. The broken shevarim 

sound is indicative of the spiritual breakdown that comes as a result of sinning. This is 

followed by the sobbing teruah sound, which mirrors the sinner’s brokenheartedness, 

inner turmoil and deep remorse, the forerunners of teshuvah. The culmination is reached 

in the steady tone of the final tekiah, which signifies the inner tranquility of the ba’al 

teshuvah [penitent] whose missteps have been forgiven.” 158 

155 Maimonides, Hilkhot Teshuvah 3.4, quoted in Agnon pp 74-75. 

156 Rabbi Dr. J.H. Hertz, Forward to Soncino Sefer Mo’ed, 1938, www.come-andhear.com/talmud/moed_h.html, 

July 27, 2007. 

157 Hassidic Teaching (As taught by R. Ayla Grafstein) 

158 Rabbi Aharon of Karlin, quoted by Meisels, pg 97. 


“The clear, straight sound of the tekiah suggests “love,” a person’s straightforward 

feeling of adoration. The shevarim-teruah sound represents “awe and fear” – a person 

who is afraid shakes and trembles. The sound of the shofar tells us to resolve anew to 

love HaShem and be in awe of Him, keeping His Torah and fulfilling His mitzvot.” 159 

“The Gemara says: In a place where ba’alei teshuvah are standing [in Heaven] the 

perfectly righteous cannot stand. 160 The Shelah says that the straight sound of the first 

tekiah symbolizes the tzaddik who has not sinned. The broken shevarim sound stands for 

the sins that cause an inner breakup in a person’s soul, which leads to the weeping sound 

of the teruah. When he does teshuvah, he is straightened out again like the second tekiah 

sound. The final tekiah gedolah indicates that a ba’al teshuvah is on a higher level than a 

tzaddik who has never sinned.” 161 

“Each of the three shofar notes denotes the soul in a different stage of spiritual wellbeing. 

The unbroken, unwavering sound of the tekiah indicates that the soul was created 

pure and straight. Any impurities, crookedness, or spiritual malady was introduced by the 

sufferer himself. The broken groan of the shevarim calls to mind the moaning of the sick, 

while the staccato sobbing of the teruah represents uncontrolled crying over the death of 

a dear one. Nevertheless, at the very end, the tekiah is repeated to teach that God is 

always ready to receive the penitent who sincerely attempts to return to his original state 

of spiritual purity.” 162 

“The shofar cries out… “I was whole, I was broken, even smashed to bits, but I shall be 

whole again.” 163 

“Grace – Judgment – Compassion – Grace” 164 

God reigns. God reigned. God will reign forever. 165 

“Rav Kook once explained the order of the shofar-blowing on Rosh Hashanah by relating 

each blast to a major stage in world history. All of history may be divided up into three 

periods, corresponding to the three parts of the verse: 

‘God reigns; God reigned; God will reign forever.’ 166 

159 

Hayashar Vehatov, quoted in Meisels, pg 97. 

160 

Berachos 34b. 

161 

Vayageid Yaakov, Rosh Hashanah 24. quoted in Meisels, pg 98. 

162 

Rabbi Avie Gold, Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers, pg 64. 

163 

Rabbi Arthur Green, Seek My Face, Speak My Name, pg 174. 

164 

Source unknown. 

165 

Adapted from Mo'adei HaRe'iyah pp. 62-3; Celebration of the Soul pp. 38-9] 

www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/ROSH61.htm, May 18, 2007 

166 

From Yom Kippur liturgy, recited in the final moments before the shofar blast at the end of Yom 

Kippur. 


“‘God reigned’. This refers to His sovereignty in the past, before the sin of Adam… This 

is the first tekiah – the ancient, simple, constant blast. 

“Likewise, in the end of days, the era of the tekiah will return. After all the tribulations of 

history, the simple, pure tekiah will be heard again. God will be King over the entire 

world. This is the future period of ‘God will reign forever’. 

“In between the two constant tekiah blasts, however, comes the difficult intermediate 

stage. Here we struggle to attain the level of ‘God reigns’ – in the present. This period 

corresponds to the broken shevarim blows and the weeping of the teruah blasts. It is a 

volatile era, wracked by anxieties and doubts, alternating progress and failure. 

“This is the meaning of the verse, ‘Fortunate is the people who knows the teruah’. 167 

Fortunate are those who know how to overcome all misfortune, who know how to 

transcend the teruah blasts of war and danger. Despite all doubts and confusion, ‘they 

walk in the light of Your Presence.’” 168 

ABBA, ABBA HAVE PITY! 169 

Said the Ba’al Shem Tov 

Tekiah – 

a simple scream 

Abba, Abba have pity! 

Abba, Abba, save! 

And this simple scream 

needs no words, 

no further modulation, 

only to scream 

so as to unite 

with the sound of Creation 

and the thunder of Revelation 

and the calling of Redemption 

The great AMEN. 

Tekiah is the name 

and the grace of Abraham. 

He is kind and warm and gentle. 

Shevarim is the name Elohim, 

167 Psalms 89:16. 

168 Ibid. 

169 Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, “Shofrot,” Hashir V’hashevah – The Song and the Praise, undated booklet, 

B’nai Or Fellowship, Philadelphia, page 23. 


and the terror of Isaac, 

his sighs 

at the binding on the altar. 

He is afraid yet wants to take our place 

in the rigors of the judgment. 

And Teruah is Jacob, 

all broken into tribes, 

his weeping for Rachel, for Joseph, 

for Dinah, for Shimon; 

His blessing for which he had to 

risk so much 

yet also the Compassion of Yhwh. 

Grace - Rigors-Mercy - Grace 

Grace - Rigors - Grace 

Grace - Mercy - Boundless Grace 

All begins and ends in grace 

Thus in the deepest, least verbal way 

the ear can hear 

the heart can be one 

the innards are stirred 

and together they scream. 

Abba, Abba take pity! 

Abba, Abba, save! 

So we scream as loud as we can 

and echo the shofar 

in a way no one but God can hear 

Abba, Abba pity, save! 

Blessing Before Hearing Shofar 

The ritual blowing of the shofar begins with the blessing: 

Baruch atah Adonai Elohaynu Melech ha-olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav vitzivanu 

lishmo-ah kol shofar. 

Blessed are you, Eternal One our God, Universal Sovereign, who sanctifies us with holy 

ways and commands us to hear the voice of the shofar. 

Note that the blessing is to “listen” or “hear” to shofar, not to “blow” shofar. The root 

word of “lishmo-ah” is the same as the root of “shema,” the prayer that harkens us to, 


“Listen, people of Israel! The Lord is our God. Our God is One.” The spiritual 

implications of this commandment to listen are explored in depth in Book 3 of Hearing 

Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn. 

Before blowing the shofar for the first time in a service, the blessing above is followed by 

the shehechayanu blessing: 

Baruch atah Adonai Elohaynu Melech ha-olam, 

shehechayanu, v’kiyamanu, v’higiyanu lazman hazeh. 

Blessed are you, Yah, spirit guide of the world. You have kept us alive, sustained us, and 

brought us to this moment. 

The Arrangement of Blasts 

Each community has its own minhag (custom), and local tradition should be followed. In 

general, most communities use the following sequence of blasts: 

Tekiah Shevarim-Teruah Tekiah 

Tekiah Shevarim Tekiah 

Tekiah Teruah Tekiah 170 

If it is the last blast of a sequence, the final Tekiah is sustained as Tekiah Gedolah. 

Many congregations expand this basic series of ten blasts so that the shofar is heard up to 

100 times on each day of Rosh Hashanah. For example: 

After Reading the Haftorah 30 Blasts 

These are called the tekiot meyushav – sitting blasts – because the congregation, which 

has been seated during the reading of the Haftorah – reading from the Prophets – remains 

seated while the shofar is blown. 







Tekiah Teruah Tekiah 


170 These sequences can be referred to by the following abbreviations: 

Tekiah SHevarim-teRuah Tekiah = TaSHRaT 

Tekiah SHevarim Tekiah = TaSHaT 

Tekiah teRuah Tekiah = TaRaT. 


Tekiah Teruah Tekiah Gedolah 

During the Musaf (Additional) Service 30 Blasts 

These are called the tekiot me’ummad – standing blasts – because the congregation is 

standing for the Amidah prayers when these blasts are sounded. This section of the 

service has three parts: Machuyot (Majesty), trumpets God’s majestic rule. Zichronot 

(Remembrance), asks God to remember the Covenant and have mercy on us for the sake 

of our ancestors. Shofarot (The plural of “shofar”) alludes to divine revelation and our 

redemption – both heralded by the sounds of shofar. Each of these parts begins with short 

scriptural readings related to its theme, followed by sounding shofar. 

Zichronot 




Malchuyot 




Shofarot 




During Kaddish after Musaf 30 Blasts 










At Conclusion of Services 




10 Blasts 


These multiple sets of multiple blasts form a persistent and concussive attack on spiritual 

complacency. The repetition of simple sound patterns work like a niggun, a wordless 

song, to help the listener express prayers that cannot be articulated with speech. 

100 Blasts on Rosh Hashanah 

How many blasts should be sounded on Rosh Hashanah? While Talmud requires a 

minimum of thirty, the practices of various sages and scattered communities added 

additional blasts to their liturgy. Thus, we have traditions that call for 30, 40, 41, 42, 60, 

61, 70, 100, or 101 blasts. 171 The Yemenite tradition is to sound 41 blasts. 172 Take your 

pick. 

Today, most communities sound shofar 100 times on each day of Rosh Hashanah. The 

origins of this custom are lost in time. 173 It is often explained that the 100 blasts are to 

counterbalance the 100 groans said to have come from Sisera’s mother described in 

Judges 5:28-30. 174 (See Chapter 1-7 – The Ewe’s Horn.) While she undoubtedly groaned, 

there is no basis for assuming her cries numbered 100, and I suspect that the 100 blasts 

tradition predates the events in the book of Judges. 

In place of this legend, I offer the following thoughts: 

Ten is a very significant number in our heritage. For example, there are: 

• Ten utterances that created the world. 175 

• Ten commandments given at Sinai. 

• Ten Sefirot in the kabbalah’s Tree of Life. 

• Ten plagues struck Egypt before the Exodus. 

• Ten Days of Awe – the period from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur. 

• Ten people required for a minyan for group prayer. 

• Ten times during Yom Kippur, in the time of the Temple, that the High Priest would 

pronounce the name of God to invoke divine pardon. 176 

100 is ten squared; a minyan of minyanim. It maintains the spiritual energy of 10 and 

multiplies it into an additional dimension. It is clearly a very significant number. 

“During the month of Elul we blow ten blasts every day in order to evoke and to 

influence each of the ten powers of the soul. 177 On Rosh Hashanah, however, we blow 

171 

See, for example, Jonathan Baker, September 21, 2006, 

http://thanbook.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_thanbook_archive.html January 7, 2007 

172 

http://ohr.edu/ask/ask249.htm, July 28, 2007 

173 

The custom is cited in Shulchan Aruch HaRav 596:1, Mateh Ephraim, and Mishneh Berurah 596:2 

where it is ascribed to the Shela'h. This information is from Eliezer C. Abrahamson, 

http://members.aol.com/LazerA/archive/year.html. February 9, 2006. 

174 

It is mentioned in Tur Orech Chaim 592, citing the Aruch (erech Erev). This information is from Eliezer 

C. Abrahamson, http://members.aol.com/LazerA/archive/year.html, February 9, 2006. 

175 

Chapters of the Fathers, 5:1 referring to the ten locations in Genesis 1 and 2 where the word “vayomer” 

[and He said] is used in the story of Creation. 

176 

Yoma 39b, cited in Phillip Goodman, The Yom Kippur Anthology, pg 329. 

177 

This is a reference to the ten Sefirot or divine emanations on the kabbalah’s Tree of Life. 


100 blasts, to influence each of the ten powers with all their aspects (each power is 

compounded of all the others, which yields ten times ten – i.e., wisdom of wisdom, 

understanding of wisdom, knowledge of wisdom, etc.).” 178 

But there are many other quantities that appear to have special significance in Torah. 40 

days of rain in the time of Noah, and 40 years in the desert. 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 

months of the year. 7 days of creation, and 7 patriarchs and matriarchs. With all these 

possibilities, why then are the shofar blasts in a base-10 numbering system? 

Perhaps it is because we have ten fingers. Compared with 7, 12, 40 and all other numbers, 

10 is the number most closely identified with the human body and is the fundamental 

system by which humans reckon. 

Mark Twain said, “Humans are the only animals that blush, or need too.” And humans, 

apparently, are the only specie that has the opportunity for teshuvah, or the need for it. 

When seen in this manner, it seems only right that the shofar blasts, the call to teshuvah, 

be counted in the human-centric number system based on ten digits. 

In ordinary time and space, our ten-fingered identities commit a plethora of sins. But in 

shofar time-space, an added dimension is offered us to stimulate teshuvah, and we are 

summoned by ten to the second power blasts of shofar. 

“When a woman gives birth, she wails and cries out one hundred times. 99 of those cries 

are out of the conviction that she is going to die, and the final, hundredth cry is out of the 

realization that she is going to live after all. Similarly, we blow one hundred tekiot on 

Rosh Hashanah. 99 are blown out of our fear of the judgment of the day, but with the 

one-hundredth we demonstrate our confidence that we will emerge from our judgment 

blessed with life.” 179 

“…at the time of sounding the shofar and beseeching HaShem for mercy we should 

always keep in mind that we have fallen short of what we are capable of doing and the 

most compelling reason for having a positive verdict is simply that we ask for an 

undeserved present, GRATIS. The word for this is “b'chinom," whose letters Beis-Ches- 

Nun-Mem have the numerical value of 100.” 180 

Before hearing shofar on Rosh Hashanah, it is traditional to recite Psalm 47 that begins, 

“All you peoples, clap your hands, raise a joyous shout for God.” The gematria 

178 

Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, Likkutei Sichot, vol 2, pg 446 as cited in Days of Awe, Days of Joy, 

pg. 37. 

179 

“The Meshech Chochmah (Parshas Tazria), citing midrash (Vayikra Raba 27:7), 

http://dafyomi.shemayisrael.co.il/rhashanah/insites/rh-dt-34.htm, May 7, 2006. 

180 

Zvi Akiva Fleisher, 

www.shemayisrael.co.il/yomtov/rosh-yk/fleisher64.htm, August 11, 2006. 


(numerical) value of the word translated as “clap,” the Hebrew word “kof” (spelled chof 

pay), is 100 and alludes to the 100 shofar blasts. 181 

Visualization of 100 Blasts 

God’s revelation at Sinai so overwhelmed those witnessing the event that it jumbled their 

senses; Exodus 20:15 states that people “saw” the voice of shofar. An artist has recently 

given us the means to have a similar experience by transcribing the 100 shofar blasts of 

Rosh Hashanah into visual meditations. American-born artist Avraham Loewenthal 

paints and studies kabbalah in Tzfat, Israel (www.kabbalahart.com). He says his work 

create spiritual maps of transcendental harmonies that describe concepts of kabbalah and 

reflect meditative states of consciousness. He continues: 

“In one of the many kavanot (meditations) of the shofar blowing, the sounding of 

the shofar is associated with the aspects of right, left, center, and completion. In 

kabbalistic spiritual language, the aspects right, left, and center represent spiritual 

states of consciousness, and not directions in space. Right corresponds 

metaphorically to our experience of thankfulness and our aspect of giving. Left 

corresponds metaphorically to our experience of lack and our aspect of receiving. 

The center is the harmony of right and left. These three aspects of giving, 

receiving, and harmony, come to completion in the fourth aspect of completion – 

the realization of unconditional love and oneness. These four stages of consciousness 

correspond to the four letters of the Divine Name, yud – hey – vav – hey. 

181 This teaching is from the Chazah Zion and is contained in The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet Rabbi 

Michael L. Munk, Mesorah Publications, Ltd, 1983, page 137. 


“The kavanot of the shofar blowing breaks down on one level into the four 

aspects as follows: 

tekiah------------long sound---------right/giving------------yud 

shevarim---------3 sounds-----------left/receiving----------hey 

teruah------------9 sounds-----------center/harmony--------vav 

tekiah gedolah--extra long sound--completion/oneness—hey. 

“In this painting, the 100 sounds of the shofar are depicted horizontally, starting 

from the bottom of the painting. One triangle represents the whole sound of the 

tekiah. 3 triangles represent the 3 sounds of the shevarim. 9 triangles represent 


the 9 short sounds of the teruah. The larger triangles represent the extra long 

sound of the tekiah gedolah. 

“The long whole sound of the tekiah is associated with giving. The 3 broken 

sounds of the shevarim are associated with receiving. The 9 sounds of the teruah 

are associated with harmony. In addition to the shevarim being associated with 

receiving, it contains 3 sounds that correspond to all 3 aspects of giving, 

receiving, and harmony. In addition to the teruah being associated with harmony, 

its 9 sounds correspond to giving, receiving and harmony of giving + giving, 

receiving and harmony of receiving + giving, receiving and harmony of harmony. 

“The right column is discussed in the kabbalah as the consciousness of 

thankfulness – feeling in our hearts overflowing with thankfulness. This 

corresponds to the sound of the tekiah, which is a whole sound. The left column 

corresponds to the sound of the shevarim that is the 3 broken cries of the shofar – 

our feelings of brokenness and lack. The center column corresponds to the 

teruah, whose sound is so broken that it is whole. The central column is 

associated with faith and prayer. It is taught in the kabbalah that when we reach 

our truest prayer of the heart, all our brokenness is brought to wholeness in the 

realization of complete oneness and unconditional love at the root of all creation.” 

101 Blasts – A Sephardic Minhag 

In some Sephardic communities, the minhag – custom – is to sound 101 shofar blasts. It 

is explained that 100 is the gematria (numerical) value the Hebrew letters sameach (60) + 

mem (40) that spell the unpronounced name of the accusing angel (Satan). On the other 

hand, the value 101 is equivalent to equal to name of the angel Michael, the righteous 

angel whose name means “the one who is like God.” 182 Michael is spelled mem (40) + 

yud (10) + chaf (20) + aleph (1) + lamed (30). 183 

According to legend, it was Michael who was sent by God to stop Abraham from slaying 

Isaac 184 , a legend binding Michael to the central Torah reading of Rosh Hashanah and to 

the sacrificed ram of the Akedah whose voice is memorialized by the shofar (See Chapter 

6 – The Ram’s Midrash). 

Call and Response 

In the Torah, speech brings reality into being; God spoke and the world came into 

existence. 185 And so it is in the shofar service. It is customary for each shofar blast to be 

announced before it is blown. The caller who announces the blasts is a “makrei” and the 

shofar blower is a “tokea.” Another term for the shofar blower is “ba’al tekiah” 

(masculine) or ba’alat tekiah (feminine), term that poetically translate as, “master 

blaster.” 

182 ohr.edu/ask/ask249.htm, July 28, 2007 

183 www.isolomon.com/channel.aspx?channel_id=162, July 28, 2007 

184 The Book of Legends, pg 41b. 



Jewish life is full of similar call and response rituals. For example: 

• The question: “Who knows One?” brings the reply, “I know One” in a traditional 

Passover song. 

• A blessing is answered with an “amen.” 

• God asks his prophets, “Where are you?” They reply, “Heneini – I am here and 

spiritually present.” 

The Rosh Hashanah ritual is designed to ask each of us, “Where are you?” To which the 

shofar replies for us, “Heneini.” 

“I think the reason we have a Makrei is based on the verse: ‘Moses spoke, and God 

answered him by a voice.’ 186 We now see that the voice was the sound of the shofar.” 187 

When the calls are chanted with the traditional cantillation, they form a musical unit with 

sound of the shofar; the pronouncement of “tekiah” combine with the blasts from the 

horn to comprise the tekiah as it is experienced. The calls are raiment that adorn the 

blasts and gives them a fitting liturgical setting. 

First, they add to the power of the shofar to speak to the listener. For while we have 

pointed out that the voice of shofar can take the place of unspoken words, we yet need 

words to create the space in which the blasts can occur. It is as if the blast of the shofar 

can take the place of a thousand words, but we still need a word for the sound of the 

shofar. The shofar speaks to the right side of the brain – the side that governs emotions 

and patterns – while the spoken name calls to left side of the brain – the rational mind; 

together, the full mind is stimulated. 

On a pragmatic level, the calls are also necessary to cue the shofar blower. Standing at 

the ready, with the shofar in my hands, I am often unable to follow the progress of the 

services in the machzor – prayer book. Moreover, in my meditations preceding blowing 

the shofar, I frequently enter such a deep place that I no longer hear what is being spoken. 

But somehow, when the call for “tekiah” rings out, I raise the shofar to my lips and blow 

without having to think or remember what I am supposed to do. Like the infantry bugler 

who blows the charge on the verbal command of his officer, I am able to follow 

instructions and discharge a volley from the shofar. The demands on the spiritual warrior 

are high, and the shofar blower needs the makrei the same way that a Torah reader relies 

on a gabbai – prompter, for assistance in following the sequence of the Torah reading. 

The Dual Call of the Shofar 188 

186 

Exodus 19:19. 

187 

Greg Gershman, posted October 1, 2003 at http://presence.baltiblogs.com/2003/10/01/the_shofar.html, 

January 27, 2006. 

188 

Adapted from Midbar Shur pp. 56-58, 

www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/ROSH63.htm, May 20, 2007 


“The ram's horn is blown not once but twice during the holiday prayers. The first time is 

immediately before the Musaf prayer. These blasts are called the ‘tekiot demeyushav’ 

(blasts while sitting). The second set of blasts takes place during the Musaf prayer itself. 

These are called ‘tekiot deme'umad’ (blasts while standing), as they are blown while the 

congregation is standing in prayer. Why do we blow the shofar twice? 

Two Areas to Correct 

“’Seek out God when He is found. Call out to Him when He is near.’ 189 

“This verse draws our attention to two issues which every ba’al teshuvah (penitent) must 

address. He must ‘seek out God,’ and also ‘call out to Him’. What is the difference 

between the two? 

“First, it is necessary to ‘seek out God.’ We need to regain the soul’s light, dimmed by 

our mistakes and sins. Before going astray, we were aware of the pleasantness in serving 

God. We were conscious of God’s greatness, and amazed by the opportunity to study His 

Torah and fulfill His will. 

“Sin, however, blinds the mind and numbs the heart. All of the wonderful revelations 

from God’s immanence are lost. Therefore, the ba’al teshuvah must ‘seek out God.’ He 

needs to strive intellectually to recover his former enlightenment, to restore the joy in 

knowing God and His ways. 

“The second area requiring attention is the lost feeling of God's closeness and protection. 

The ba’al teshuvah needs to recover the perception of Divine favor, in both material and 

spiritual matters. To correct this loss, he must ‘call out to God.’ He needs to reach out to 

God in prayer. He needs to bridge the emotional estrangement, and restore the feeling of 

God’s closeness. ‘Call out to Him when He is near.’ 

Shofar Blasts to Clear the Mind and Open the Heart 

“The shofar is the tool that helps us accomplish both of these functions: to seek out God 

with our minds, and call out to God with our hearts. 

“The first set of blasts is blown before praying, while sitting. They correspond to the 

repentance of the mind: the calm and thoughtful introspection on man’s smallness and 

God’s infinite greatness. These blasts rouse us to contemplate God and His ways. 

“The second set of shofar blasts takes place during the Musaf prayer. These blasts are an 

integral part of prayer. Like prayer, they are an emotional service of God. The blasts 

frighten and humble us. They call out for us to reconnect with God, to perceive His 

closeness and protection. 

Confusing Satan 

189 Isaiah 55:6. 


“The sages wrote that blowing the shofar on this Day of Judgment confuses Satan, the 

prosecuting angel, and blocks his accusations. 190 How? 

“The prosecuting angel has two possible lines of attack. 

“He can accuse us of not acting in a manner appropriate to our great spiritual capabilities. 

We are blessed with a sublime soul, formed from God's Splendor. Yet we fail to correctly 

evaluate our place and purpose in life. 

“Or, the prosecuting angel can use a diametrically-opposed argument: we are such small 

and insignificant creatures, our powers and intellect are so weak – how dare we sin before 

the omnipotent King? 

“The prosecuting angel just has to decide which accusation will be most effective. And 

this is where the dual function of the shofar comes in. For each argument has a flaw that 

the shofar blasts point out. If he mentions our great spiritual potential, the shofar serves to 

awaken our minds to contemplate God's infinity. And if he mentions our insignificance, 

the shofar blasts humble us, reminding us of our weakness and smallness. We then turn to 

God to have compassion on us and accept our pleas for forgiveness. 

“Not knowing which argument to use, the prosecutor is confused and silenced.” 


190 Rosh Hashanah 16. 


Chapter 1-6 – The Ram’s Midrash 

“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; 

The birds of the sky, they will tell you, 

Or speak to the earth, it will teach you; 

The fish of the sea, they will inform you.” 191 

Any naturally hollow animal horn (beside a bovine horn) can be used as a shofar. 

However, the sages say that a ram’s horn is preferred on Rosh Hashanah because of its 

association with the ram that Abraham sacrificed instead of his son Isaac in the Akedah, 

the Torah portion read during the New Year’s services. 192 

But what do we know about this ram? 

Legend has it that God created the ram even before the first day of creation, 193 allowing 

the potential for redemption of humans even before the creation of humans. In the 

Moslem tradition, the ram is, “the very same animal which Abel had once sacrificed to 

God.” 194 The Torah, however, is silent about the ram; its thoughts, feelings, and voice are 

not recorded. 

The artist placed the ram in the foreground of the Akedah. 195 

In this regard, the ram is like the other central figures in the Akedah drama, for the Torah 

does not document what Abraham and Isaac said to each other during their three-days 

march to Mount Moriah, what each thought as father bound son to the altar, or what 

Sarah felt when she intuited, from afar, that Abraham had raised his knife. But in another 

regard, the animal is different than the humans; while midrash after midrash delves into 

the psyches of the people, little is said about the beast’s. 

191 

Job 12:7-8. 

192 

Genesis 22, 

193 

See Book 3 of Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn for legends about the origin of 

the ram. 

194 

Louis A. Berman, The Akedah: The Binding of Isaac, Rowman and Littlefield (1999), pg. 191). 

195 

David Avisar, 1998, www.jewish-art-and-gifts.com/DavidAvisar.html, August 12, 2006. 


Book 3 of Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn posits that the ram is 

the totem of the Jewish people and that the voice of the shofar, the ram’s horn, is the 

symbolic voice of our people. If we accept this conceit, then it is time for us to listen to 

what the ram of the Akedah has to tell us. As it is written, “The righteous person knows 

the soul of their animal.” 196 

While our scriptures tell stories about lions, whales and other animals, only the serpent in 

Eden 197 and Balaam’s ass 198 are endowed with voices. Schochet’s study of Jewish 

attitudes towards animals describes how Torah “demythologized” animals. The sages, for 

the most part, reinforced this teaching. It has been said, for example, that, “as soon as 

[Balaam’s talking ass] finished speaking, she died, so that people should not say, ‘This is 

the animal that spoke,’ and so make of her an object of reverence.” 199 While animals 

were “remythologized” to a certain extent by the early rabbis, it was, “more accurately, 

perhaps, a poetic remythologization of the animal kingdom… It constituted no real threat 

to the supremacy of man, and carried within itself no practical implications vis-à-vis the 

powers of the beast. To the popular mind, the animal was neither divine nor demonic, it 

was merely subordinate to man, created by God to serve him.” 200 

Later, Jewish mystics stressed, “the underlying kinship of all living creatures, man as 

well as beast.” They noted that, “divinity is manifest in all of creation, with divine life 

pulsating as surely as any animal as it does in man.” 201 Despite this, “at no time did the 

animal occupy an exalted place in Jewish religious symbolism, certainly nothing 

comparable to that of the lamb in Christian religious motifs. The animal was essentially a 

nonsymbolic creature… man’s spiritual development entails a lonely climb to the 

summit. He must ascend far above the level of the animal and must leave the animal 

behind in his quest for ideal interpersonal relationships.” 202 

This is in marked contrast with other ancient wisdom traditions that describe many 

interactions between humans and other intelligent species. Recall, for example, the 

Native American legends that describe lessons Coyote taught to humans, or the Vedic 

writings about elephant-headed Genesha and Hunaman the monkey. 

“The notion that members of the animal kingdom, like human-kind, utter paeans of glory 

to God is, of course, a biblical one, but its development in midrashic literature is 

extensive and striking. In many respects, however, this is a perfectly natural 

development. After all, animals once possessed the power of speech, and their silent 

thoughts are still discernable to wise and sensitive humans. Furthermore, if even trees, 

196 

Proverbs 12:10, translated by Gershon Winkler, Magic of the Ordinary, pg. 159. 

197 

Genesis 3:1-5 

198 

Numbers 22:28-30 

199 

Numbers Rabah 20:4 cited in Schochet, pg 95. 

200 Schochet, pg. 109. 

201 Schochet, pg. 235. 

202 Schochet, pg. 299 f. 


plants, and inanimate objects are endowed with the capacity to praise the Lord, it is only 

natural for animals to be able to do so as well.” 203 

Had the Hebrews never been given their Torah, their divinely inspired scriptures, they 

would have been able to learn all they needed to know from the animals.” 204 

Anthropomorphizing (let alone deifying) animals seems to go against something in the 

Jewish cosmology; it comes too close to the ban on idolatry. When we left Egypt – where 

sheep, cats, jackals and falcons represented gods – spiritual communication with animals 

was prohibited, a dicta reinforced by our encounter with a golden calf. 

While honoring this stricture, can we allow ourselves the mental exercise to imagine the 

ram as an intelligent, sentient being with whom we can communicate? What could we 

learn from a dialog with the ram that might deepen the shofar’s ability to inspire teshuvah 

and spiritual awakening? 

If we could hear, what is the ram saying to us? Listen to what the ram might tell us: 

Yeah. I was there. Of course I was there. I was stuck in 

that bush since before He-Is-Whom-He-Is created the world, 

just for this occasion. I couldn’t have missed it if I 

tried. 

By the way, you do know what bush that was, don’t you? 

Well, if a bush can burn without being consumed, this was a 

bush that could grow since before the start of time without 

getting larger. You figure it out. 

What was I saying? Oh, yeah, I was there all right. 

Really, a very sad sight watching this old man and his son 

climbing the hill. The old guy had tears running down his 

checks. And the son just looked ashen. Wouldn’t you? I 

mean, he was too old to be called a kid anymore. 205 But he 

was a smart fellow; he knew what was going on in the 

neighborhood; that old, “harvest a child or two if you want 

a good crop,” business. Wasn’t it enough that Pop had 

already sent his brother off to who-knows-what-fate in the 

desert? 

You sure wouldn’t catch any of us sheep doing that. Yeah, 

sure, we guys have to bash each other every now and then; a 

203 Schochet, pg 134. 

204 Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 100b. 

205 Isaac’s age at the time is estimated to be either 25 or 37. See Louis A. Berman, The Binding of Isaac, 

Rowland & Littlefield (1997) pg. 62. 


am’s got to ram, after all. But snuff out our own 

lambkins? No way! 

I had understood since the Big Bang the purpose for which I 

was stuck on that hilltop. And for me, beating it out of 

the bush was my path to liberation. Glory, Halleluiah! So 

as Abe and Yitz came close, I started shaking the shrubbery 

and bleating to say, “Come on Abie, light my fire.” 

But they didn’t seem to hear me, no sir. Each too wrapped 

up in his own mishegoss, listening to his own troubles, to 

pay attention to anything else. 

Abraham should have known what was what. When he said, “God 

will provide the lamb,” he had it almost right. I mean, how 

can some sheep older than time be considered still a lamb? 

But he was generally right. He knew it didn’t make sense to 

kill our kids. God knows, humans ought to be at least as 

smart as us sheep. But Abe was caught up in this game of 

“people” (I won’t insult my fowl friends by calling it a 

game of “chicken”). Abe, he was sort of toying with HaShem, 

testing God’s sense of justice while God was testing 

Abraham’s faith – and neither wanted to be the first to 

blink. 

And what was it with the lad? Was he caught in a bush, too? 

Why didn’t he put up a fight or run away? 

Too bad Jewish summer camp hadn’t been invented yet, ‘cuz 

if they had been, he might have learned the lesson in that 

song, “Who told you a ‘lamb’ to be? Why don’t you have 

wings to fly with, like the swallow so swift and free?” 206 

So there they are – Isaac in denial on the altar, Abraham 

raising his knife, and Sarah feeling the pain only a mother 

can feel. And I keep shooting as loud as I can. “Hey Guys! 

Over here, heneini! I’m the lamb. Look, thick wooly skin 

like Esau, horns in bush. God will provide the lamb - Me! 

Let me fulfill my dharma; I’m the sacrifice God wants.” But 

did they listen? 

I have experienced a lot of miracles in my time, including 

the creation of the heavens and the earth. So what happened 

next didn’t surprise me. My, “Baaaaa! Baaaaa!” suddenly 

206 “Dona Dona,” Aaron Zeitlin, translated by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz, 1940, Mills Music. The 

original referred to a “calf,” but this is how the ram remembers it. 


ecame, “Aaaabraaaaham! Aaaabraaaaham!” And thank God, may 

His Name be blessed forever and ever, amen, Abraham finally 

heard. ”Wake up, old man, your dream is over.” 207 

Now the Holy Book, she says Abraham, he “lifted up his eyes 

and looked, and behold, behind him, a ram” -- that’s me. 

Now does that make any sense to you? Did Abie Baby have 

eyes in the back of his head or something? No way. He heard 

me making a ruckus, and then he turned around and did his 

beholding. Sort of like the way Hagar couldn’t see that 

well until she heard her wake-up call. You know, there’s a 

reason why you don’t have earlids; it’s so you can hear 

what’s going down even when you’re in the pitchest dark. 

Well, you probably know the rest of the story about the 

life of Sarah and Abraham and their flock. As for me, one 

of my horns blew at Sinai when God gave the Torah, and the 

other is on alert to blow the instant Messiah comes. My 

blood marked the homes of the children of Israel on Pesach. 

The Temple is built on my ashes. And Elijah wears my skin 

as his mantle. A nice legacy for a four-legged critter, if 

you ask me 

But in my opinion, the most important gift I got to give 

was my voice. My calls were able to awaken Abraham so he 

could return to his senses. And from generation to 

generation, my voice continues to speak through the shofar, 

my horn, calling people to wake up to their potentials and 

return to their true purposes. 

But the shofar can only work if you listen, so you have to 

do your part, too. Then, as The Boss says, “all the nations 

of the earth shall be blessed because you have listened to 

My voice.” 

I’ve got to go now. Miriam’s bringing her tambourine, those 

Koresh Brothers 208 have got some new tunes, and David’s got 

on his dancing shoes. I’m sitting in, naturally, on horns. 

We sure are going to wail tonight. 

So you be good, and keep your ears open. 

207 In Genesis 22:2, God command Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. The next line, Genesis 22:3 

says, “Abraham rose early in the morning” to begin his journey to the place where the offering was to be 

made. The juxtaposition of the two lines suggests that Abraham may have heard the voice of God in his 

dreams. 

208 Some of Psalms is attributed to the sons of Koresh. 


The Real Hero of the Sacrifice of Isaac 

Yehuda Amichai 209 

The real hero of the sacrifice was the ram 

Who had no idea about the conspiracy of the others. 

He apparently volunteered to die in place of Isaac. 

I want to sing a memorial song about the ram, 

The curly wool and human eyes, 

The horns, so calm in his living head. 

When he was slaughtered they made shofars of them, 

To sound the blast of their war 

Or the blast of their coarse joy. 

I want to remember the last picture 

Like a beautiful photo in an exquisite fashion magazine: 

The tanned, spoiled youngster all spiffed up, 

And beside him the angel, clad in a long silk gown 

For a formal reception. 

Both with hollow eyes 

Observe two hollow places, 

And behind them, as a colored background, the ram 

Grasping the thicket before the slaughter. 

The angel went home 

Isaac went home. 

And Abraham and God left much earlier. 

But the real hero of the sacrifice 

Is the ram. 210 

Why the Shofar and not the Knife? 

“The point of the Akedah is not to increase faith and piety, but, on the contrary, to warn 

against too much faith, too much piety, in particular, too much eagerness to sacrifice, 

especially at the expense of others than the faithful one. 

209 Yehuda Amichai: A life of Poetry, 1948 – 1994, Translated by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav, Harper 

Collins Publishers, 1995, page 345, from An Hour of Grace, 1983 

210 An interesting comment on this poem is offered by Derek Penslar in a Devar Torah, 2d Day of Rosh 

Hashanah, 5769: “Note that twice, Amichai refers to the Akedah as the ‘Isaac story.’ Abraham is a side 

figure. Why do so many modern Hebrew writers de-center Abraham? True, in our tradition the story is 

known as akedat Yitzhak, but Abraham is the protagonist of the entire section of Bereshit in which the 

akedah story occurs. I think it is much easier for a modern, secular person to empathize with Isaac (or even 

the ram) than with Abraham.” www.narayever.ca/divreitorah/5769/penslar-rh-5769.htm, September 7, 

2009. 


“I find it interesting that the idea of sacrificing the Ram in place of Isaac is not even 

commanded by God. Abraham does this on his own. It seems he was caught up in the 

urge to sacrifice, and if it was not his son, it had to be the Ram. 

“If the meaning of the Akedah is Abraham's willingness to serve God by sacrificing his 

son, why, on Rosh Hashanah, when we remember the Akedah, do we not hold up the 

chalef, the shochet's [ritual slaughter’s] knife? Why do we hold up and blow the shofar, 

which makes the point that the son was not sacrificed? The Ram was. 

“Maybe martyrdom is not the highest form of serving God. Maybe He wants us to live 

for Him, not die for Him.” 211 

The Silence of the Ram 

I suggest above that the ram of the Akedah called mightily to draw Abraham’s and 

Isaac’s attention, and that the humans were too stricken with angst and fear to hear the 

call. There are, of course, other ways to explain why Abraham and Isaac did not hear the 

ram when they arrived at the mountaintop. For example, what if the ram was silent? 

This hypothesis poses its own interesting set of questions: 

• Was the ram silent because, after half of eternity caught in the bush, it had 

become too weary to struggle or care? 

• Was he quiet in self-defense, preferring to remain hidden instead of becoming 

incense? 

• Was it dumbstruck with awe by an awareness of the import of the events 

unfolding before him? Because its animal instincts sensed a heavenly messenger 

nearby? 

• Was it obeying a command from God to be silent and let events unfold? 

• Or, was the ram even there, on Mount Moriah, until Abraham turned and looked? 

Perhaps Abraham or Isaac (or God) had to complete an initiation or trial before 

the ram was transported form its abode in Paradise. 

Each of these possibilities can provide instruction on teshuvah and other themes of the 

Yomin Noraim. For example, how does one hear the still small voice when the ram of 

redemption is silent? 

You are invited to create your own “ram drash” to explore the mysteries. 


211 Rabbi Jacob Chinitz, personal correspondence with author, November 4, 2006. 


Chapter 1-7 – The Ewe’s Horn 

“The shofar sounds like a baby crying, and is supposed to make the milk rise in God’s 

breast.” 212 

This Chapter begins with questions: 

Why do we call the shofar a “ram’s” horn when our tradition also allows us to 

use the horn of female sheep, goats, and other horned ungulates? 213 

Why do the compilers of Talmud say “we blow with the horns of males” and 

then annotate their remarks to say that’s not what they really mean? 214 

The animal sacrifices required in the Torah specified that rams were to be 

used for certain sacrifices and ewes for others. Can we deduce from this that 

there are different spiritual qualities to the genders, differences that may also 

be heard in a shofar depending on whether it is a ram’s horn or an ewe’s 

horn? 215 

While I cannot provide definitive answers to these questions, exploring genderrelated 

issues provides useful insights into how to hear and heed shofar. 

The plural of Hebrew nouns are constructed with a suffix; “-im” for most 

masculine nouns and “-ot” for most feminine nouns. “Shofar; is an exception; it is 

a masculine noun that becomes “shofarot” in the plural. There are enough 

exceptions to the general rule to make this grammatically unremarkable. Still, it is 

an interesting coincidence in the context of an investigation of gender-related 

issues. 

The Masculine Voices of Shofar 

We are told that a ram is the preferred source for a shofar because it memorializes the 

ram used as a sacrifice instead of Isaac. For example: 

“Rabbi Abbahu said: ‘Why is the horn of a ram sounded on Rosh Hashanah? 

The Holy One praised be He said, ‘sound before Me the horn of a ram, that I 

might be reminded of the binding of Isaac, the son of Abraham, and thus 

212 Margaret Holub, “The Landscape and the Many Intelligences Imbedded Therein,” 1999, 

www.mcjc.org/MJOLDART/mjamh401.htm, February 11, 2006 

213 Rosh Hashanah16a. 

214 Mishnah of Rosh Hashanah 26b says, “And on fast days, we blow with the horns of males, which are 

bent…” and, “R’ Yehudah says: On Rosh Hashanah we blow with the horns of males…” In the 

Schottenstein Edition, the footnotes to these two passages say, “Although the Mishnah specifies a ram’s 

horn, any bent horn is valid…” and “According to most Rishonim, R’Yehudah requires only that on Rosh 

Hashanah the shofar be bent and on Yovel it be straight…” 

215 See Leviticus 14:10 and Numbers 6:14. 


consider your fulfillment of this commandment [of sounding a horn] as though 

you had bound yourselves upon an altar before Me.’” 216 

This story, the Akedah – the Binding of Isaac – is the Torah portion traditionally read on 

the second day of Rosh Hashanah. 217 One understanding of the story is that God tests 

Abraham’s faith by ordering him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. When Abraham passes his 

ordeal by binding Isaac on the altar and preparing to slaughter him, God renews the 

Covenant binding God and the descendents of Abraham. 

There is another compelling understanding of the Akedah – that it is Abraham who is 

testing God’s compassion and justice. Abraham, who vocally argues with God over the 

destruction of life at Sodom and Gomorrah, argues even more effectively by silently 

witnessing what he knew to be an immoral command. It is only when God sends an angel 

to stop the slaughter that Abraham accepts the renewed Covenant. 

Whichever midrash resonates most deeply with us, we sound the shofar during Rosh 

Hashanah as a reminder – to ourselves and to God – of that Covenant. 

Three of the central characters in this story are males: Abraham – the father whose name 

even derives from the Hebrew root meaning “father”; Isaac – the son; and a ram – a male 

sheep whose horns can even be understood as phallic images. 

On their way to Mt. Moriah where the sacrifice is to take place, father and son walk 

together for three days with almost nothing spoken between them – the epitome of the 

image of men who do not share their emotions. This is a guy’s story: instead of exploring 

feelings and relationships, the Akedah is an action-drama of command, courage, strength, 

duty, resolve, fear, and violence. 

The shofar blasts that recall the Akedah’s anniversary still resonate with the story’s 

masculine energy. They demand that God inscribe us for another year and are alarms to 

rouse us to teshuvah, battle cries to shock and awe Satan, and fanfares for a triumphant 

King. They are the voice of Abraham’s unexpressed rage at God and the stifled whimpers 

of Isaac struggling to live up to his father’s expectations. They are the voice of the ram in 

every one of us, caught-up by the very horns about which we are most proud. 

We hear the masculine voice of shofar as a bellow, a trumpeting, and a demand; we note 

the size, length, and power of the blasts. 

The shofar calls of Abraham declare that whether we yield to or challenge God’s 

call, we must respond when called. 

216 Rosh Hashanah 16a, translation from Judaism, Arthur Hertzberg, George Braziller, Inc., 1961. 

217 Genesis 22. 


The shofar calls of Isaac are the struggle each of us must go through to create or 

preserve our own identity without breaking the bonds that tie us with our family, 

tribe, and heritage. 

The shofar calls of the ram remind us that even when we feel trapped, we may yet 

be part of the Divine plan. 

Animal Husbandry 101 

There was a pragmatic reason for sacrificing rams and male lambs instead of 

females. Just a few males could service an entire fold of sheep or tribe of goats, 

and too many males in a flock could lead to ramming as the males fought to 

establish breeding rights. Females, on or hand, produced milk and lambs or kids 

and were of too much economic value to sacrifice. 218 

The Feminine Voices of Shofar 

The shofar also speaks to us with feminine voices that we hear in the shofar’s cries, its 

pleading implorations, the silences between notes, the pregnant expectation before the 

first tekiah – blast, and the lingering reverberations of the tekiah gedolah – the prolonged 

blast at the end of the shofar service. 

We also have scriptures and stories of women in whose voices (or silences) can also be 

heard in the feminine aspect of shofar. Among these are Sarah, Hagar, Hannah, the 

mother of Sisera, Rachel, and Rahab. 

Sarah 

Sarah is wife of Abraham, mother of Isaac, and the original Matriarch of the Jewish 

people. Yet the Rosh Hashanah Torah reading of the Akedah does not mention Sarah. 

Abraham receives his orders from God and rises early in the morning to take Isaac to the 

place of sacrifice. We are not told what either said to Sarah, if anything, about the 

purpose of the trip or what their good-byes were like. Nor are we told what Sarah and 

Abraham said to each other after he returned from his journey without Isaac. We do not 

even know if husband and wife ever saw each other again. Instead, Genesis 22 ends with 

Abraham returning to and dwelling in Beer-sheba, and the very next chapter, Genesis 23, 

“The Life of Sarah,” begins by telling us that Sarah died, at the age of 127 years, in 

Hebron. 

218 I am grateful to David Lubman for explaining this to me. I am reminded of the explanation for why 

apples (dipped in honey) are a symbolic food on Rosh Hashanah. As an allusion to the uncertainty about 

what may come to be during the New Year, we are told that one can always count the seeds in an apple, but 

never know the number of apples in a seed. In a similar manner, we may know how many horns are on a 

ewe, but not the number of potential shofarot that may still be inside a ewe. 


This silence, like all family secrets, has lead to endless speculations and rumors. The 

gossip is that Abraham’s actions and the threat to her child caused the death of Sarah. 219 

We are told, for example: 

“The death of Sarah is narrated directly after the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, 

because, as a result of the tidings of the Akedah – that her son had been fated 

for slaughter, and had been all-but-slaughtered – her soul flew away and she 

died.” 220 

“Isaac returned to his mother and she said to him: 'Where have you been, my 

son?' Said he to her: ‘My father took me and led me up mountains and down 

hills,’ etc. ‘Alas,’ she said, ‘for the son of a hapless woman! Had it not been 

for the angel you would by now have been slain!’ ‘Yes,’ he said to her. 

Thereupon she uttered six cries, corresponding to the six blasts of the Shofar. 

It has been said: She had scarcely finished speaking when she died.” 221 

“Satan…told Sarah, ‘Ah, Sarah, have you not heard what’s been happening in 

the world? Your old husband has taken the boy Isaac and sacrificed him as a 

burnt offering, while the boy cried and wailed for he could not be saved.’ 

Immediately, she began to cry and wail. She cried three sobs, corresponding 

to the three Tekiah notes of the Shofar, and she wailed three times, 

corresponding to the staccato notes of the Shofar. Then, she gave up the ghost 

and died.” 222 

In another telling of the story, Satan is in disguise as Isaac; Sarah dies upon 

hearing about the near sacrifice even though she sees her son still living. 223 The 

implications of her son’s survival are also explored in other midrashim: 

“But others teach that Satan reveals to her that Abraham has spared her son 

from his knife; and then her heart bursts from joy. Such is the anatomy of a 

mother’s heart.” 224 

“When Sarah heard of Abraham's mission to Mount Moriah, she marveled at 

his spiritual heroism. Had she been told that Yitzchak was sacrificed, she 

would have been filled with joy at the fact that her son was accepted by 

HaShem. She, however, was told that he had almost been slaughtered. Upon 

hearing this, she was terribly saddened, because she presumed that at the last 

219 

See, for example, Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg in The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis 

(Doubleday, 1995) in the chapter titled, “HAYYEI SARAH: Vertigo – The Residue of the Akedah.” 

220 

Rashi 23:2, translation from Zornberg. 

221 

Leviticus Rabba on Genesis 23:1-2, Weinstein. 

222 

Pirke d’Rabbi Eliezer, chap. 32, translation from Zornberg. 

223 

Midrash Tanchuma on the Binding of Isaac, translated by Avi Weinstein, “Sarah is the Shofar - The 

Binding of Isaac, The Shofar: Sarah's Tears,” 

www.hillel.org/Hillel/NewHille.nsf/fcb8259ca861ae57852567d30043ba26/59f054b76866e47385256b1300 

5553fe/$FILE/Sarah_Rosh_Hashanah.pdf, January 28, 2006 

224 

Frankel, Ellen; The Five Books of Miriam, HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.; 1996, pg 30 


moment her son was found unsuitable. Sarah feared that perhaps her influence 

was in some way inadequate and her education of Yitzchak imperfect. This 

was so profoundly saddening that her soul departed.” 225 

Whether due to Isaac’s brush with death or his rescue, the Binding of Isaac tears 

his mother from life. If the masculine voice of shofar is to memorialize the ram 

that was sacrificed instead of Isaac, the feminine voice of shofar is reminder of 

the sacrifice of Sarah. 

“The Shofar blasts on the New Year are to transform Sarah’s death into 

atonement, because the teruah – the broken Shofar tone – is groaning and 

wailing.” 226 

The shofar calls of Sarah remind us that our actions – and even our intentions – 

have consequences for others. 

“The shofar, the cries of Sarah, reminds the Holy One that the tests He gives leave marks 

on the innocent. The trials of Abraham lead to the death of Sarah. Before we go into 

judgment, we remind the Holy One [about] the flaws of perfect justice in an imperfect 

world. It is better to forego the test then to cause the suffering of an innocent intimate 

bystander. Just as no words, only her sobbing can reflect Sarah's pain, it is the mournful 

sound of the shofar that tries to convince the Judge, that judgment isn't worth the 

trouble.” 227 

The gematria – numerical equivalent – of the Hebrew words “And He remembered 

[Sarah],” 228 equals the numerical value of “shofar.” 229 

Tkhine of the Matriarchs for the Blowing of the Shofar 230 

(Tkhines – Yiddish for “prayers” or “supplications” – were Yiddish-language prayer 

books intended for women who were not taught Hebrew, and often conveyed a woman’s 

sensibility.) 

225 Rabbi Moshe Bogomilsky, “Vedibarta Bam — And You Shall Speak of Them, Volume I — Bereishit, 

Chayei Sarah,” published by Sichos in English, www.sichosinenglish.org/books/vedibarta-bam/005.htm 

November 11, 2006. 

226 Midrash Aggadah, quoted in Torah Shelemah, Bereshit, chap. 23, n. 17, translation from Zornberg. 

227 Rabbi Avi Weinstein, “Parshat Chayei Sarah,” Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, 

www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Weekly_Torah_Commentary/chayeisarah_hillel5759.htm November 13, 

2006. 


229 Rabbi Yekutiel Zalman Zev, cited by Tzvi Fishman in “Kabbalistic Understandings Of The Shofar,” 

www.jewishsexuality.com/content/view/71/67/, March 31, 2007. 

230 Serl (daughtor of Jacob ben Wolf Kranz, the Dubno Maggid), excerpted from Tkhine Imoches Fun Rosh 

Hodesh Elul (Lvov, n.d), translation from Ellen M. Umansky and Dianne Ashton, eds., Four Centuries of 

Jewish Women’s Spirituality, (Boston, Beacon, 1992), 53-54. As cited by Chava Weissler, Voices of the 

Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women, (Boston, Beacon 1998) pg 145. 


“First we ask our mother Sarah to plead for us in this hour of judgment… Have mercy, 

our mother, on your children. And especially, pray for our little children that they may 

not be taken away from us. For you know well that it is very bitter when a child is taken 

away from the mother, as it happened to you. When your son Isaac was taken away from 

you, it caused you great anguish.” 

Hagar 

Hagar’s story 231 is traditionally read on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Hagar is an 

Egyptian woman, Abraham’s concubine by whom she conceives Ishmael. Sarah is 

concerned about the rivalry between Abraham’s two sons – Hagar’s and her own – and 

told Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael to the desert. God instructed Abraham to 

listen to Sarah, and said that Ishmael, too, will also become the father of a great nation. 

Hagar, apparently, did not know of God’s plan for her son. When their small supply of 

water was depleted, she placed the child under a bush and sat down a “bowshot” away 

from him, saying, “Let me not look upon the death of the child.” And then she “lifted up 

her voice, and wept.” 

What happens next is one of the great mysteries of Torah. We are told that Hagar wept, 

but that “God heard the voice of the lad.” Tank cars full of ink have been consumed in 

exegeses on the seeming incongruence of this verse; but it should not be hard to imagine 

that the mother’s cries were also those of her young child’s. What is relevant to our 

discussion of shofar is that God heard the cries and responded. “And God opened her 

eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the bottle with water, and gave 

the lad drink.” 

No horns were blown that day in the Negev. Sitting in the silence of the desert, Hagar 

could hear the still small voice of an angel awakening her to new hope. Relieved of her 

anguish, she could recognize the solution that had been at hand all along. 

The shofar calls of Hagar awaken us to discover new hope and opportunity, even 

from the depths of despair. 

“…the shofar’s call is actually a cry – the cry of Hagar as she leaves her home. How odd 

that the rabbis should choose this woman’s cry – the mother of our present-day ‘enemy’ – 

to be the sound which echoes in our new year. How odd and how appropriate. The shofar 

is inviting us to clear our heads of all the stereotypes and ‘thems’ we carry into the new 

year. The shofar challenges us to hear the cry of the enemy as our own, to hear in Hagar’s 

wail the cry for empathy, and in that cry, we empty ourselves of anger and fill ourselves 

with compassion for all the “others” we have in our lives. Hagar’s cry makes us hear the 

cry of all those we have stereotyped, and demonized, and fictionalized, and 

rationalized.” 232 

231 Genesis 21:9 – 21, translations from Hertz. 

232 Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, “Who is the Enemy?” Rosh Hashanah 5760, 

www.kolel.org/pages/holidays/5760_RHS1.html, February 17, 2006. 


“How strange: Hagar cries out, and God’s messenger says that God has heard the youth’s 

voice. Could it be that here also is a message for Rosh Hashanah? Like the call of the 

shofar, when Hagar cries, it is not only her own voice that God hears, but the voice of 

someone who cannot cry out for themself. On Rosh Hashanah, we repent not only for 

ourselves, which, after all, we can do any time, but as a community. We take upon 

ourselves the task of crying out to God to save the community, not just to repent of our 

own deeds.” 233 

“Tradition teaches that the shofar is the horn of the ram that saved Isaac’s neck. But there 

[is] also a rabbinic tradition that the shofar’s call symbolizes the cry of Hagar just as she 

is cast out. One long “why?” And then: why, why, why do we turn our backs, it asks us? 

And then it gasps and pleads: why, oh why why why why why why why, do we not reach 

out to each other? 

“Hagar’s shofar is the cry of the kid not chosen for the team, the girl without a date for 

the prom, the single person alone for the holiday meal, the friend we don’t talk to 

anymore, the new co-worker we ignore, the co-workers we’ve stepped on to get ahead 

ourselves. It’s the person we assume isn’t lonely, because we’ve never asked. It’s the 

friend whose stress we can’t deal with because we’re too stressed; the child we don’t 

have time for, sitting in front of another TV cartoon, waiting, waiting. It’s the parent 

we’re still angry at. It’s the exiled, the foreign, the Israeli we judge for leaving Israel to 

live here, the new immigrant whose English is not so good yet. It’s the lonely, the elderly, 

the disabled, the depressed, the tired. It’s all those we’ve never forgiven. 

“Since today is Shabbat, it is the day Zalman Schachter-Shalomi calls the “silent 

shofar.” 234 We do not blow the shofar today, but we can imagine the kind of anguished 

cry that wells up in the throat and gets caught in silent, heaving sobs with no sound. 

Sometimes our cries are so deep, they cannot even make a sound, and no one hears them 

except the one crying. Today’s silent shofar is all the Hagars we have left in the desert, 

and they are waiting for an invitation from us to come back.” 235 

Hannah 

Hannah’s story is the Haftorah – prophetic reading – traditionally read after the Torah 

reading on first day of Rosh Hashanah. 236 It relates thematically to the day’s Torah 

reading about another childless woman, Sarah. Just as Sarah and Hagar share a man, 

Hannah shares her husband, Elkanah, with a co-wife, Peninnah. Peninnah has children 

and taunts Hannah for being childless. Hannah’s longing for a child does not receive 

233 Rabbi Alana Suskin, “Kol Ra’Ash Gadol,” October 3, 2004, http://kolraashgadol.blogspot.com/2004/10/erev-rosh-hashanah_03.html, 

August 17, 2007. 

234 See Chapter 9 – Remembering Shofar for more on the shofar of Shabbat. 

235 Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, “Insiders and Outsiders, sermon – Yom Kippur 5761, 

www.kolel.org/pages/holidays/5761_YKS1.html, January 8, 2008. 

236 I Samuel 1:1 – 2:10. 


empathy from Elkanah who asks, “Why are you so sad? Am I not more devoted to you 

than ten sons?” 

While accompanying her husband to Shiloh to offer a sacrifice at the Mishkon, 237 “in her 

wretchedness, she prayed to the Lord, weeping all the while.” 238 Hannah vows to God 

that, if her petition for a son is granted, the child will be given into the service of the 

Temple. 

Meanwhile, Eli, the priest, has been observing her. 

“Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah was praying in the heart; only her lips moved, but 

her voice could not be heard. So Eli thought she was drunk. Eli said to her, ‘How long 

will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Sober up!’ And Hannah replied, ‘Oh, no, 

my lord! I am a very unhappy woman. I have…been pouring out my heart to the 

Lord…out of my great anguish and distress.’ ‘Then go in peace,’ said Eli, ‘and may the 

God of Israel grant you what you have asked of Him.’” 239 

After this, Hannah conceived and bore Samuel (whose name means “I asked the Lord for 

him”). Her son served in the priesthood and became one of the great prophets. 

The Rabbis say that Hannah provides a model for how to pray. I add, that she also 

provides a model for both the kavanah – attitude – and technique of shofar sounding: 

“praying in the heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard.” 240 

The shofar calls of Hannah sound for all those who cannot utter their prayers aloud. 

Hannah Song of Horns 

Hannah is also connected to shofar by references to keren – horn – in the first and last 

lines of her song upon presenting her son Samuel to service in the Temple: 

“I have triumphed [literally “My horn is high”] through the Lord; 

I gloat [literally “My mouth is wide”] over my enemies; 

I rejoice in Your deliverance. 

“The foes of the Lord shall be shattered; 

He will thunder against them in the heavens. 

The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. 

He will give power to His king, 

And triumph to [Literally, “And will raise the horn of”] His anointed one.” 241 

237 The portable sanctuary where the Commandments received by Moses were kept prior to the construction 

of the Temple in Jerusalem. 

238 I Samuel 1:10. 

239 I Samuel 1:12-17. 

240 I Samuel 1:13. 

241 I Samuel 2:1 and 2:10. 


Hannah’s use of the horn as a metaphor for conceiving a child is not surprising as the 

horn has, since earliest times, been a symbol of fecundity. 

Comparing the voice of shofar to the cries of a woman in labor, Rabbi Lisa Edwards 

speculates, “…it’s hard to live in a post-Freudian age without noticing the irony that the 

shofar, an object that is in shape so clearly a phallic symbol, utters the uniquely female 

sounds of…childbirth and a mother’s grief. On the other hand, it’s also possible to 

see…the shape of the shofar as a horn of plenty, a kind of birth canal image, with 

children as the bounty that flows from it. Given this view of it, Hannah’s verse…has 

interesting sexual overtones… If we see keren as a phallic symbol, then Hannah’s “horn” 

would be her husband’s penis, literally “raised up” by God to impregnate Hannah. If we 

invest keren with the horn of plenty image, then it is Hannah’s birth canal that is exalted 

by God” 242 

Sisera’s Mother 

The Talmud goes to great lengths to describe the shofar calls to be heard on Rosh 

Hashanah. We are told that, for example, “The length of a teruah is like three whimpers.” 

But what type of whimper? To answer this, the sages offer us Sisera’s Mother as a model: 

“And it is written regarding Sisera’s mother: Through the window she looked, 

and she cried, Sisera’s mother.” 243 

Examining the emotions beneath her cries, then, may help us to understand the shofar’s 

cries. 

Scripture does not record the name of Sisera’s mother, 244 but does tell us about her son, 

Sisera. 245 He commanded the army of Canaan in its struggle with the Israelites over 

dominion of the lands along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. “He had nine 

hundred iron chariots, and he had oppressed Israel ruthlessly for twenty years.” 246 

Ultimately, his army was routed by the Israelites under the leadership of Deborah and 

General Barak. Sisera flees and takes refuge in the tent of Jael whom he believes to be an 

ally. Jael makes a comfortable bed for him and gives him milk as a sedative. “Then Jael, 

wife of Heber, took a tent pin and grasped the mallet. When he was fast asleep from 

exhaustion, she approached him stealthily and drove the pin through his temple till it 

went down to the ground. Thus he died.” 247 

In a song of triumph attributed to Deborah and Barak, the brutality of his death is 

rendered as: 

242 Edwards, note 43, pg 27. 

243 Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 33b 

244 She is called Themac in Ginzberg, Vol IV, 

245 Judges 4 and 5. 

246 Judges 4:3. 

247 Judges 4:21. 


“She struck Sisera, crushed his head, 

Smashed and pierced his temple. 

At her feet he sank, lay outstretched, 

At her feet he sank, lay still; 

Where he sank, there he lay – destroyed.” 248 

The song then tells of Sisera’s mother waiting at home for her son’s return: 

“Through the window peered Sisera’s mother, 

Behind the lattice she whined: 

‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? 

Why so late the clatter of his wheels?’ 

The wisest of her ladies give answer; 

She, too, replies to herself: 

‘They must be dividing the spoil they have found: 

A damsel or two for each man, 

Spoil of dyed cloths for Sisera, 

Spoil of embroidered cloths, 

A couple of embroidered cloths 

Round every neck as spoil.’” 249 

Poetically, the domesticity in this description of Sisera’s mother provides counterpoint to 

the violence of the battlefield. At the same time, it makes the horror of war all the more 

unpalatable by underscoring the disregard for life in favor of material gain. The 

incredible cruelty of Sisera’s people is shown in that, “her anguish for her son could be 

assuaged in the thought that he must be in the process of making other mothers 

childless.” 250 

What does this mean with regard to the shofar? Some commentators say that Mother 

Sisera’s whimpers were halfway between joyous laughter in expectation of her son’s 

return and wails of despair due to her intuitive understanding that he had been killed. 

Would she continue to enjoy her status as the mother of a hero, or would her self-identity 

and status in the royal court fall in ruin? In the same way, we do not know, when we hear 

the shofar blow on Rosh Hashanah, whether we have been inscribed in the Book of Life 

or the Book of Death, and we whimper in turmoil over the uncertainty, unsure whether to 

laugh or cry. 

It is also said that Sisera’s mother cried one hundred times during her wait for her son. 

Because of this, the one hundred shofar blows sounded in many congregations on Rosh 

Hashanah are to countermand the hundred cries of Sisera’s mother, cries that were filled 

with hatred for the Jewish People, in an attempt to eradicate an evil that reaches from 

Amalek to Hitler and into this very day. 

248 Judges 5:26-27. 

249 Judges 5:28-30. 

250 The Jewish Catalog, pg 68 


But others say that Sisera’s mother cried one hundred and one times. 251 While we can 

interdict one hundred of them as being full of hate, greed, and self pity, the remaining cry 

is the genuine pain of a mother who has lost a child, and we must not attempt to drown 

out maternal love with our shofar blasts. 

It is this 101 st cry that I long to hear in my shofar blowing, for it is a call for peace. To 

kill in war, soldiers must believe that their opponents are less human. Denying their 

mothers’ names is one way of doing this. Remembering that they have mothers who will 

cry at their gravesides makes it harder to kill them. 

“…one of the reasons that on Rosh Hashanah we blow 100 shofar blasts is to fix the 100 

cries of the mother of Sisera that she cried when she heard that her son had been killed. 

Why do we have to fix her cries? The answer is because we sinned, and therefore 

HaShem sent Sisera to war against us. Because of this, Sisera had to die, and that is why 

his mother cried. However, if we had not sinned, HaShem would not have had to send 

him, and she would not have cried, so we are responsible.” 252 

We are told that, when Pharaoh’s army drowned as they pursued the children of Israel, 

the angels started to rejoice. God admonished them for singing praises saying, “My 

creatures are drowning in the sea, and you are singing?” 253 In the same way that we spill 

drops of wine during the Passover seder to diminish our joy by remembering the 

suffering of others, I pray that my shofar blasts will remind me that the fates of all people 

hang in balance during Rosh Hashanah; that it is not just my own personal Day of 

Judgment. 

The shofar cries of Sisera’s mother beckon the messianic age when all nations shall 

live together in peace. 254 

Even Terrorists have Mothers 

“A medieval Jewish source movingly tells us that one hundred shofar sounds at our New 

Year services correspond to the one hundred groans by the mother of Sisera when she 

saw her son killed in his battle against the Israelites. Sisera was a brutal tyrant, wreaking 

terror on our people. His death was our salvation. Yet, he had a mother, and to this day 

we hear her cries and recall her grief over the death of her child. Even terrorists have 

mothers, and we must not be indifferent to their anguish. This is but one of the 

251 According to The Jewish Catalog, pg 68, the 101 cries are linked to the 101 Hebrew letters of Judges 

5:28-29. This seems an over-reaching explanation since it ignores the 76 thematically linked letters of verse 

5:30. 

252 HaRav Eliezer Berland, “Parshas Shemos,” www.shuvubonim.org/shemos.html, August 31, 2006. 

253 B.T. Megillah 10b. 

254 Many other messages can be heard in the cries of Sisera’s mother. See, for example, “The Voice in the 

Shofar – A Defense Of Deborah,” Yael Unterman, Torah of the Mothers, Urim Publications, 2000, pp 170 - 

193. 


emarkable features of Judaism in an effort to ensure that even war does not harden us to 

the point of not caring for the loss and suffering of our enemies.” 255 

A Paradox 

“What a paradox! Inside the ritual is a teaching that is it’s very opposite: the teruah – the 

sound of the shofar that calls the troops to assemble, is…the sound of a mother’s cry… 

“With words, we take sides, we categorize, we accuse. With the moan of the shofar we 

simplify, and strip down to essentials. With the Shofar, we defend ourselves against the 

structures that speech has created. When we use words, we are forced to categorize 

Sisera's mother as a Canaanite, an enemy, the mother of my adversary, and she, using 

words, would categorize us in a similar way. The pure, non-verbal sounds of her cries, 

however, transcend those categories created by speech, and speak to us from, and about, 

her basic humanity.” 256 

Rachel 

Amidst all these tears, we are also reminded of the tears of Rachel, whose name is 

Hebrew for “ewe.” The Haftorah from the prophet Jeremiah, read on the second day of 

Rosh Hashanah, say: 

“A cry is heard on a height – 

Wailing, bitter weeping – 

Rachel weeping for her children. 

She refuses to be comforted 

For her children, who are gone. 

Thus said the Lord: 

Restrain your voice from weeping, 

Your eyes from shedding tears; 

For there is a reward for your labor 

– declares the Lord: 

They shall return from the enemy’s land 

And there is hope for your future 

– declares the Lord: 

Your children shall return to their country.” 257 

This prophetic vision foretells the ingathering of exiles, a time when the Great Shofar of 

the Messianic Era will be sounded. Jeremiah is referring to the Ten Tribes of the 

Northern Kingdom of Israel that where vanquished by the Assyrians in the 8 th Century 

255 Sir Immanuel Jacobovitz, “The Morality of Warfare,” L’EYLAH, vol. 2, no. 4, 1983, quoted in 

“Reacting to a World at War” by Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 

http://urj.org/_kd/Items/actions.cfm?action=Show&item_id=3825&destination=ShowItem, February 14, 

2006. 

256 Linda Hirschhorn, 2003, “The Shofar Calls,” 2003, www.lindahirschhorn.com/the_shofar_calls.html, 

January 7, 2006. 

257 Jeremiah 31:15-17. 


BCE and disappeared into the diaspora. The Haftorah, however, speaks to all of us who 

have experienced loss. 

The exile that afflicts most people today is not from a piece of land, but from themselves, 

their families and communities, and from God. The High Holy Days provide a chance to 

experience High Wholeness-Days when we can recalibrate our lives. Rachel’s tears 

comfort us for we are told that we can also return from exile to “at-one-ment.” 

The shofar calls of Rachel comfort us and fill us with hope for the future. 

The words of God's promise to Rachel that her children will return to their borders 

softens one's heart no less than the piercing sounds of the Shofar. 258 

Rahab 

I cannot leave Rahab out of this chorus of female voices. While her story is not usually 

linked to the Rosh Hashanah observances, she and her family were the only survivors of 

the Israelite’s attack on Jericho, a city whose very name is inextricably linked to the 

sounding of shofar. What did she think, feel and experience as she heard the blasts of the 

horn that preceded the collapse of her city’s walls? 

The story of Jericho’s fall is usually told through the masculine voice of shofar. It is a 

military narrative with its emphasis on espionage, 259 logistics, 260 command structure, 261 

strategy, 262 tactics, 263 maneuvers, 264 dispatches from the field, 265 establishment of 

hegemony, 266 and decoration of the victors. 267 As with so much of Torah, the inside 

stories of the individual participants are left out, leaving room for us to create midrash – 

stories – speculating about what the participants were thinking or feeling. What was it 

like to be besieged within the city’s walls, without avenue of escape? Living in a pressure 

cooker of emotions where the people, “lost heart, and no man had any more spirit left,” 

and “all the inhabitants of the land are quaking”? 268 

For six consecutive days, 40,000 shock troops 269 escorted the Ark of the Covenant – 

symbol of the Hebrew tribe’s national might – in a march around the city’s wall. Ahead 

of the Ark marched seven priests continuously blowing shofarot. On the seventh day, as 

the “psy-ops” intensified, the procession marched around the city seven times. With each 

circuit, I imagine more residents of the city climbed to the ramparts to watch the 

258 www.ou.org/torah/tt/5760/roshhashana60/aliya.htm, July 13, 2006. 

259 Joshua 2. 

260 Joshua 3 – 5. 

261 Joshua 5:13-15. 

262 Joshua 6:1-5. 

263 Joshua 6:6-10. 

264 Joshua 6:11-19. 

265 Joshua 6:20-25. 

266 Joshua 6:26. 

267 Joshua 6:27. 

268 Joshua 2:11, 2:24. 

269 Joshua 4:13. 


spectacle as their anxiety increased. At the completion of the seventh circuit, the troops 

broke their silence and joined the shofarot in a mighty shout. 

My theory is that the sudden aggressive acoustic blasts terrorized the citizens. In panic, 

they started shouting and running, creating tremors that ruptured the already overloaded 

city walls. An ethnic cleansing of the city followed. Only Rahab and her family were 

spared the sword in recompense for covert assistance she had rendered to the Israelite’s 

spies. 

Having spent their entire lives in the desert within the confines of a tribal structure, was it 

any wonder that the two young men sent by Joshua to spy on the city found their way into 

the house of a prostitute? Like any good entrepreneur in that business, is it any wonder 

she shielded her customers when the law came looking for them? Were the Israelite spies 

the first men who had to escape out her window under cover of night? 

Rahab clings to a red cord, literally “hope,” as the spies escape through her window. 270 

What did she have to lose by striking a bargain with them for her safety? If the siege 

failed, she would continue her business in its established location; if it succeeded, then of 

course she would become a camp follower. Living as an outsider in her own city 

(figuratively as a prostitute and literally since her house was within the city’s walls), my 

guess is that she could go either way. 

Our wisdom tradition sees it less cynically. Legend has it she married Joshua and became 

a mother in Israel, creating a lineage that included the prophets Huldah and Jeremiah. 271 

Rahab, we are told, underwent a battlefield conversion and confessed that the God of 

270 Image by Julius Schnorr van Carolsfeld, 1851-1860. 

www.pitts.emory.edu/woodcuts/1853BiblD/00011413.jpg June 21, 2009. 

271 Meg. 14b cited at www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=71&letter=R&search=rahab, July 13, 

2006. 


Israel, “is the only God in heaven above and on earth below.” 272 Rahab’s faith prompted 

God to say, “‘On earth thou couldest see with thine eyes that there is no other God 

besides Me; but to acknowledge also that I am the only God in heaven needs special 

faith. I promise thee, therefore, that one of thy descendants [referring to Ezekiel] shall see 

what no prophet before him shall have seen,’ 273 thus making Ezekiel one of Rahab's 

descendants” 274 The New Testament also includes King David among her descendants. 275 

As the shofarot blew, I imagine Rahab standing by her window wondering about her fate. 

In this regard, she mirrors Sisera’s mother who also stood by her window, but the two 

windows had different views: Sisera’s mother was at the center of her society; Rahab on 

the fringe. Sisera’s mother expected her city to celebrate a victory; Rahab expected hers 

to be destroyed. Sisera’s mother hoped for the destruction of the Jews; Rahab cast her lot 

with the Israelites. Sisera’s mother whimpered out of uncertainty about losing her 

position in society; Rahab probably cried to, but her tears more likely were out of 

uncertainty about entering into her new spiritual and social estate and the pending death 

of her neighbors. 

As Rahab heard the shofarot, was she wondering if she was right to trust the spies to 

remember their pledge? Would the commanders of this foreign nation honor the 

commitment of their agents? In her line of work, surely she knew that not all men could 

be trusted. Would she be welcomed by this new people, or relegated to the fringes once 

again? And was the cost of her redemption worth the lives of her neighbors? 

On a deeper level, did she feel uncertain that her faith in the God of Israel was justified? 

Would this unseen God reward her for her collusion with the Israelites and treat her with 

mercy? Would she be a martyr in her adopted religion or, worse, cut down like another 

stalk of grass by the scythe of battle, without any apparent divine reason or regard? If she 

had a vision of herself becoming a mother in Israel, would God laugh at her plans? 

These are not unlike questions each of us confronts as we hear shofar on the New Year. 

Did I make good choices? Will I make better choices? Is my faith (or lack thereof) 

justified? How…? Who…? When…? Why…? 

Negotiating with the spies, Rahab insists that the Israelites protect her and her family 

during the invasion. They agree, but warn, “We will be released from this oath which you 

have made us take [unless,] when we invade the country, you tie this length of crimson 

cord to the window through which you let us down.” 276 The Hebrew word translated as 

“cord” is “tikvah” and also means “hope.” When we are filled with doubts during the 

Days of Awe, the shofar sounds to bring hope. 

272 Mek., l.c.; Deut. R. ii. 19 cited at 

www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=71&letter=R&search=rahab, July 13, 2006. 

273 Compare Ezekiel 1:1. 

274 Midr. Shemuel, in Yal., Josh. 10, cited at 

www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=71&letter=R&search=rahab, July 13, 2006. 

275 Matthew 1:5-6. 

276 Joshua 2:17-18. 


The shofar of Rahab is the voice of hope in the face of our own doubts. 

The Pascal Connection 

Cords can be used to create connections, and the red cord hung in Rahab’s window 

creates another significant connection between Rahab and the thread of shofar and 

shofar-bearing animals that runs through Jewish tradition: 

There is an insightful midrash on Rahab published by the Sex Workers Outreach Project, 

a trade association, that explores Rahab’s experience from a professional’s point of view. 

It envisions Rahab saying: 

“‘Please! Just spare the lives of me and my family…’ They asked her to join their 

revolution and told her to put out a red cord in the window so that they would know to 

pass over [emphasis added] her house. They explained to Rahab the significance of the 

red: ‘We already painted our front doors red and that’s how we got here, that’s how we 

got out of Egypt.’” 277 

The reference to the exodus from Egypt is clear from the similarity of the statement in 

Joshua, “and if anyone ventures outside the doors of your house, his blood will be on his 

head” 278 with the warning in Exodus, “None of you shall go outside the door of his house 

until morning.” 279 

As her initiation into the Covenant with the God of Israel, Rahab’s crimson cord is 

symbolical of her protection by the blood of the Paschal ram. 280 (See Book 3 of Hearing 

Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn for more on the ram’s horn of Passover.) 

Birth Cries 

What all these women have in common is that they are mothers. This points to another 

feminine aspect of the shofar: Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of human consciousness in 

the world, and the shofar recalls the cries both of the mother giving birth and the child 

announcing its first breaths of air. Midrash describes the one hundred traditional shofar 

blasts on Rosh Hashanah as, “a mother in labor as crying out ninety-nine times for death 

(i.e., from the pains of labor) and one time (the hundredth time) for life (i.e., in joy at the 

birth of the child). 281 

277 

“The Story of Rahab According to SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project),” www.swopusa.org/rahab.php, 

May 24, 2006. 

278 

Joshua 2:19. 

279 

Exodus 12:22. 

280 

There is another connection between the red cord and horned animals. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest 

would mark a goat by tying a red thread to the head of a goat that was then sent into the desert “for Azazel” 

(Rashi on Yoma 39a). www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2203&letter=A, July 15, 2006. See 

also Chapter 11 – Azazel and the Goat that is Set Free. 

281 

Edward, pg. 96 citing Tanhuma in Emor 11 and Tazria 4. 


Reinforcing the connection between birth and Rosh Hashanah, we are told that Sarah, 

Hannah, and Rachel were each “remembered” in their barrenness on Rosh Hashanah, 

leading to the conception and birth of children, 282 and that Abram/Abraham and 

Jacob/Israel – two men who were reborn in their faith – were also born on the First of 

Tishrei. 283 

“Hayom horat olam – Today is the birthday of the world.” This prayer “is the only prayer 

recited verbatim in all three sections of the shofar service…” 284 Of this, a contemporary 

writer has said: 

“‘Today is the birthday of the world’ means today, now. Today the world is 

born again. This day is ‘the beginning of your works,’ reminiscent of the very 

first time the world was made. Only that the first time the world was born, it 

was a free gift. Since then, it depends on us, the Adam. And so, it occurs on our 

birthday, Rosh Hashanah. We are reborn, and within us, the entire cosmos… 

“Curious, isn’t it, that a shofar with its narrow blowhole and wider opening 285 

resembles a birth canal? In fact, the Bible mentions a great woman with a name 

of the same etymology: Shifrah. She was the midwife of the ancient Hebrews 

who left Egypt. Her name means, “to make beautiful,” and that is what she did: 

She ensured that the babies would emerge healthy and viable, then swaddled 

and massaged them to foster their strength and beauty. 

“The shofar is the midwife of the new year. Into its piercing cry we squeeze all 

our heartfelt prayers, all our tears, our very souls. All that exists resonates with 

its call until it reaches the very beginning, the cosmic womb. And there it 

touches a switch; The Divine Presence shifts modalities from transcendence to 

immanence, from strict judgment to compassion. In the language of the Zohar, 

‘The shofar below awakens the shofar above and the Holy One, blessed be He, 

rises from His Throne of Judgment and sits in His Throne of Compassion.’ 

“New life enters the world and takes its first breath. It is our own life, as well, 

and it is in our hands.” 286 

The Pregnancy of the World 

“There is a tradition that the Jewish year has a ‘mother’ – Rosh Hashanah, the First of 

Tishrei – and a ‘father,’ the First of Nisan (both are new years according to the Jewish 

calendar). If Rosh Hashanah is the mother, then the shofar is the womb through 

which our spirits pass on the way to redemption. The ram’s horn represents the power 

282 

Rosh Hashanah 10b. Also Megillah 31a, cited in Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers, 

pg. 69. See also, Edwards, page 12. 

283 

www.sacred-texts.com/jud/pol/pol57.htm July 13, 2006. 

284 

Edwards, pg. 56. 

285 

Compare Psalms 118:5. 

286 

Freeman, Tzvi, “Rosh Hashanah Unwrapped,” www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=89 

435&print=true, 3/7/2005. 


of the Shechinah to be hollow, to be a vessel for creation. Yet the shofar also reminds 

us of the ayil (ram) who sounds like El (God) – the masculine forces of the Divine. 

The liturgy of Rosh Hashanah focuses on Avinu Malkeinu – our Father, our King, 

the stern but loving father of Jewish tradition… Yet we can balance this image with 

the phrase in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy: “hayom harat olam” – today is the 

birthday of the world, or more accurately, today is the pregnancy of the world. On 

Rosh Hashanah our world becomes pregnant with God, and God is pregnant with us. 

It is a time of mutual awareness and understanding. It is the time when we enter the 

inner world, the world of the womb, in order to be reborn into change.” 287 

The Voice of Wholeness 

While giving birth is the prerogative of the feminine, human consciousness also requires 

the masculine. “…male and female, He created them,” 288 , and both are in the Divine 

image. In Oriental philosophies, the feminine is yin and the masculine is yang; 

complements that form a unity. Yang is associated with the outward direction of energy; 

it is the blowing of the shofar. Yin is associated with the receiving of energy; it is the 

hearing of shofar. 

In Torah, the first man and woman were named, respectively, Earthling and Breath, for 

Adam is “earth” in Hebrew and Chava – the Hebrew name of Eve – is “breath.” To create 

its voice, the shofar needs the unification of the earthen, masculine horn and the feminine 

breath. 

The shofar speaks in a universal voice. Its call is neither male nor female, human nor 

animal, earth nor air, yin nor yang. The sound of the shofar vibrates at the frequency on 

which we commune with the One and, despite its fractured blasts, sounds only whole 

notes. 

Unification 

The Talmud equates the sounding of the shofar with the service of the Kohen HaGadol 

(High Priest) in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur. 289 Like the shofar, the Kohen 

HaGadol, the paragon of sexual purity, represents the Yesod, in his role of activating the 

flow of shefa (blessings) from Above. 

Just as the blasts of the shofar awaken the people of Israel to repentance, and draw down 

sustenance and blessing, so too the prayers of the Kohen HaGadol atone for the 

transgressions of the nation and draw down the life-sustaining blessings of rainfall and 

sustenance for the year. In kabbalistic terms, both the shofar and the Kohen HaGadol 

bring about a yichud, or unification, between God and the Jewish People. 

287 Jill Hammer, http://telshemesh.org/tishrei/ 2/4/06. 


289 Yoma 53b. 


This exalted unification finds expression in the teaching of the Talmud that whenever 

Zichronot are recited, Malchiyot are to be recited with them. 290 Activated by the blasts of 

the shofar, the Zichronot influence the male principle of Yesod to give forth its shefa to 

the receiving, female principle of Malchiyot, our world. This reopening of the flow of 

Divine Illumination also marks the renewal of the Brit (covenant) on Rosh Hashanah, and 

thus we conclude the order of Zichronot with, “Blessed are Thou, O Lord, who 

remembers the Brit.” 291 

A Word on Halachah – Jewish Rabbinical Law 

Talmud states that women are not obligated to perform time-bound commandments. 

While this may sound patriarchal, it is also a pragmatic recognition that a pregnant 

woman or nursing mother does not have the freedom to set her own schedule. This 

precept applies to the hearing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. For example, “Every man 

is obliged to hear the sound of the ram’s horn but women and children are free of the 

obligation. Although the Scribes have prohibited the blowing of the ram’s horn on a 

holiday when it is not during the course of observing a commandment, nevertheless the 

prohibition has been waived for women, in order to satisfy them.” 292 

This position is still upheld in most Orthodox Jewish communities. And while a woman, 

within this interpretation of the law can say the blessing for the sounding of the shofar 

and blow the shofar for herself or another woman, a man hearing her blast is not 

considered to have fulfilled his mitzvah of hearing the shofar. 293 

Yet Torah is clear that ALL of us heard the shofar at Mt. Sinai, male, female and the 

androgynous or sexually indeterminate. 294 As a carrier of that “truth,” I do not understand 

290 

Rosh Hashanah 32a. 

291 

Tzvi Fishman, “Kabbalistic Understandings of the Shofar,” 

www.jewishsexuality.com/content/view/71/67/ January 7, 2008. 

292 

Shulhan Arukh shel ha-Rav quoted in Agnon pg 69. 

293 

An assessment of halachah and how it has evolved, from a “Jewish Orthodox feminist” perspective, is 

"Women and the Shofar," Pianko, Arlene. Tradition, 14:4, 1974, 53-62, 

www.jofa.org/pdf/Batch%201/0006.pdf, July 15, 2006. 

294 

A contemporary commentary has this to say on shofar and those who do not fit into “normal” gender 

categories: 

“The rabbis of the Gemara proceed to a lengthy discussion of the circumstances in which a person can 

truly claim to have fulfilled the commandment of hearing the shofar… There follows a most peculiar 

statement: ‘A hermaphrodite can perform a religious duty for a fellow hermaphrodite, but not for any one 

else.’ 

“Some folks are shocked to find the rabbis even mentioning hermaphrodites, what the Gemara calls 

androgynous, but the truth is that this being of unusual gender shows up all over Talmudic discourse. 

Perhaps in the days before the “medical miracle,” when a procedure on the birthing table, a kind of 

grotesque circumcision, purports to solve this riddle of nature forever, the alternately-sexed were simply 

more present in everyday life. But what the rabbis lack in surgical technique, they make up for in the 

rigidity of their intellectual categorization. In every discussion, it is determined whether the androgynous 

will be treated as a man or a woman, depending on circumstance. Only one sage, the forward-thinking 

Rabbi Jose, offers the suggestion that a hermaphrodite ‘is a creature unto itself.’ According to scholars, the 

androgynous may blow the shofar for other hermaphrodites because that which is male in one blows for 

that which is male in the other – it goes without saying that women do not blow. 


why “his” blowing is acceptable but “hers” or “the other’s” is not. Then again, I had an 

orange on my seder plate this year. 295 

I am told; musicians auditioning for a symphony orchestra do so from behind a screen so 

only the sound of their playing is heard. Perhaps we should do something similar when it 

comes time to hear shofar; pull our tallitot – prayer shawls – over our heads so we can 

hear the shofar without distraction about who is blowing it. 

For the Shofar Blower 296 

By Janet Zimmern 

At this awesome season 

pregnant 

with all possibility we pray today: 

By our choices and deeds, 

with Divine Intervention, 

Supernal Midwife of Israel 

and of All Creation, 

attend, 

assist us 

to birth as yet unknown wonders, 

miracles of Life. 

With an awesome fear of God, 

I place this shofar to my lips. 

May the breath 

You breathe inside me, 

now return to You 

“The rabbis were not terrified by the specter of this strange crossbreed. On the contrary, they file it away 

quite calmly, dissecting it along the dotted lines of gender normalcy, to deposit its pieces into the 

appropriate pigeonholes. If there is fear or confusion, it seems buried beneath an icy layer of intellectual 

artifice. 

“We might wish it were otherwise. This kind of calm seems incongruous with the ritual under 

discussion. My imagination reaches for the fire beneath the ice, the almost mythological image of the bigendered 

body, all balls and breasts, blowing the shofar for the impermissible audience, shattering with the 

explosive power of its call the artifice of certainty and exclusion – bringing the destruction that makes for 

salvation. 

“Who better to take the severed horn in hand, and blow our minds?” 

Micah Gil, “Blow Your Own Horn,” www.killingthebuddha.com/manifesto.htm, July 17, 2006. 

295 A symbol that has been widely used in the past decade to call for the inclusion of Jews who have been 

marginalized in traditional Judaism, including women and homosexuals. 

296 Journey, Fall 2000, Ma'yan: The Jewish Women's Project, 

www.ritualwell.org/holidays/highholidays/roshhashanah/primaryobject.2005-06-20.7852796292 April 5, 

2006. Also in Rosh Hashanah Readings edited by Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins (Jewish Lights 2006), pp 166- 

168. 


to be renewed and return again 

to this world for Life, for Peace 

May the birthcries of my shofar blasts 

be pleasing to you, 

as the words and deeds of Shifra 

with fear of You, she 

lovingly births Your People: 

Freedom 

to do Your Will. 

Like Puah, 

be hutzpadik 297 

in Your advocacy 

Encourage us toward Life 

even when we ourselves may feel discouraged, 

distressed in the midst 

of life's hard pangs. 

Breathe life into us anew! 

While others take us for dead. 

Lest we face despair of lost hope, 

even we, 

may abandon ourselves. 

In the name of Shifra, Puah, 298 

Sara Emainu 299 

Hana, 

in the name of Rahel Emainu, 

let her tears for her children, 

be of gladness and joy. 

In the name of God that is Birth, 

let the joy of becoming, of hearing 

sounds from this birthing shofar 

overcome and become us all. 

God, cleanse us of our sins 

like the midwife 

who cleanses the newborn infant. 

297 Nervy, to have chutzpah. 

298 Shifra and Puah were Egyptian midwives who defied Pharaoh's orders and did not kill male Israelite 

children. Shifra’s name is etymologically related to “shofar.” 

299 Hebrew for “our mother.” 


Wrap us in the beautiful garments 

of the Soul. 

Bathe us in Your Light 

so our Divine nature may shine 

even as we walk joyously in Your Light – 

B'or paneha yehalayhun! 300 

May the breath of my being 

blown into this shofar 

hearken us 

back to the shofar 

that is Shifra 

and the breath 

that is Puah. 

Deliver us from the narrows 

of, God Forbid, an evil decree, 

into the breadth of sound. 

Signal in us an expansion. 

Together God 

may we birth this coming year! 

God, 

Supernal Midwife, 

send me no angel, no seraph, not even 

Hayot Hakodesh! 301 

Be Thou my Midwife! 

Be Thou my angel! 

Be Thou My Self! 

Birth me yet again anew, 

renewed for this coming year. 

Imagine 

“…imagine that the sounds of the shofar are intended to remind you of [the] agony of 

Sarah by recollecting the cause of her grief. Or imagine that they are meant to remind you 

of the moaning of Sisera’s mother as it slowly dawns on her that something is dreadfully 

wrong. Now imagine how you will feel, what you will think about when next you hear 

the shofar. If the Rabbis’ interests in these women, in these stories, in these deeper 

meanings had been carried along through the ages within the liturgy of the Rosh 

Hashanah services, how differently might we understand and feel Rosh Hashanah today! 

If the shofar itself were to become for us a palpable reminder of the power of grief and of 

300 Literally, “In the light of Your Presence they are exalted.” Psalms 89:16 adapted into feminine word 

forms. It is traditionally recited following the blowing of the shofar. 

301 Traditionally this term refers to celestial beings. Zimmern has reinterpreted it to refer to holy midwives. 


love, or of the risks to our loved ones (or to ourselves) that come when acting out of 

obedience to God, how might our experience of the shofar service, of Rosh Hashanah 

itself, change?” 302 


302 Edwards, pp 25-26. 


Chapter 1-8 – Our Father, Our King 

“The worst of the impulses to evil is to forget one’s royal descent.” 303 

One of the central themes of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy is Malchuyot, reaffirmation of 

the sovereignty of God. Just as the shofar was used to announce the coronation of the 

kings of Israel and as trumpets still sound fanfares for royalty, we sound shofar to 

announce God as our ultimate Ruler. 

In the Avinu Malkanu prayer, recited throughout the Yomim Noraim, the metaphor 

becomes more intimate; God is not only our King, but also our Father to whom we 

beseech, “Avinu Malkanu – our Father, our King, have mercy on us.” God as majesty and 

parent are inadequate metaphors for the Divine; finite concepts we grasp in our attempt to 

understand aspects of God. While a growing number of egalitarian congregations 

translate the verse as “our Parent, our Sovereign,” the anthropomorphication is most 

machzorim is decidedly masculine. 

Many midrashim compound the metaphor by describing the King’s children as sons – the 

princes of the realm. The Hassidic masters, especially, used this imagery in their stories 

to explore the meanings of the High Holy Days and of shofar. 

The first group of stories relate to the wordless communication between king and 

subjects: 

A Secret Language 

“A king and his son, who had married and had moved to a distant land, carried on a 

correspondence which contained many items of a personal nature. In order to prevent the 

couriers from intercepting their messages, the two devised a coded language which they 

revealed to no one else. Anybody could now read the letters, but would not understand 

their hidden meanings. 

“On Rosh Hashanah, God – the King – does not want the messages from His son – Israel 

– to be intercepted by the Accuser or any of his henchmen. He therefore taught Israel a 

secret language – the sounds of the shofar – to use in sending them their personal 

message of repentance.” 304 

Cries without Speaking 

“A king's subjects love their king, and when they approach the king to make a request, 

his greatness and their veneration for him increase and they are struck with the fear that 

they might not speak properly before their king, and that they might give the prosecutor 

reason to interfere. Consequently, they make their request only by hinting at it, and then 

the king fulfills their request. 

303 Rabbi Solomon of Karlin, quoted in Agnon pg. xxvii. 

304 Tiferes Uziel quoted in Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers pg 121. 


“Likewise, on Rosh Hashanah, when we, the people of Yisrael, go up before the Creator, 

great fear and awe overtake us, and we become fearful to speak, for perhaps we might 

stumble, Heaven forbid, giving the prosecutor an excuse to disturb us, and that is why we 

cry out without speaking. 

“In other words, we use the sound of the shofar, which is a simple sound, a great cry from 

the depths of the heart. And the Creator, who examines our heart and knows all that is 

hidden, fulfills our requests. That is what is meant by ‘O clap your hands, all you 

peoples; shout to God with the voice of triumph.’ 305 

“On Rosh Hashanah, when everyone comes to appear before the Creator – we shout in a 

single voice, without speaking, for we fear that we might give reason for prosecution; and 

the Creator, in His abundant mercy, fulfills the requests of the people of Yisrael.” 306 

A Remembered Melody 

“We can compare this to a king who sent his young wife on a goodwill tour to a distant 

country. Wherever she went, she was greeted with great pomp and celebration. She was 

so overwhelmed that she momentarily forgot her mission. Days passed; she moved from 

party to party, from one testimonial to another. Suddenly, at one affair, as the band 

started to play, the queen stood up in surprise as she heard the melody of her wedding 

march. She was overcome with emotion as she remembered her wedding day and was 

ashamed how quickly she had forgotten her husband’s bidding. 

“When we hear the sound of the shofar, we remember the piercing shofar blast of Mount 

Sinai and how God had chosen us to be His own. We are overjoyed in our chosenness, 

but remorseful for our shortcomings.” 307 

The stories below explore the theme of exile: 

You Can Go Home Again 

“A king’s children were once kidnapped. Over a period of time they became friendly 

with their abductors and slowly, unwittingly, began to imitate their ways and their 

speech. As more time went by they were unaware of the subtle changes that took place in 

their character and mannerisms. Nevertheless, this new life-style soon disgusted them and 

they longed to return to their royal background. 

“When the opportunity presented itself, the princes fled from their captors and made their 

way to the king’s palace. But how surprised and distraught they were when the king 

305 Psalms 47:2. 

306 Kedushat Halevi, from Rabbi Levi 

Yitzchak of Berdichev, quoted by Rabbi Michael Berg, 

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.jewish/browse_thread/thread/19b76780fbfdd375/2cf2bfb5429c 

5088?lnk=st&q=%22who+examines+our+heart%22&rnum=1&hl=en#2cf2bfb5429c5088 May 13, 2006 




ignored their claims that they were his long-lost sons and paid them no heed. At first they 

did not realize that the coarse speech and boorish manner they had acquired during their 

years of captivity were proof to the king that these were imposters who stood before him. 

But after hearing the conversation and observing the actions of the nobility and the court 

officers, they understood how different they had become while they were absent from the 

king’s palace. It then dawned on them that they did not even ‘speak the same language’ 

as the king. 

“Finally they burst into tears, and the wordless cries that they emitted evoked the king’s 

compassion, for he recognized the cries as those of his sons.” 308 

The Old Tunes 

“A noble king enjoyed listening to the lyrical musical compositions his children sang and 

played for him. Whenever he was depressed, the sound of his children’s choir, 

accompanied by harp and violins, would always cheer him up. 

“In the course of time, the princes became disloyal and rebelled against their father. 

Infuriated by their folly and arrogance, the king expelled them from his palace, sending 

them into exile. 

“The princes suffered greatly in their remote exile. They finally came to realize how 

badly they had hurt their kind father. Remorseful over their disobedient behavior, the 

children sent groups of singers to their father to perform the musical compositions they 

used to sing for him as youngsters, hoping that the sound of the old tunes would 

reawaken the king’s love for them.” 309 

The Old Clothes 

“This is...the story of a king who went hunting in the forest. He got deep into the forest 

and could not find the king’s highway that would lead him back to his palace. Seeing 

some countrymen, he asked them the way, but they could not answer him, for they did 

not know it either. Finally, he found a wise man, and asked him the way. Realizing whom 

the king was, the wise man trembled and showed him to the highway, for he knew the 

way. So he led the king back to his kingdom. Now the wise man found great favor in the 

eyes of the king, who lifted him up above all the lords of the realm, and clothed him in 

costly garments, and ordered his old clothes to be laid in the king’s treasure house. 

“Sometime afterward the wise man sinned against the king, who grew wroth and 

commanded the lords who stood highest in his kingdom to judge the man as a 

transgressor against the king’s commandments. Then the wise man was in sad straits, for 

he knew that they would decide against him. So he fell on his face before the king and 

pleaded for his life and asked to be allowed before the verdict to put on the same clothes 

he had been wearing when he had led the king out of the forest. The king accepted his 

request. 

308 Toras Avot, from Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, and Prayers, pg 120. 

309 Divrei Yoel, Rosh Hashanah, quoted in Meisel pg 90. 


“And it came to pass when the wise man had put on those clothes, that the king recalled 

the great kindness that the wise man had done him by returning him to his palace and to 

his royal throne. The king’s compassion was kindled, and the wise man found grace and 

kindness in his eyes, and the king allowed his sin to pass unpunished, and returned him to 

his position. 

“So it is with us, O people of Israel! When the Torah was about to be given, the Holy 

One, blessed be he, went from nation to nation, asking them to accept the Torah, but they 

would not. We accepted it with such joy and delight that we said, ‘We will do,’ before 

‘We will hear.’ 310 We took the yoke of the kingdom of heaven upon ourselves, and made 

Him king over us, and accepted his commandments and his sacred Torah. 

“But now, we have transgress and rebelled against him, and on Rosh Hashanah we are 

fearful of the Day of Judgment, when he sits in judgment on all the hidden things, and 

pronounces the verdict of every man according to his deeds. Therefore we sound the 

ram’s horn and put on the same dress we were wearing at the time of the giving of the 

Torah, when we accepted the Torah and crowned Him King with the ram’s horn, as it is 

written: “And when the sound of the horn waxed louder and louder” 311 – in order that He 

may remember the aiding merit of ours, forgive us our iniquities and willful 

transgressions, vindicate us in judgment, and inscribe us at once for a long and happy 

life.” 312 

As Far as You are Able 

“A king’s son was at a distance of a hundred days’ journey from his father. Said his 

friends to him, ‘Return to your father.” He said to them, “I cannot.” His father sent to him 

and said, “Go as far as you are able, and I shell come the rest of the way to you.” Thus, 

the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, ‘Turn back to Me, and I will turn back to 

you.’ 313 

“This is how it is with the shofar. We go as far as we can in returning to God. Then, with 

the blast of the shofar, we call for God to come the rest of the way.” 314 

But What about You? 

“The shofar proclaims God’s kingdom, and there are two aspects of this proclamation. 

One is that God is the absolute ruler of the universe and tends to one and all with 

uncompromising judgment. The other is that therefore we are pitifully empty and broken 

creatures who constantly need God’s loving-kindness to survive. 

310 Exodus 24:7. 

311 Exodus 19:19. 

312 Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, Kedushat Levi, in Agnon pp 64-66. A similar tale in Days of Awe, 

Days of Joy pg. 31f cites the source as Hemshech Vekaha 5637 ch. 70. 

313 Malachi 3:7. 

314 Midrash quoted in Agnon, pg ix. 


“We can compare this to a king’s servant who rebelled against him. He left the palace 

and traveled from kingdom to kingdom to find a place where he could live in comfort. 

After many months of searching, he returned weary and embarrassed. Begging and 

pleading, he was finally allowed to appear before the king. He bowed and said, ‘O great 

and mighty king, your rule extends to many lands. Your riches are unsurpassed, and your 

palace is replete with a thousand pleasures. Your army is mighty.’ ‘Stop that!’ interrupted 

the king. ‘My greatness I’m sure you have not forgotten. But what about you? How do 

you feel now about yourself?’ ‘And I,’ continued the former rebel, ‘I am your humble 

servant who has nothing in this world, except to serve your royal highness.’ 

“Similarly, the broken sounds of the shofar remind us of our true conditions as 

creatures… If we listen carefully and reassess our condition, then we are worthy of 

loving-kindness.” 315 

The story below also explores exile, but from the perspective of having landmarks so we 

know where we are in our exile. 

Appointments in Time 

“A king was traveling with his child through the wilderness. And when a king travels, his 

entire entourage travels along: ministers, guards, attendants and servants, all at the ready 

to serve their master and carry out his will. Suddenly, the procession ground to a halt. 

The king's child had a request. ‘Water,’ said the crown prince. ‘I want water.’ 

“The king convened his cabinet to address the crisis. ‘My son is thirsty,’ he said to his 

ministers. But how is water to be obtained in the wilderness? 

“After much deliberation, two proposals were laid before the throne. ‘I shall dispatch my 

ten ablest horsemen on my ten fastest steeds,’ proposed the commander of the royal 

cavalry. ‘They will ride to the nearest settlement and fill their waterskins. Within the 

hour, there will be water for the prince.’ 

“‘I shall put my men and equipment to the task,’ proposed the chief of the royal 

engineering corps. ‘They will erect a derrick and sink a well right here, on the very spot 

at which we have stopped. Before the day is out, there will be water for the prince.’ 

“The king opted for the latter proposal, and soon the royal engineers were boring a well 

through the desert sand and rock. Toward evening they reached a vein of water and the 

prince's thirst was quenched. 

“‘Why,’ asked the prince of his father, after he had drunk his fill, ‘did you trouble your 

men to dig a well in the desert? After all, we have the means to obtain water far more 

quickly and easily.’ 




“‘Indeed, my son,’ replied the king, ‘such is our situation today. But perhaps one day, 

many years in the future, you will again be traveling this way. Perhaps you will be alone, 

without the power and privilege you now enjoy. Then, the well we dug today will be here 

to quench your thirst.’ 

“‘But father,’ said the prince, ‘in many years, the sands of time will have refilled the well, 

stopping its water and erasing its very memory!’ 

“‘My son,’ said the king, ‘you have spoken with wisdom and foresight. This, then, is 

what we will do. We will mark the site of this well on our maps, and preserve our maps 

from the ravages of time. If you know the exact spot at which this well has been sunk, 

you will be able to reopen it with a minimum of effort and toil. This we shall do at every 

encampment of our journey,’ resolved the king. ‘We shall dig wells and mark their places 

on our map. We shall record the particular characteristics of each well and the method by 

which it can be reopened. So whenever, and under whatever circumstances, you will 

travel this route, you will be able to obtain the water that will sustain you on your 

journey.’ 

“Each festival marks a point in our journey through time at which our Heavenly Father, 

accompanying us in our first steps as a people, supplied us with the resources that nurture 

our spiritual lives. Like the king in the above parable, told by Chassidic master Rabbi 

Yechezkel Panet to explain the soul of the Jewish calendar, God sunk wells at various 

points in the terrain of time to serve as perpetual sources of these blessings. As we travel 

through the year – the year being a microcosm of the entire universe of time – we 

encounter the festivals, each marking the location of a well of nurture for our souls. 

“God also provided us with a map of these wells – a calendar denoting their locations in 

our journey through time. The map also comes with instructions on how to reopen each 

well and access its waters: sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah will regenerate the 

divine coronation that transpired on the first Rosh Hashanah when Adam crowned God as 

king of the universe… And so it is with every such appointment on our calendar: each 

comes supplied with its own mitzvot and observances – the tools that open the well and 

unleash the flow of its waters. 316 

The next two tales are from the Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of the Hassidic movement. 

In one, he prescribes sounding shofar with joy, and in the next with a broken heart. 

Either will work, according to the spiritual needs of the shofar sounder or hearer. 

Gladden the King 

“Once, just before the New Year, the Ba’al Shem came to a certain town and asked the 

people who read the prayers there in the Days of Awe. They replied that this was done by 

the rav of the town. ‘And what is his manner of praying?’ asked the Ba’al Shem. ‘On the 

316 Yanki Tauber, content editor of Chabad.org 

EXCERPTS www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=332506 May 12, 2006 


Day of Atonement,’ they said, ‘he recites all the confessions of sin in the most cheerful 

tones.’ 

“The Ba’al Shem sent for the rav and asked him the cause of this strange procedure. The 

rav answered: ‘The least among the servants of the king, he whose task it is to sweep the 

forecourt free of dirt, sings a merry song as he works, for he does what he is doing to 

gladden the king.’ 

“Said the Ba’al Shem: ‘May my lot be with yours.’” 317 

This reminds us that sounding shofar need not be a dirge. If we are sincere in our 

teshuvah, then the shofar blasts should be joyous because we are serving the King. 

The Key to the King’s Palace 318 

“Once the Ba’al Shem Tov dreamed that he was walking outside his hut, and he saw a 

tree, shaped like a shofar, twisting in and out of the earth, as if a giant ram’s horn had 

taken root. The sight of that great shofar took The Ba’al Shem’s breath away. And in the 

dream, the Ba’al Shem gathered all his hasidim together by that tree and told them to see 

who among them could sound it. So, one by one, they approached the mouth of that 

mighty shofar, but none of them could bring forth a single sound. At last Reb Wolf Kitzes 

approached it, and this time a deep and long-sustained blast came forth, like a voice from 

deep in the earth. He blew only one note, but it rose up into heaven. 

“When the Ba’al Shem awoke, he was still being borne along by that long note, and he 

sighed because there was no such shofar in this world, only in the world of dreams. 

“The next day the Ba’al Shem called upon Wolf Kitzes and told him that he wanted to 

teach him the secret meanings of the blasts of the shofar so that he could serve as the 

ba’al tekiah for the High Holy Days. Of course, Wolf Kitzes relished this chance to delve 

into the mysteries with The Besht. 319 So it was that he learned, over many months, that 

every blast of the shofar is a branch of the Tree of Life, and that there are great powers 

residing in the shofar. So mighty are its blessings that a note blown with the right 

meaning and intensity could rise on a single breath all the way to the Throne of Glory. 

“Now Wolf Kitzes listened carefully to the words of the Ba’al Shem, and wrote down the 

secret meaning of each and every sound, so that he could remember it precisely as he 

blew on the shofar. 

317 Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Book 1, pg 70. 

318 Or Yesharim, Warsaw, 1884 as retold by Howard Schwartz, “The Master Key,” Gabriel’s Palace, 

Jewish Mystical Tales, Oxford University Press, 1993, pp 198-199. 

319 Besht is an abbreviation of Ba’al Shem Tov. 


“Then it happened that on the day of Rosh Hashanah, when he was about to blow on the 

shofar before the Ark for the first time, the notes with all the secret meanings vanished. 

He frantically searched for them everywhere, but to no avail. 

“Then, weeping bitter tears, he blew on the shofar with his broken heart, without 

concentrating on the secret meanings. And the sound of the shofar rose up in long and 

short blasts and carried all of their prayers with it into the highest heavens. And everyone 

who heard him blow the shofar that day knew that for one moment heaven and earth had 

been brought together in the same place. 

“Afterwards, the Ba’al Shem said to Wolf Kitzes: ‘In the palace of the king there are 

many chambers, and every one has a lock of its own. But the master key is a broken 

heart. When a man truly breaks his heart before the Holy One, blessed be He, he can pass 

through each and every gate.’” 

The next story uses a king simile to give insight into the meaning of shofar blasts. 

Broken into Smaller Pieces 

“A tekiah is a whole sound, but a teruah is a broken and fragmented and represents stern 

judgment. This is like a king who was angered by his son’s behavior and was about to 

punish him. The prince’s mentor begged, ‘Please, Your Majesty, don’t punish all at once, 

but each time you want to be kind to him, give him a little less.’ 

“Loving-kindness flows in a steady and uninterrupted steam, like the sound of the tekiah. 

Stern judgment, if it were to come all at once, would be unbearable. It is therefore broken 

into smaller pieces. Like the shevarim and teruah. But as small pieces, they are no longer 

judgment, but bits of kindness instead.” 320 

The shofar ritual is often described as a memorial to the covenants formed in the Akedah 

– the binding of Isaac – and at Mount Sinai. In the final tale, we learn that it is also 

linked to an even earlier covenant with God. 

The Rainbow 

The rainbow has a curved shape similar to that of a shofar. More, “The Zohar teaches: 

The rainbow (keshet) was created to protect the world. It is like a king who every time he 

gets angry at his son and wants to punish him, the queen appears in her radiant garment. 

When the king sees her, his anger at his son disappears. And he rejoices in the queen. 

“Rabbi Nachman of Breslov observed: ‘This also corresponds to the shofar blasts… The 

mnemonic for this is KeSHeT (rainbow) – i.e., teKiah, SHevarim, Teruah.’ When God 

hears shofar, he is reminded of the covenant He made with Noah, ‘I have set my bow in 




the clouds, and it shall serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth,’ 321 and 

shows compassion for His children.” 322 

In the story of The Rainbow, the queen is a metaphor for the Shechinah – the Divine 

presence that carries the feminine energy of God. Perhaps it shows the way towards 

developing new midrashim – stories – about shofar and Imeinu Malkatenu – Our Mother, 

Our Queen. 323 

Beyond Kingship 

At the height of The Beatles’ popularity, band member Ringo Starr brushed aside a 

question about the meaning of one of the band’s songs by saying, “I’m just the 

drummer.” As a ba’al tekiah – shofar blower, I often feel in a similar predicament about 

the shofar service. I become so drawn into my meditations and prayers for the shofar 

blast, that I become all but oblivious to the proceedings around me. From somewhere 

above the din of the liturgy, I hear the rabbi inform me that it is time to say the blessing 

for shofar, and I return to this plane just long enough to make the blessings and listen for 

the makrei – caller – to announce “tekiah.” Like the drummer, I have to know my cues 

but not the lyrics. 

With this apology, I have recently begun to consider the significance of the words spoken 

as part of the shofar services. The shofar service during mussaf – the additional prayer 

service of Rosh Hashanah – has three parts: malchuyot – sounding the shofar to announce 

the sovereignty of God, zichronot – remembering the covenants between God and the 

children of Israel, and shofarot – celebrating the mitzvah of sounding shofar and alluding 

to the shofar that sounded when we received Torah and the shofar that will sound with 

the arrival of the messianic era. Each of these themes is marked with the reading of 

appropriate verses from scripture and the sounding of shofar. 


322 Zohar III, 215a, from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, Likutey Moharan, translated by Moshe Mykoff, 

annotated by Chaim Kramer and edited by Moshe Mykoff and Ozer Bergman, Breslov Research Institute, 

2003, Lesson 42, Note 3 on page 325 of volume 5. 

323 If there are midrashim about The Queen and shofar, I would welcome hearing them. If not, then it is up 

to the current and future generations create them. 


While malchuyot – the metaphor of God as sovereign – is very old, it is not a primal part 

of the human story. The shofar dates from the time when humans lived in clans and 

tribes, long before civilization make it possible for power to be concentrated into a king. 

Aside from the anthropomorphication and genderization inherent in referring to God as 

“the King,” the imagery of a monarch is not part of my understanding of the Divine. 

Trying to circumscribe God as “King of kings” is as meaningless as saying infinity is just 

“everything plus one”; the Whole transcends the sum of the parts. 

My concern stems, at least in part, from my rejection of the authority of kings in the 

temporal realm. I claim faith in the American principle of the rule of law by the people 

and the Twelve Step principle that. “Our leaders are but trusted servants.” As a Jew, my 

memory of suffering under kings, czars, caesars, emperors, and other high and mighty 

magnates leaves me with no desire to tarnish HaShem with their rubric. As God cautions, 

“warn [the people] and tell them about the practices of any king who will rule over 

them.” 324 

It is with interest then that I find a recent re-visioning of the shofar service for Rosh 

Hashanah. Rabbi Lisa A. Edwards 325 points out that zichronot and shofarot are based on 

the commandments in Torah “to remember” and “to blow” on the New Year (Leviticus 

23:24 and Numbers 29:1) There is, she points out, no similar basis for malchuyot. 

Instead of malchuyot in the shofar service, Rabbi Edwards finds instructions in Torah for 

a different mitzvah on Rosh Hashanah. The phrase mikra kodesh – appearing in both 

Leviticus 23:24 and Numbers 29:1 – is usually interpreted to mean, “a holy convocation” 

to be sanctified by abstaining from doing work. She points out, however, that mikra 

kodesh can also mean, “a public reading of sacred text.” “Convocation” means, “with 

voice,” and the root of mikra, translated as “a public reading” is related to the root of 

makrei, the caller who announces the shofar blasts. 

With these insights from both English and Hebrew, she suggests that the mitzvah of Rosh 

Hashanah is not a ritual coronation but to hear our stories. 326 This is the meaning that 

appears operative in Nehemiah’s description of Rosh Hashanah: “On the first day of the 

seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Teachings before the congregation of men and 

women and all who could listen with understanding. He read from it…from the first light 

to midday, to the men and the women and those who could understand; the ears of all the 

people were given to the scroll of the Teaching.” 327 

In Rabbi Edwards’ re-visioning, the malchuyot portion of the shofar service would be 

replaced with blessings and readings that are drawn from wider range of Torah teachings 

relating to shofar. In her feminist analysis, many of these teachings would bring stories of 

324 I Samuel 8:9. See also verses 8:10 – 8.18. 

325 Lisa A. Edwards, A Horn of Plenty: A Re-Vision of the Shofar Service for Rosh Hashanah, thesis, 

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, 1994. 

326 On the other hand, “coronation” is etymologically related to the Latin word for “horn.” 

327 Nehemiah 8:2-3. 


women – such as those in Chapter 6 – The Ewe’s Horn of this book – into more 

prominence in the High Holiday liturgy); many of the other Torah teachings on shofar, 

found throughout this book, could also be drawn upon. 

A dozen years after writing her thesis, Rabbi Edwards has still not implemented her revisioning 

into the minhag – customs of her congregation. 328 This underscores that 

changing long established liturgy should not happen in haste. 

Yet even the awareness of an alternative vision can inform our approach to the Rosh 

Hashanah shofar service. I know it has had at least one effect on me: This year, I will try 

to hear the scriptural readings of malchuyot even as I prepare to hear the voice of shofar. 


328 E-mail to author, August 2006. 


Chapter 1-9 – Remembering Shofar 

“Sound the shofar; hear the aleph in your heart.” 329 

An idiosyncrasy of the Hebrew calendar is that the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on 

Shabbat – the Jewish Sabbath (beginning Friday at sunset and lasting until sunset on 

Saturday) – in about one year out of three. 330 Shabbat, like Rosh Hashanah and the shofar 

ritual, is full of meaning, and the conjunction of the three creates a richly textured and 

multilayered moment. It also raises a question: Should shofar be blown when Rosh 

Hashanah coincides with Shabbat? 

In Orthodox Judaism, Shabbat is a time to refrain from all forms of work, including the 

playing of musical instruments. This suggests that shofar should not be blown. However, 

our sages also say,” Blowing shofar…is just a skill and is not considered creative 

labor.” 331 Hence, it is not work and, one might think, shofar could be blown on Shabbat. 

“The Talmud 332 explains…there were six blasts were sounded on Friday afternoon. At the 

first sound, the laborers in the fields ceased their work. At the second, shops were closed 

and the city laborers ceased their work. The third signaled that it was time to kindle the 

Shabbat lights. The fourth, fifth, and sixth formally ushered in the Shabbat. You might 

ask – why not seven? Because the seventh sound was the sound of silence, Shabbat 

itself.” 333 

Judaism, however, is built on argument and counter-argument. So a second case against 

shofar on Shabbat is made: God forbid, someone might be careless and carry a shofar or 

receive training on sounding the horn, thereby violating the Sabbath. 334 

Nu! What if the shofar blower practiced ahead of time so last moment instructions were 

not required, and took precautions to make sure the shofar was brought to the place of 

worship before Shabbat. Then surely it would be acceptable to blow shofar despite the 

Sabbath. 

Not so, the retort goes. Shabbat is a day when we are already cloaked in special holiness 

and have no need for the intercession of shofar in our prayers. 

“The Gemara says if one visits a sick person on Shabbat, he should say to the patient, 

‘May the Shabbat have compassion.’ 335 This indicates that the kedushah (holiness) of 

329 Aleph is a silent letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Lyric by Hanna Tiferet, quoted in When Rosh HaShanah 

Falls on Shabbat, Daniel Siegel, Ed., ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, 2002 

330 The second day of Rosh Hashanah never occurs on Shabbat. 

331 Rosh Hashanah 29b. According to Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, “…the Talmud Yerushalmi accepts the 

argument that it is a Biblical commandment to refrain from blowing the shofar on Shabbat.” Dof Yomi, 

January 3, 2007, http://www.steinsaltz.org/dynamic/DafYomi_details.asp?Id=495, November 5, 2007. 

332 Shabbat 35b. 

333 Rabbi David Lerner, http://templeemunah.org/node/3887, October 12, 2007. 

334 See Rosh Hashanah 29. 


Shabbat has the power to bring recovery. When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, there is 

no need to blow the shofar – for the Shabbat itself arouses Heavenly compassion.” 336 

And this position is rejoined, in turn, by those who feel that the sanctity of the shofar 

elevates the observance of Shabbat and besides, Talmud even says the shofar was 

employed in the Temple on Shabbat. 

Sensing that the “antidisemploymentarianist” has walked into a trap, the Shabbat-totaler 

declares, “Precisely; shofar was blown in the Temple, not in unwalled cities.” 337 To 

which, with equal faith in the truth of his argument, the pro-blower replies, “I know, but 

the Torah says we must blow shofar on Rosh Hashanah but nowhere does it say we must 

not blow on Shabbat. 

And so the halachic debate over Jewish law rages back and forth. 

Shofar on Shabbat at Sinai and Jericho 

The giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, accompanied by blasts of shofar, is considered to 

have occurred on Shabbat. 

During the siege of Jericho described in the book of Joshua, we read that the priests 

carried and blew shofarot for seven consecutive days. This means that they carried and 

blew shofarot on Shabbat. (Some even say that the walls of Jericho fell on Shabbat. 338 ) 

What can we learn from this about blowing shofar on Shabbat in contemporary practice? 

I invite you to create your own midrash – interpretation on these teachings and their 

relationship, if any, to blowing shofar in our times on Shabbat. 

One or Two Days 

Or more precisely, so the debate rages among Jews who do not observe Rosh Hashanah 

as a two-day long event. For example, many Reform congregations observe only the first 

day of the New Year. For them, omitting shofar in deference to Shabbat would mean 

congregants would not hear the shofar at all, leaving their New Year’s observance 

seemingly incomplete. 

Based on anecdotal evidence, most single-day shuls sound the shofar at the appointed 

time just as they would when Rosh Hashanah does not fall on Shabbat. But others have 

adopted innovative strategies that reconcile the traditions of both Shabbat and Rosh 

Hashanah. Some, for example, blow shofar late Friday evening before welcoming 

Sabbath. And others wait until Saturday evening, ending the day with Havdalah – the 

ritual ending Shabbat, and then blow shofar. 

335 

Shabbat 12a. 

336 

Divrei Chaim, the Sanzer Rav, quoted in Meisels, pg 127. 

337 

Rosh Hashanah 29b. 

338 

www.azamra.org/Bible/Joshua%205-6.htm, March 21, 2007. 


In congregations that observe both days of the Holy Day, foregoing shofar on the first 

day is balanced by the seemingly heighten import of the second day’s blasts. Yet one 

only receives the benefit of this trade-off by attending both days of services, and many 

shuls report that second-day attendance is significantly less than first-day attendance. 

Nouns and Verbs 

The debate over whether shofar should be blown on Shabbat misses the mark, as Torah 

offers a way to have our shofar and Shabbat too. 

There are two verses in Torah regarding the shofar on the New Year. One seems to 

demand blowing shofar: 

“You shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded.” 339 

The other, however, tells us that the mitzvah of the day is to: 

“…zachor – remember – loud blasts.” 340 

Shofar is just one of many things Torah commands us to remember. Another is the 

Sabbath. The fourth of the Ten Commandments is to remember the Sabbath. There is a 

profound link between these two remembrances since the Commandments were given at 

Mt. Sinai as the “voice of the Shofar grew louder and louder.” 341 

Just as the noun, “shofar,” appears in Torah as the object of two verbs: “blow” and 

“remember,” “Shabbat” is also the object of two verbs: “keep” 342 and “remember.” It is 

as if, when we “keep” Shabbat on Rosh Hashanah, we are to “remember” shofar. And 

when we “blow” shofar, we are to “remember” Shabbat and the other commandments 

given at Sinai while the shofar blew. 

Keep Shabbat Remember Shofar 

Remember Shabbat Blow Shofar 

God Blows Shofar for Us 343 

“The Torah exempts one who is unavoidably prevented from performing a mitzvah. 344 

Perhaps the Gemara means to tell us that since this person cannot fulfill the mitzvah, the 

Torah fulfills it for him. When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, and we are prevented 

from doing the mitzvah of blowing the shofar – HaShem Himself blows the shofar for us! 

He does it in the most accomplished manner, with all the mystical intentions, so Klal 

Yisrael should be granted a good year.” 

339 Numbers 29:1. 


341 Exodus 19:19. 

342 Deuteronomy 5:12. 

343 Reb Bunim of Pshis’cha quoted in Meisels, pg 127 

344 Baba Kamma 28b. 


Active Remembering 

It would be wrong to assume that blowing shofar is “active” and remembering is 

“passive.” Remembering, like active listening, takes full effort. Making the effort can 

help you do the work of teshuvah – the repentance or realignment that the High Holy 

Days can foster. 

As one spiritual leader describes this: 

“There will be times when re-enactment is appropriate and there are times when 

you will have only memory. You will remember the sound without actually 

hearing the sound. Instead you will focus on the sound by being acutely aware of 

its absence. It will be through the force of your mind alone that God will be 

removed from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy. It will be through 

your concentration alone and not through the intermediary of the shofar. This 

Shabbat, for those who do not hear the shofar, our memory has to be enough, for 

it is our minds and hearts that truly have to do the work.” 345 

Using our minds and hearts to create transformation is embedded in the spiritual renewal 

of the High Holy Days. Standing in confession, we remember our sins so vividly they 

become as palpable as our pounding of our chests. As we pray for forgiveness, we create 

a visualization of the life we vow to create for ourselves. Visualization is a powerful 

psychological mechanism. It is used by motivational coaches who tell us that what we 

visualize is what we become, and by athletes who use visualization as an adjunct to 

physical training. If one listens with attention to the remembered or imagined voice of 

shofar, the experience is as real and as spiritually effective as audible shofar blasts. 346 

Silent Shofar Blowing 

“So we're not excused today from HEARING the shofar, just from BLOWING it… But 

how do we [remember the blowing of the shofar]? Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi cites 

the verse in the Song of Songs that says in Hebrew “Kol dodi dofek,” I hear the voice of 

[my] beloved knocking. But “dofek" in modern Hebrew can mean a heart-beat or pulse, 

“defika.” In this understanding, I am the lover and God is my beloved. And if I wish to 

hear the voice of my beloved, I don't need e-mail or Sprint or a pager or voice-mail. I 

simply touch my pulse, and with each beat of my pulse I can feel and hear the rhythmic 

“I love you" from the One who created me and brought [me into] existence. 

345 

Rabbi Avi Weinstein, http://www.hillel.org/jewish/archives/special/roshhashana/2002_roshhashana.htm, 

March 19, 2007. 

346 

According to Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), pg. 31, “Since the mid-1990s, 

studies...using increasingly sophisticated brain-imaging techniques have shown that imaging music can 

indeed activate the auditory cortex almost as strongly as listening to it.” Sacks quotes a study by Alvaro 

Pascual-Leone ("The Brain that Makes Music and is Changed by It,” The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music, 

ed. Isabelle Peretz and Robert Zatorre, pp 396-409, Oxford University Press) that goes further; "The 

combination of mental and physical practice...leads to greater performance improvement than does physical 

practice alone." 


“In a moment we will rise for our silent shofar blowing. In the moments of the silent 

shofar, I will call out the names of the notes and will suggest where we focus our 

listening with each call. Following this first tekiah, I suggest that we draw our attention to 

the aching silence of the oppressed men, women and children whose cries, perhaps, have 

become too familiar. TEKIAH. 

“In this next call, shevarim, I suggest that we all draw our attention to the silent aspects 

of our own beings, our own neshamas, our souls, whom we haven't been able to listen to 

because we've been too busy surfing the web of our minds. Our shattered selves will be 

the focus of shevarim. SHEVARIM. 

“In the next call, teruah, I suggest we draw our attention to those individuals who are not 

here with us today because they are not well, and are in need of healing and support, 

healing of the mind, and a healing of the spirit. TERUAH. 

“And in this final tekiah gedolah, we will let our mind go to the silence that calls each 

one of us personally in, the one distinct way that God calls to each and everyone of us. 

Please join me in calling the tekiah gedolah. TEKIAH GEDOLAH.” 347 

Hearing the Silence of Shofar 

Silence has an honored place in the Jewish meditative and spiritual traditions. While 

Torah begins the story of creation with bet, the second letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet, our 

mystics say that the world really came into being with aleph – the silent first letter of the 

Hebrew alphabet, the sound of God anthropomorphically inhaling before speaking. 

It is in silence that we often hear the answers to prayers, and this experience can be 

especially powerful in the silence of the unblown shofar. 

While the Orthodox Jewish liturgy omits the shofar service altogether when Rosh 

Hashanah and Shabbat coincide, other communities have found meaningful ways to 

retain the ritual without violating the Sabbath. At places in the liturgy where shofar 

would normally be blown, have the makrei – the individual who calls out the shofar 

blasts before they are sounded –cries out, “tekiah.” But instead of hearing blasts of 

shofar, hear the blasts of silence that fill the synagogue. 

In the silence following the makrei’s cry of “shevarim,” hear the silence that breaks your 

heart. 

In the silence following the cry of “teruah,” allow silence too shatter resistance to 

teshuvah. 

And in the silence following the cry of “tekiah gedolah,” the silence of the aleph that 

precedes creation, hear the rebirth of the world. 

347 R' Yair Hillel Goelman, September 30, 2000, www.orshalom.ca/goelman.silence.html, January 3, 2008. 


Listen to the silence. Hear the silence. 

In the voice of the silent shofar, hear the voice of God. 

“Where in a traditional synagogue the place for the blasts is simply skipped, I chose to 

leave a period of silence in place of each set of blasts. I suggested to the congregation 

that, just as the prophet Elijah heard the voice of God not in the loud blasts of storm or 

earthquake, but rather in the kol d’mamah dakah – the ‘still, small voice,’ we would 

pause to listen to the silence that Shabbat afforded us, and let it be our call to 

awakening.” 348 

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov teaches a technique of silent screaming that can readily be 

adopted to hearing the silent shofar’s voice: 

“You can scream without anyone hearing you shouting with this soundless ‘still small 

voice.’ …Just imagine the sound of such a scream in your mind. Depict the shout in your 

imagination exactly as it would sound. Keep this up until you are literally screaming with 

this soundless ‘still small voice.” 

“This is an actual scream and not mere imagination. Just as some vessels bring the sound 

from your lungs to your lips, others bring it to the brain. You can draw the sound through 

these nerves, literally bringing it into your head. When you do this…the sound actually 

rings inside your brain. 

“It is much easier to shout this way without words. When you wish to express words, it is 

much more difficult to hold the voice in the mind...” 349 

Alternative Ways to Sound Shofar without Blowing Shofar 

Another way to remember the voice of shofar is to recreate it with the human voice. 

Vocal expression is allowed on Shabbat even when the playing of an instrument is not. 

This technique is not only useful on Shabbat, but also when – God forbid – there is not a 

shofar or shofar blower available. 

In one realization of this alternative, an individual can become the shofar for a 

community. His or her voice does not have to be beautiful, but the human shofar’s 

kavanah must be true to the spirit of sounding shofar. The experience can have an even 

greater visceral power if all members of the congregation sound-off together. Coming 

from the gut, the shofar sounds become a primal scream in which each of us individually, 

and all of us collectively, can petition God unencumbered by words. 

348 Rabbi Larry Bach, “Remembering the Sabbath,” http://www.templemountsinai.com/ 

uploads/57020030927labsermon.pdf, October 12, 2007. 

349 Rebbe Nachman's Wisdom (Sichos HaRan) by Reb Noson of Nemirov, 

www.breslov.org/torah/wisdom/10-19.html, December 26, 2008. 


Words, however, can also be used to emulate the shofar calls. On one Shabbat of Rosh 

Hashanah, I got to be the makrei at my congregation, Makom Ohr Shalom. I divided the 

congregation into four sections, and assigned each section to one of the following 

phrases: 

1. For the initial Tekiah: “LISTEN.” 

2. For Teruah: “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!” 

3. For Shevarim: “NOW IS THE TIME FOR TESHUVAH.” 

4. For the closing Tekiah: “LISTEN.” 350 

As I called the traditional sequence of shofar blasts, each quadrant of the congregation 

voiced their shofar message: 

Listen. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Now is the time for teshuvah. Listen. 

Listen. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Listen. 

Listen. Now is the time for teshuvah. Listen 

Finally, when I called “Tekiah Gedolah,” each person shouted whatever he or she needed 

to say to God in that moment. Fully invigorated by the meditative chanting, some asked 

for health, some gave blessings, and others shrieked sounds that had meaning only to 

God. 

By becoming the shofar, we all heard the shofar. 

The Shofar Blower’s Sabbath 

I want to add one final note to this exploration of the nexus of shofar and Shabbat. As a 

shofar blower, not blowing shofar on Shabbat allows me to focus on the prayers and the 

readings that are part of the musaf service, parts of the liturgy that I usually miss because 

I am focused on preparing to blow shofar. 

The Inner Recesses of One’s Heart 351 

“When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, the blowing of the shofar is a sublime, spiritual 

action that must take place in the inner recesses of one's heart, and in the depths of one's 

soul. 

“‘Blow the shofar on the day of new moon...’ 352 

“In Hebrew, ‘Tiku ba'chodesh shofar, ba'keseh l'yom chagainu,’ literally ‘Blow the 

shofar when the moon is covered,’ i.e. small – the 1 st day of the month. The acrostic of 

350 

Hebrew phrases can also be used. For example: “Shema.” “Ku me! Ku me! Ku me!” “L’zman hazeh 

l’teshuvah.” “Shema.” 

351 

Rabbi Binyomin Adilman, B'Ohel Hatzadikim, Rosh Hashanah 5760, 

www.kabbalaonline.org/Holydays/roshkippur/The_Shabbat_Shofar.asp, May 4, 2007. 

352 

Psalms 81:4. 


the verse contains the letters tav, beit, shin, beit, which, when rearranged, spell ‘b’ 

Shabbat’ – ‘on Shabbat’. On Shabbat the blowing of the shofar is in a covered, hidden 

way. One may still reach the deepest levels of the mitzvah of shofar, yet without the 

actual shofar. They are accomplished in a hidden place; in one's heart and through one's 

intentions. 

“‘Happy is the nation that knows teruah (the shofar blast), they walk in the light of your 

countenance, God.’ 353 

“The Zohar points out that the verse doesn't state, ‘happy is the nation that hears teruah,’ 

or ‘happy is the nation that blows teruah,’ but ‘happy is the nation that knows teruah’. 354 

“‘The first day of the seventh month shall be a sacred holiday to you when you may not 

do any mundane labor. It shall be a day of Teruah for you.’ 355 

“When Rosh Hashanah falls out on Shabbat, a Jew must make it a day of teruah in its 

inner dimension. A Jew must shatter his stony heart into pieces until his ego is 

completely nullified and he can honestly declare, “I, and everything that I possess, is for 

God alone.” The Zohar speaks about a watchman who points out each Jew to the 

heavenly court, ‘This one did this mitzvah, and this one committed this transgression’. 

But when a Jews appears before God with a broken heart, his ego erased and his only 

desire to do the will of God, then there is no ‘one,’ no individual who can be accused of 

any transgression. The severity of the judgment has been sweetened and has nowhere to 

make itself manifest.” 

The Shofar’s Three Distinctive Ring Tones Won’t be Heard 356 


353 Psalms 89:16. 

354 Zohar III, 233b. 

355 Numbers 29:1. 

356 Advertisement for lecture by Rabbi Benjy Brackman at Chabad House, Westminster, CO, 

www.jewishboulder.com/page.html?ArticleID=64963, November 17, 2007. 


PART FOUR – The Shofar of Yom Kippur 

“You shall count off seven weeks of years – seven times seven years – so that the period 

of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the 

shofar loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month – the Day of Atonement 

– you shall have the shofar sounded throughout your land and you shall hallow the 

fiftieth year. You shall proclaim freedom throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It 

shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to his holdings and each of you shall 

return to his family.” 357 

The Hebrew for the highlighted phrase is, “V'haavarto SHofar Tru'oh Bachodesh 

Hashvii.” The initial letters of these words can be rearranged to spell out “teshuvah” and 

represent the call of the shofar for people to repent. 358 

[G’mar] Chatimah Tovah – May you be sealed for a good year. 359 

357 Numbers 25:9. 

358 Chesed l'Avrohom. 

359 US Dept. of Defense clip art. www.defenselink.mil/afis/editors/lineart/YomKippur03.jpg, January 13, 

2008. 




Chapter 1-10 – The Dinner Bell and One Last Blast 

“Blessed are You, Lord, who separates between the holiness of sacred time and 

the holiness of secular time.” 360 

Shofar is so central to the soundtrack of Rosh Hashanah that it has come to play second 

fiddle in the score of Yom Kippur. True, Torah mandates a shofar recital annually for 

Rosh Hashanah blasts and only once in fifty years on Yom Kippur – the blasts during 

non-Jubilee years being a rabbinic invention. Yet, there is intense spiritual, emotional, 

and dramatic significance to Yom Kippur’s shofar. If we have to sound 100 blasts on 

Rosh Hashanah and only one blast on Yom Kippur, perhaps it is because the single blast 

of Yom Kippur has 100 times the efficacy. 

Referring to the Jubilee, Torah says: 

“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 and you shall hallow the fiftieth year.” 361 

The Hebrew word translated as “sound” is “teruah.” In the context of Rosh Hashanah, 

teruah is a broken, shattered note. But on Yom Kippur, the custom in most Jewish 

communities is to sound one mighty tekiah gedolah – an extended single blast of shofar – 

at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. (Other congregations sound a ten-blast shofar sequence 

as a memorial to the Jubilee; see Chapter 12 – The Jubilee and the Prophet’s Words.) 

“The straight sound of the tekiah symbolizes the tzaddik, while the broken, wavering 

sound of shevarim-teruah represents the wicked. On Rosh Hashanah, when the tzaddikim 

have been inscribed for life, there are still those who are ‘in-between’ – people whose 

decrees are still pending – as well as evildoers who are inscribed for death. Therefore we 

blow both tekiah and shevarim-teruah. But on Yom Kippur we are confident that the ‘inbetween’ 

people have been judged favorably. Now all are tzaddikim. We therefore blow 

only a tekiah, the straight sound of the tzaddik.” 362 

Compositionally, this blast is a magnificent coda to the musical motif of the High Holy 

days, reprising a theme introduced during Elul and given full expression in the blasts of 

Rosh Hashanah. It provides a rousing “AMEN” to all the prayers of the Days of Awe. 

The sense of this is captured in the following extract: 

“…Esther dreamed away the long grey day, only vaguely conscious of the stages 

of the service – Morning dovetailing into Afternoon service, and Afternoon into 

Evening; of the prostrations full length on the floor; of the rhyming poems with 

360 

Paraphrased blessings for havdalah ritual marking the separation of Shabbat and the rest of the week. 

361 

Leviticus 25:9. 

362 

Chochmas Shlomo, Orach Chaim 623:6, quoted in Meisels pg 254. 


their recurring burdens shouted in devotional frenzy, with special staccato phrases 

flung heavenwards; of the wailing confessions of communal sin, with their 

accompaniment of sobs and tears and beatings of the breast… 

“Suddenly, there fell a vast silence… It was as if all creation paused to hear a 

pregnant word. 

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!’ sang the cantor frenziedly. 

“And all the ghostly congregation answered with a great cry, ‘Hear, O Israel, the 

Lord our God, the Lord is One!’ 

“They seemed like a great army of the sheeted dead risen to testify to the Unity. 

The magnetic tremor that ran through the synagogue thrilled the lonely girl to the 

core, and from her lips came in rapturous surrender to an over-mastering impulse 

the half-hysterical protestation: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 

One!’ 

“And then, in the brief instant while the congregation, with ever ascending 

rhapsody, blessed God till the climax came with the seven-fold declaration, ‘The 

Lord, He is God,’ the whole history of her strange, unhappy race flashed through 

her mind in a whirl of resistless emotion. She was overwhelmed by the thought of 

its sons in every corner of the earth proclaiming to the somber twilight sky the 

belief for which its generations had lived and died. The grey dusk palpitated with 

floating shapes of prophets and martyrs, scholars and sages and poets, full of a 

yearning love and pity, lifting hands of benediction… 

“The roar dwindled to a solemn silence. Then the ram’s horn shrilled – a stern 

long-drawn-out note that rose at last into a mighty peal of sacred jubilation. The 

Atonement was complete.” 363 

What else, other than shofar, could possibly provide the grand finale needed to conclude 

such a day? 

During Elul, we sound shofar in early morning. On Rosh Hashanah, we sound shofar at 

midday. It is only fitting that the shofar of Yom Kippur be at sunset so the entire day can 

hear shofar. 

A Havdalah 

Shofar issues a wake-up call. On Rosh Hashanah, the call is meant to wake us spiritually. 

On Yom Kippur, however, shofar’s wake up call makes havdalah – a separation – to 

summon us back from the altered consciousness of prayer, meditation, and fasting to the 

physical world so we can return to our homes, our work, and the ordinary holiness of the 

363 

Israel Zangwill, Children of the Ghetto, 1892 as excerpted in The Authorized Daily Prayer Book, 

Revised Edition, Joseph H. Hertz, pp 936-937. 


est of the year. “God may ascend,” as we read in our Machzor, but we have to become 

grounded so we can begin building our sukkot for our celebration of being part of the 

earth. 364 

During Yom Kippur, we become like the angels who neither eat nor drink; all our 

attention is focused on prayer without regard for our physicality. If we stepped out of the 

shul in this condition, without waking up, we would be in danger of being caught off 

guard by the hazards that lurk on the mortal plane. 365 While I understand this in the 

pragmatic sense of not looking both ways before crossing a street, the sages explain the 

same phenomenon in more mystical terms: 

“Throughout Yom Kippur, the yetzer hara [evil inclination, Satan] was powerless. 

Now that Yom Kippur is over, he is returning full force. So we confuse him with 

the shofar blast, reminding him of the coming final redemption when, “a great 

shofar will be sounded’ 366 – and the yetzer hara will die.” 367 

It has also been said that, “the blast of the shofar announces that it is nightfall, time to 

prepare the meal for the hungry family after the fast.” 368 Like a dinner bell, it calls us to 

partake of the break fast, a meal that the sages tell us that is as important as the fast itself. 

Like Pavlov’s dogs, we hear its blast and begin to salivate; at last the fast is over and we 

can eat. 

Its loud blast had a practical value, too; I can imagine our mothers in the shtetls – 

villages, – hearing the tekiah gedolah from the village’s shul and knowing that Papa 

would soon be home, it was time for the kinderlach – children – to wash and come to the 

table. 

The shofar blast is a reprise of the High Holy Day theme of malchuyot, our acceptance of 

the majesty of God. Just as the King or Queen is welcomed with a fanfare, protocol calls 

for trumpets while the Ruler of the Universe “leaves” the stage. The tekiah gedolah at the 

close of Yom Kippur symbolizes that “the Shechinah, which dwelled among us 

throughout Yom Kippur, is returning to the higher realms. ‘God has ascended with the 

blast; HaShem with the sound of the shofar.’ 369 ” 370 

364 

The holiday of Sukkot begins on the fifth day after Yom Kippur. If Elul is a warm-up for the Days of 

Awe, many experience Sukkot as a cooling off period and an essential part of the cycle of holy days. Many 

sources recommend commencing construction of a sukkah immediately after the Yom Kippur so one can 

go from one mitzvah to the next, 

365 

Hannah Chusid teaches that this is why give the blessing, “yasher koach – May you have strength!” to 

someone who performs a mitzvah; that it is exactly when someone is in a most holy state that they are most 

vulnerable. 

366 

Isaiah 27:13. 

367 

Levush 623, quoted by Meisels, pg 253. 

368 

Tosafos Shabbos 114B, s.v. ve’amai as quoted in Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Secrets pg 253. 

369 

Psalms 47:6 

370 

Rabbi Dovid Meisels, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Secrets, pg 253 


This imagery recalls the revelation at Sinai and provides insight into why the long blast 

was selected to end Yom Kippur: 371 In preparation for theophany, God instructs Moses to 

set boundaries around the mountain to caution the people against trespassing. Afterwards, 

“When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.” 372 This long 

blast “would be the signal that the Manifestation was at an end, and the mountain had 

resumed its ordinary character.” 373 

“According to the Kotzker Rebbe, after the shofar blew following the revelation of the 

Torah, HaShem told Moshe to send the Jewish People back to their tents. The true test 

would now begin. It wasn't difficult to serve HaShem in His Presence at Mount Sinai. But 

what would we do when we got home? This is a direct parallel to Yom Kippur (which is 

also the anniversary of the giving of the second set of ‘Tablets’). It is easy to make 

promises on the awesome day of Yom Kippur. It is easy to be holy on the holiest day of 

the year. But the shofar reminds us that HaShem wants to see what we will do when we 

go home.” 374 

The tekiah gedolah is a sonic mikvah – spiritual bath – that washes us with echoes from 

forty days worth of prayers. We extend the tekiah gedolah for as long as possible so that 

we have one final chance for teshuvah before the gates close. As Rabbi Debra Orenstein 

says, “It only takes a single instant for that change of heart that can lead to teshuvah; let 

the shofar blast be that moment.” The protracted cry also gives God an few extra 

moments on the Seat of Mercy so we can be sealed us for a good year. 

“The Gemara in Rosh Hashanah says that when we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, 

God rises from His Throne of Justice and moves to His Throne of Mercy. At the 

conclusion of Yom Kippur, when God in His Mercy judged us favorably, we take along 

the shofar which defended us and pleaded on our behalf.” 375 

The blowing of shofar during fasts (see Book 3 of Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice 

of the Ram’s Horn), also factors into the shofar blasts of Yom Kippur. But in the final 

analysis, the shofar of Yom Kippur is sounded in joy and not with the trepidation 

associated with fasts. Two verses from Torah make clear that we are to sound Yom 

Kippur’s shofar with jubilation (a word that even derives from a Hebrew word for horn, 

yovel): 

“And on your joyous occasions…you shall sound trumpets…” 376 

371 

Taz 623:2, cited by Rabbi Yossi Marcus, www.askmoses.com/article.html?h=563&o=553, December 9, 

2006 

372 

Exodus 19:13. 

373 

The Authorized Daily Prayer Book, Revised Edition, Joseph H. Hertz, Note to Exodus 19:13, page 293 

374 

Rabbi Shmuel Jablon, Jewish Answers (Writers Club Press, August 2000), cited at 

www.rabbijablon.com/jewishanswersneilah.htm, January 16, 2008. 

375 

Sefer HaTanya 426:2 quoted in Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Secrets, pg 254. 

376 Numbers 10:1-10. 


“Thus said the Lord of Hosts: The fast of the… seventh month shall become an 

occasion for joy and gladness, a happy festival for the House of Judah...” 377 

More, we blow in the gladness that comes from knowing our fate has been sealed and 

that we will accept whatever comes with gratitude as the will of God. 

The Yom Kippur Flutist 

The following story of the Ba’al Shem Tov captures the spirit of how, in the waning hours 

of Yom Kippur, shofar can liberate our prayers and lift them up to God. 

“There was once a villager who always used to come for the Days of Awe to pray in the 

House of Study of the Ba’al Shem Tov of blessed memory. He had a son who was very 

slow-witted and was unable to learn the shape of the letters or to recite any word of 

holiness. And his father would not take him along to the city on the Days of Awe because 

he knew nothing. But when he reached the age of Bar Mitzvah, his father took him along 

on Yom Kippur so that he should be with him and that he should watch over him lest he 

eat something on that holy day because of his lack of knowledge and understanding. 

“And the boy had a flute he would always play while he was sitting in the field and 

watching the flock and the calves. And he took along the flute in his coat pocket, and his 

father did not know about it. The boys sat during the prayer in the House of Study and 

could not utter a ward. During the Musaf [additional] prayer he said to his father: “Father 

I have my flute with me, and I want very much to blow it.” His father got very frightened 

and rebuked him and said to him, ‘Beware, and guard your soul from doing such a thing!’ 

And the boy had to restrain himself. 

“At the time of the Minha [afternoon] prayer he again said: ‘Father, let me make a sound 

and play my flute.’ The father cursed him with a strong curse and warned him with a 

great warning that he should not dare to do such a thing, but he could not take away the 

flute from the boy because it was forbidden to touch it on the holy day. 

“After the Minha prayer the boy again said to his father: ‘What ever happens, let me play 

some notes on the flute!’ And when the father saw that his desire was great and that his 

soul yearned very much to play the flute, he said to his son: ‘Where are you keeping the 

flute?’ And the boy showed him, and he grabbed the flute in the pocket through the coat 

thus to prevent his son from taking it out. And thus he recited the Neila [closing] prayer, 

and with his hand he held the pocket of his son’s coat with the flute. 

“In the midst of the prayer the boy tore the flute from his pocket and from the grasp of his 

father and let out a powerful note from the flute. And all the people who heard it were 

astounded. And the Ba’al Shem, contrary to his custom, finished his prayer quickly and 

said: ‘This boy with the voice of his flute lifted up all the prayers and eased my burden.’ 

And he said that since the boy could not utter a word of prayer, when throughout the holy 

377 Zachariah 8:19. 


day he saw and heard the fervent prayers of Israel, a holy spark was ignited in him and 

burned in him like fire. He who knows can clothe this burning holiness into words of 

prayer before Him, may he be blessed, but he knows nothing and found no way to slake 

his thirst except by playing the flute before Him, blessed be He. But his father prevented 

him, and the fire of desire burned in him more and more strongly until it veritably 

consumed his soul, and because of the power of his yearning he played the flute with a 

true concentration of his heart, without turning aside, in complete purity, for His name, 

blessed be He. And the Merciful One wants the heart. And the pure breath of his mouth 

was accepted with delight before Him, blessed be He, and thus he lifted up all the 

prayers.” 378 

Another adds that the Ba’al Shem Tov said.” It is not what one does but what his 

intentions are that count.” 379 

Atonement Songs 

by Judith Rafaela 380 

The wild sound of the shofar 

pierces my skin and opens my heart. 

And I’m wild for tunes in a minor key 

that vibrate my tailbone and belly 

and echo out across a synagogue packed 

with doubters and believers 

who come together in whiteness 

one day of the year to hear 

archaic bizarre legal formulas and prayers. 

Sexist, racist, but still... 

Dressed up in sounds they open our path. 

Just for that moment in our fasting, light-headedness, 

open us to rich tones— 

Simple melodies that convey truths or fictions 

about our fate. 

We have free choice, but yet 

our fate is sealed this Wednesday night at sundown. 

I’m wild about the sun going down and I’m starving and 

the gates of heaven are closing 

and there’s just few minutes. 

Wait, don’t close. 

378 Q’hal Hasidim beHadash, pp 11-12, translated by Raphael Patai in Gates to the Old City, pp 671-672. 

Story also told in Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Book 1, pg 69f. Agnon, pg. 168 – 270 attributes story to 

Kehal Hasidim he-Hadash. A similar story, attributed to Nachlei Binah P. 317 #632 Tehillim Ben Beiti, 

Rabbi Eliezer of Komarno, is told at www.hasidicstories.com/Stories/Later_Rebbes/rosh.html, May 11, 

2006. 

379 From a variant of the same story in Mintz, Legends of the Hasidim, pg. 338. 

380 From Another Desert: Jewish Poetry of New Mexico, edited by Joan Logghe and Miriam Sagan, 

www.shermanasher.com/poetry.html. Fall 2006. 


Wait for my prayer. I’ll be better. 

Forgive me. Next year. Wait. 

Reduced to childlike quaking, we sing incantations 

from an earlier time: 

three times Baruch Shem 

seven times Adonai Hu Elohim and then, 

and then the piercing longed for 

wail of pain blown up to the heavens 

it’s getting dark, and 

seven Amens. 

“We hear so much in the final blast of the shofar – the royal sovereign is present, 

messianic hope is evoked, the ram has been substituted, we are awake, aroused from our 

slumber, we are called to continuous struggle, we are celebrating and rejoicing, we are 

crying and releasing everything that has transpired in this long day.” 381 

The Prophetic Voice 

Several of the scriptural readings prescribed for Yom Kippur provide clues to the 

meaning of the shofar of Yom Kippur. The readings tell us, among other things, to: 

• Choose life (Leviticus 16, Yom Kippur morning Torah portion), 

• Raise our voices against injustice (Isaiah 57:14 - 58:14, Yom Kippur morning 

Haftorah), 

• Wake up to our responsibilities, and 

• Move beyond fear and constriction to serve the greater good (Jonah, Yom Kippur 

afternoon Haftorah). 

Other clues to shofar’s meaning can be heard in the shofar that was blown on Yom 

Kippur at the end of each 50-year cycle to announce the commencement of the Jubilee 

(Leviticus 25). 

These themes are explored in the chapters that follow. 


381 Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg, Elkins pg 306 


Chapter 1-11 – Azazel and the Goat that is Set Free 

“Such a tiny scapegoat for such a huge load of sins!” 382 

In Torah, we are commanded to blow shofar on Yom Kippur only once in a fifty-year 

cycle, on the Jubilee. But there is a Yom Kippur ritual that is required annually, the ritual 

of the two goats, one sacrificed on the altar and the other sent to Azazel. While the ritual 

is no longer practiced since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, we still observe 

the ritual as “a law for all time” 383 by making its story the traditional Torah reading for 

Yom Kippur morning. The story about these two horned animals resonates within my 

psyche throughout the day and becomes interwoven with my experience of the sounding 

of shofar at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. The shofar is their horn and its blast the bleat 

of their voice, and hearing the horn keeps the archaic ritual alive and meaningful for me. 

The ritual was part of the High Priest’s preparations for entering the Holy of Holies in the 

Sanctuary to consummate his confession and atonement on behalf of the People. The 

relevant passage is: 

“And from the Israelite community he shall take two he-goats for a sin offering… 

Aaron shall take the two he-goats and let them stand before the Lord at the 

entrance of the Tent of Meeting; and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one 

marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel. Aaron shall bring forward 

the goat designated by lot for the Lord, which he is to offer as a sin offering. 

While the goat designated by lot for Azazel shall be left standing alive before the 

Lord, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel… 

He shall then slaughter the people’s goat of sin offering, bring its blood behind 

the curtain, and…he shall sprinkle it over the cover and in front of the cover. Thus 

he shall purge the Shrine of the uncleanness and transgression of the Israelites, 

and he shall do the same for the Tent of Meeting, which abides with them in the 

midst of their uncleanness… he shall take some of the blood…of the goat and 

apply it to each of the horns of the altar, and the rest of the blood he shall sprinkle 

on it with his finger seven times… 

“When he has finished purging the Shrine, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar, the 

live goat shall be brought forward. Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head 

of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the 

Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be 

sent off to the wilderness through a designated man. Thus shall the goat carry on 

it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the 

wilderness… He who set the Azazel-goat free shall wash his clothes and bathe his 

body in water; after that he may reenter the camp.” 384 

382 Yoma 6:4 quoted in Elkins pg 117. 

383 A phrase used with the Yom Kippur reading three times, at Leviticus 16:29. 31, and 34. 

384 Leviticus 16:5-26. 


Torah contains many injunctions for sacrifices as sin offerings. This verse also parallel’s 

another in which one animal is killed and another released: 

“If the priest sees that that the leper has been healed of his scaly affliction, the 

priest shall order two live clean birds… The priest shall order one of the birds 

slaughtered… and he shall take the live bird… and dip the…live bird in the blood 

of the bird that was slaughtered… He shall…set the live bird free in the open 

country.” 385 

In both instances, we may ask what does the release of the animal signify? And for the 

Yom Kippur reading, we may – perhaps even should – ask what is Azazel and what does 

it mean to be “marked for Azazel”? 

The Original Scapegoat 

To simplify thousands of years of rabbinic and scholarly debate, Azazel is either 

understood to be either the place where the goat was sent, or a demonic “power” to which 

it was sent. 

Scapegoat shown being thrown to a demon Azazel. 386 

If a place, Azazel is “an inaccessible region” or wilderness destination from which it was 

unlikely that the sin-laden goat would return. A minor rearrangement of the Hebrew 

letters in “Azazel” gives it the meaning of “hardest of the mountains” and suggests the 

cliff from which the goat was, in the time of the Second Temple, pushed. 387 

If a demon, sending a goat for Azazel may be seen as an attempt to satiate Satan or other 

demonic forces. For example, in the apocryphal book of Enoch, the angel Raphael 

385 Leviticus 14:3-7. 

386 15 th Century machzor from Germany., Hungarian Academy of Science, ms. A387, Fol. 350v, from 

Encyclopedia Judaica pg. 3:999. 

387 Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 3, page 1002a. 


punishes Azazel, a fallen angel, for sleeping with daughters of men, banishing him to 

desert from which he controlled acts of harlotry, war and sorcery. 388 

The Punishment of the Fallen Angels 389 

“…the fallen angels…caused the depravity of mankind. The blood spilled by the giants 

cried unto heaven from the ground, and the four archangels accused the fallen angels and 

their sons before God, whereupon He gave the following orders to them… Raphael was 

told to put the fallen angel Azazel into chains, cast him into a pit of sharp and pointed 

stones in the desert Dudael, and cover him with darkness, and so was he to remain until 

the great day of judgment, when he would be thrown into the fiery pit of hell, and the 

earth would be healed of the corruption he had contrived upon it… 

“The fall of Azazel and Shemhazai [another fallen angel] came about in this way. When 

the generation of the deluge began to practice idolatry, God was deeply grieved. The two 

angels Shemhazai and Azazel arose, and said: ‘O Lord of the world! It has happened, that 

which we foretold at the creation of the world and of man, saying, “What is man, that 

Thou art mindful of him?”’ And God said, ‘And what will become of the world now 

without man?’ Whereupon the angels: ‘We will occupy ourselves with it.’ Then said 

God: ‘I am well aware of it, and I know that if you inhabit the earth, the evil inclination 

will overpower you, and you will be more iniquitous than ever men.’ The angels pleaded, 

‘Grant us but permission to dwell among men, and Thou shalt see how we will sanctify 

Thy Name.’ God yielded to their wish, saying, ‘Descend and sojourn among men!’ 

“When the angels came to earth, and beheld the daughters of men in all their grace and 

beauty, they could not restrain their passion… Shemhazai and Azazel…were not deterred 

from entering into alliances with the daughters of men… Azazel began to devise the 

finery and the ornaments by means of which women allure men… 

“Shemhazai then did penance. He suspended himself between heaven and earth, and in 

this position of a penitent sinner he hangs to this day. But Azazel persisted obdurately in 

his sin of leading mankind astray by means of sensual allurements. For this reason two 

he-goats were sacrificed in the Temple on the Day of Atonement, the one for God, that 

He pardon the sins of Israel, the other for Azazel, that he bear the sins of Israel.” 

Others interpret Azazel as a goat demon, a popular mythological figure in ancient world. 

There is a sense in which making an offering to Azazel was an ironic attempt to 

undermine the authority of this superstition among Jews. For example, the Torah chapter 

immediately after the discussion about the goat for Azazel requires people to bring their 

sacrifices into the Temple, and not to do them in the open anymore, “that they may offer 

their sacrifices no more to the goat-demons after whom they stray.” 390 About this, 

scholars have observed: 

388 Ibid, page 2003b. 

389 From Legends of the Jews, Chapter IV – “Noah, the Birth of Noah,” Louis Ginzberg, translated by 

Henrietta Szold, www.sacred-texts.com/jud/loj/loj106.htm, 12/11/2005 



“The worship of the goat, accompanied by the foulest rites, prevailed in Lower 

Egypt. This was familiar to the Israelites, and God desired to wean them from 

it. 391 Some commentators point to this verse as giving a main purpose of the 

sacrificial system in the Torah; viz, gradually to wean Israel away from primitive 

ideas and idolatrous practices. The manner of worship in use among the peoples 

of antiquity was retained, but that worship was now directed towards the One and 

Holy God. ‘By this Divine plan, idolatry was eradicated, and the vital principle of 

our Faith, the existence and unity of God, was firmly established – without 

confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of sacrificial worship, to which 

they were accustomed.’ 392 ” 393 

“…the goat for Azazel was neither a gift to a pagan god nor a pagan rite, but a 

rejection of the influences and temptations of evil symbolized by Azazel. The 

ritual was ‘based on the awareness that, even in a world ruled by God, evil forces 

were at work – forces that had to be destroyed if God’s earthly home… was not to 

be defiled.’ The ritual forced the inequities back onto Azazel, their ‘point of 

departure.’ This demonstrated that only God had power on their lives and that 

they had defeated the symbol of evil.” 394 

Azazel shown as a goat-like demon. 395 

Another perspective explores how the scapegoat is a substitute for the nation. For 

example: 

391 Compare Joshua 24:14, “…put away the gods that your forefathers served beyond the Euphrates and in 

Egypt…” and Ezekiel 20:7, “…do not defile yourselves with the fetishes of Egypt…”. (Footnote based on 

notes in quoted passage.) 

392 Attributed to Maimonides by quoted passage. 

393 J. H. Hertz, commentary on Leviticus 17:7, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, Soncino, 1958, pg 486. 

394 Elkins pg 117f quoting Baruch A Levine, JPS Torah Commentary: Leviticus pp 250-253. 

395 Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal, Paris, 1825, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azazel June 27, 2009. 


“Using ‘sympathetic magic’ – that is, fighting fire with fire – the High Priest 

would dispatch the sin-laden goat once each year to cancel the goat-demon’s 

sinful influence on the people… Although nowadays we only read about this 

ritual as part of the Yom Kippur liturgy, we might consider…designating during 

this period our own totem figures: symbolic images, words, or objects that we 

could release against those demonic forces that scapegoat us or encourage us to 

stray.” 396 

“It may be tempting to view the scapegoat as a surrogate or substitute for the life 

of the human being who has transgressed, but more accurately, the animal is 

merely the vehicle for the removal and disposal of the taint of transgression.” 397 

Others view the two goats – the one sacrificed in the Temple and the one sent to Azazel – 

as a symbol of the choice we each get to make on the Day of Atonement. Taking the clue 

from another Bible reference to two goats, we can choose to follow either the path Jacob 

our patriarch, or of Esau who has come to represent a life out of sync with Jewish 

values. 398 For example: 

“Abravanel…believes the two goats…are to remind Jews of Jacob and Esau. 

Esau, like the he-goat marked, ‘for Azazel,’ wondered into the wilderness away 

from his people, its laws, and its traditions. Jacob, like the he-goat marked ‘for 

God,’ lived a life devoted to God’s service… Jews were to be reminded that they 

had a significant free choice to make. They could live like Jacob or Esau, ‘for 

God,’ or ‘for Azazel.’” 399 

Elaborating on this theme: 

“The law seems to teach us about the stark difference between service of God 

which is accepted and beloved by God, versus the ‘scapegoat’ which represents 

that which has been rejected by God. Yet there is more: ‘The two goats on Yom 

Kippur; the mitzvah is for them to be identical in appearance, size, and value, the 

two shall be chosen together.’ 400 

“The Talmud teaches that these two goats should look identical -- like twins… 

The most famous twins in the Torah are, of course, Jacob and Esau. They were 

complete opposites, one good, the other evil. No one could ever confuse them. On 

the other hand, perhaps they did possess some similarities. Rashi 401 tells us that 

396 

Ellen Frankel, The Five Books of Miriam, pg 172-173. 

397 

Schochet pg 30. 

398 

I feel the vituperation heaped on Esau is neither supported by the written text of Torah nor helpful in 

building bridges of understanding with the tribes of our cousin religions, but include the references here to 

offer insight that can add depth to our understanding of shofar. 

399 

Elkins pg 119. 

400 Yoma 62a. 

401 Rashi on Genesis 25:27. 


until the age of 13 they were indistinguishable, as does the midrash: ‘Esau was 

worthy to be called Jacob and Jacob was worthy to be called Esau.’ 402 

“…Perhaps their similarity represents the thin line between acceptable behavior 

and idolatry, between good and evil. Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner noted this parallel, 

and suggested that when things look alike from the exterior, it is a sign that one 

must look within – at the essence – in order to discern the difference. 403 

“The idea of the two goats is intrinsically related to the personalities of Jacob and 

Esau, identical on the outside but so different in terms of their essence. The reason 

that we need to offer the second goat – the scapegoat – is that so often we find 

ourselves dressing up like Esau instead of behaving like the Jacob/Israel that we 

are… 

“Rabbi Menachem Azarya DeFano 404 explains that the name Azazel is an 

acronym for ze le'umat ze asa Elokim – ‘God has made one as well as the other,’ 

as it says: ‘In the day of prosperity be joyful, in the day of adversity consider: 

God has made the one as well as the other.’ 405 

“According to Rabbi DeFano, the contrast between good and evil, with the 

recognition that both emanate from God, is encapsulated by this verse. In 

explaining further, the midrash makes a link that God made both Jacob and 

Esau… 406 We understand from this that, in a sense, good needs evil in order to 

exist, if for no other reason than to have something to reject. It is the contrast with 

evil [that] allows good to shine. 

“Problems arise when man adopts the ways of evil, identifying with them instead 

of rejecting them. This path is a rejection of God and the image of God within us, 

as is illustrated by another detail of the Yom Kippur service: Lots were drawn to 

determine which of the two identical goats will be sacrificed in the Sanctuary and 

which will be for Azazel. 

“The idea of drawing lots is apparently a concession to the ‘random’ element of 

human existence. And yet this attitude that life is randomly determined, rather 

than orchestrated by God, is considered evil and associated with the nation of 

Amalek, whom Israel was commanded to obliterate from the face of the earth. 

‘Remember what was done to you by Amalek on the way as you left Egypt. When 

they happened upon you...’ 407 Rashi explains, ‘they happened upon you’ as ‘by 

coincidence.’ In his brief comment, we can discern the difference between 

402 

Midrash Zuta Shir HaShirim 1:15. 

403 

Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, Pachad Yitzchak, Purim, p.43. 

404 

In his work Sefat Emet. 

405 

Ecclesiastes 7:14. 

406 

Rabbi Menachem Azarya DeFano, Pesikta D'Rav Kahana, Chapter 28 

407 Deuteronomy 25:17-18. 


Judaism and the philosophy of Amalek. We believe in a God who is involved in 

history, while for Amalek life is no more than a series of coincidences… 

“When the Jew has sinned and has begun to act like Esau, forgetting God Who is 

constantly involved in history, God invites him to enter the Sanctuary, represented 

by the High Priest… The drawing of the lots forces us to examine our behavior 

and the underlying philosophy of chance or coincidence.” 408 

A Second Chance 

In the time of the Second Temple, the goat for Azazel was taken to a high steep hillside 

and pushed off backwards so it would tumble to an almost certain death. 409 But this 

execution may not have been the original practice; the text of Leviticus does not mention 

the death of the animal. Indeed, in the similar rite for the leper, the bird that was not 

slaughtered was “set free in the open country.” 

While the place to which the goat for Azazel was taken is usually described as a place of 

desolation, it can also be understood in a positive light. In Jewish history, the wilderness 

was a place of great healing and spiritual efficacy. It was in the wilderness that the 

children of Israel obtained freedom after leaving Egypt. In the desert, they experienced 

revelation at Sinai, built the Mishkon – Sanctuary, received the teachings of Moses, and 

experienced the grace of manna. It was there that a weak and timid generation of slaves 

persevered and begat a generation of strong conquerors who were able to enter into and 

take possession of Canaan. And from Abraham receiving of holy messengers at 

Beersheba, through Hagar’s vision being sharpened so she could see the well, to 

Ezekiel’s visions – the desert has been the place of transformation and renewal. 

In this context the goat sent to Azazel was not condemned to death and damnation, but 

given an opportunity for spiritual elevation and purification. That it escaped the death by 

sacrifice to which the other goat was subjected appears to be the original meaning of the 

word “scapegoat,” a term coined by a 16 th Century Bible translator for the “goat that 

escaped.” 

With which of the two goats do I most identify on Yom Kippur? Throughout the long 

Yom Kippur service, I am the sacrificial goat, with my flames of my prayers substituted 

for the fumes of the altar. Then, when I hear the tekiah gedolah – long blast of the shofar 

– at the conclusion of services, I rejoice that I have escaped to wander another year in the 

land of Azazel, that “hardest of the mountains” we call “Earth” where I may yet seek to 

know and serve God. Or, as David Henry Thoreau wrote, “In wilderness is the 

preservation of the world.” 

408 Rabbi Ari Kahn, “Goat for Azazel,” 

http://www.aish.com/hhYomK/hhYomKDefault/Goat_for_Azazel.asp, December 23, 2006. 

409 Yoma 6:2-6. 


The Ram, the Goat, and the Shofar 

“The autumn holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are both deeply 

associated with horned animals. On both festivals, we blow the shofar as a sign of 

remembrance, repentance, and deliverance. On Rosh Hashanah, we read the story of 

how Abraham sacrificed a horned ram in place of his son, Isaac. On Yom Kippur, 

we read of how our ancestors used two male goats to cleanse the sanctuary on the 

Day of Atonement. One goat was slaughtered so its blood could purify the holy 

place. The other was sent to the wilderness, to the spirit Azazel, who may have been 

a goat himself. Why the fascination with horned animals at this season? 

“In many cultures, horned animals are honored in the fall because the autumn is 

hunting season. The spirits of the animals, sometimes embodied in horned deities, 

were celebrated and placated. I don't know if this was true of ancient Israel, but that 

is one possibility for the origin of our fascination with horns. Another possibility is 

that horned animals represent the moon. All of the holidays at this season fall on a 

different phase of the moon. At this time when the nights become longer than the 

days, horned animals might have symbolized the transition to the dark half of the 

year. 

“It appears our ancestors had a long tradition of honoring goat-like spirit-animals, 

as the book of Leviticus tells us the Israelite sacrificial system was meant to replace 

the practice of offering meat to the se'irim or goat-beings. In II Chronicles 11:14 we 

hear about the Northern Kingdom of Israel (during the days when there were two 

Israelite kingdoms) worshipping se'irim. The depiction of the Adversary as a goatlike 

man may stem from the duel Israelite religion fought with the goat-beings. 

“How does Judaism transform the ancient symbolism of the goat or the ram? On 

both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the goat/ram is sacrificed as a substitute for 

us (of course, now we only use a text about an animal, not an actual animal, as a 

sacrifice). Through these stories, we symbolically offer our life-force to the Divine 

to be used for healing in the universe. This is part of the teshuvah or repentance 

process. The shofar, which is blown on Rosh Hashanah to represent Divine 

sovereignty, remembrance, and revelation, teaches us that our offerings need not be 

violent ones. 

“We can dedicate ourselves to the forces of life through remembering our deeds and 

acting justly in the world. The ram and goat become, not only symbols of hunting, 

but symbols of righteousness. The nights of the holidays, with their bright moons, 

beckon us to search in our own inner wildernesses for our worthy inclinations, our 

path lit by the sky-torch of the Shechinah. The hunt we engage in this autumn is a 

hunt for the knowledge of our true selves.” 410 

410 Rabbi Jill Hammer, “The Ram, the Goat, and the Shofar,” 

http://telshemesh.org/tishrei/the_ram_the_goat_and_the_shofar.html, April 1, 2006 


Yom Kippur: The Shrine and the Wilderness 

“The two figures who enact the biblical drama of Yom Kippur look rather different from one 

another. There is just no good way to say this: one is a high priest and one is a goat. One is a 

human being appointed as the sacred representative of a people and a covenant. The other is a 

vaguely scruffy animal cast out of the sanctuary after being loaded down with the people’s 

sins. They look different, but they aren’t different. The high priest and the goat perform the 

same task. They both show us how to journey to a place of new beginning. Both are our 

teachers and spirit guides during the hours of Yom Kippur. 

“The high priest’s journey is from outside the sanctuary toward the center. He carries the 

incense and the blood of the sacrifices into the Holy of Holies, which is the symbolic heart of 

existence. According to the Midrash Tadshe, a 10th century collection of legends, everything 

in the Tabernacle reflects a part of the world: the wash basin is the sea, the menorah is the 

light, and the Holy of Holies is the core of the earth. The high priest’s task is to purify, not 

just one small space, but everything. Within the Holy of Holies, the high priest creates a 

cloud of incense, representing the Shechinah, the Divine presence. The high priest sprinkles 

the blood of the sacrifices seven times, as if to recall the seven days of creation. The high 

priest then utters the Divine name, which means “being” or “becoming.” The spoken name 

signifies the process of making and remaking the world. The high priest’s task is to re-start, 

or in modern language, reboot creation. He represents us when we feel in harmony with the 

world, when we are ready to exercise joy and creativity. The high priest reveals to us the 

longing of Yom Kippur: to return to wholeness, to live, to feel that we are good and part of a 

good creation. 

“The scapegoat goes on a journey opposite the one of the high priest. The scapegoat moves 

from the sanctuary toward the margins of the universe. It carries not offerings of purification, 

but all the sins of the people, everything that is broken, misaligned, out of place, everything 

that is difficult to sort out and painful to repair. The horns of the goat are the opposite of the 

shofar: instead of sounding a call, they receive all the pent-up words and regrets and rage and 

grief. A chosen individual, not a grand religious official, but an ish iti, a temporarily 

appointed person, a random person, leads the goat away into the wilderness, and there the 

goat is set free. To do what? What is the goat supposed to do in the wilderness? The Talmud 

tells us the appointed person pushes the goat off a cliff to make sure it does not come back, 

bringing the people’s sins with it, but this is not what the text says and I do not believe it is 

what was done in the Temple period, and I will tell you why. The goat is not something you 

can push over a cliff and send away forever. The goat is us when we are struggling to return 

to harmony, when we feel alone, when we do not feel good or part of a good world. [Where] 

the goat goes, and what we need, is wilderness. 

“The wilderness is the opposite of the Holy of Holies: it is open, not enclosed, marginal, not 

central. Yet wilderness is the place of Sinai. It is the place where slaves are liberated. Set free 

to wander in the wilderness, the scapegoat can shake the sins off its back and return to its real 

life as a free being. The scapegoat teaches us Yom Kippur means leaving our stale words and 

deeds behind, making a distinction between past and present, letting go of what has been 

central to pursue something else. It means discovering the freedom of the self. This is what 

we need before we can reconnect to the whole. The scapegoat and the high priest teach us 

different things, yet both show us something crucial about of Yom Kippur. 


“Which path do we need now in order to change? At this moment, some of us are high priests 

and high priestesses, ready to weave and build and tend to ourselves and our world until we 

are whole, though we know how hard that task may be. And at this moment, some of us are 

scapegoats, carrying many sins on our back, maybe even some that were never ours to begin 

with, and wishing for freedom and space and strength enough to put down that burden. Some 

of us are waiting in the Holy of Holies for a mysterious encounter, a rebirth to transform the 

meaning of this day. And some of us are waiting in the wilderness, without hopes or 

expectations, feeling the wind blow us toward a future we do not know. Give it time, give it 

just a year, and all of us will be all of these. 

“If you look around you’ll see all the players in this Torah portion here in our sanctuary, 

though you may not recognize them for who they are. You may not even be sure who you 

are, and if you’re not, that could be good. Yom Kippur contains an element of surprise. 

Teshuvah means to turn, to change course. Teshuvah is the circle where the Holy of Holies 

and the wilderness become one.” 411 

We Are Left with Words 

“The Leviticus reading tells an ancient story, a story that comes from far back in our 

people’s origins. This is a ritual that Aaron performed in deadly earnest and with great 

care, when the Israelites wandered in the desert. It is a mysterious event – no one knows 

why it succeeded in expiating sin. But this was God’s decree and it worked. If performed 

with care, sin was expiated. 

“Yom Kippur is a double drama. Not only is the performance in the wilderness described 

in our Leviticus reading, but on Yom Kippur we hear the echo of another expiation 

service as well. This expanded and modified version of the same ritual, the ritual that was 

performed in the temple by the High Priest when the people were finally established in 

their land, is included in the Avodah section of the musaf service. 

“And there is a third story too. Our story. For us there is the memory of the Leviticus rite 

and the recounting of the Temple ritual. But we have no goat of sacrifice and no goat to 

send to Azazel. We, living after Aaron’s time and after the Temple’s destruction, have no 

drama of action. We do, however, have the repository of language. For us the repetition 

of the words and the challenge of the prayer is the only route towards atonement. For in 

us, then, Yom Kippur may be even more awesome more frightening than for our ancient 

forebears. They could rely on Aaron and later on the priests. 

“They had the power of the deed. We are left only with the shadow of deeds – the 

offering called language.” 412 

411 Rabbi Jill Hammer, 

http://telshemesh.org/tishrei/yom_kippur_the_shrine_and_the_wilderness.html, April 1, 2006 

412 Dr. Barry W. Holtz, Elkins pg 234. 


A Response and a Proposal to Symbolically Revive the Fire Offering 

While words dominate our contemporary observance of Yom Kippur, the author of the 

quotation above overlooks the significance of the shofar. Blowing shofar does provide 

the “drama of action,” and listening to shofar is no less participatory that watching or 

smelling the sacrifices on the altar. We used to burn a goat or ram as a visceral way to 

expiate sin. Now we blow the goat’s or ram’s horn, also a visceral way, to expiate sin. 

We may no longer have a priest, but we do have our ba’al tekiah – shofar blower – and 

we can rely on his or her blast to carry the energy of the sin offering’s final bleat as it was 

sacrificed. 

I propose an experiment to strengthen the connection of shofar to the sin offering: 

Restating the fundamental requirement for observing Yom Kippur, Torah enjoins us to, 

“bring an offering by fire to the Lord.” The yahrzeit – memorial – and holy day candles 

burned on Yom Kippur do not have gravitas embodied in an animal sacrifice. While I 

would not welcome the return of blood rituals, I propose a symbolic reenactment. Like 

we use a roasted lamb bone on our Passover seder plate to represent the Pascal sacrifice, I 

propose we pass the shofar through a flame to symbolize the goat we consigned to the 

flames in the past. 

One way to stoke a fire is to use a blow tube to oxygenate a flame. As shofar can serve as 

a blow tube; perhaps this proposed ritual will help stoke the symbolic fire of our Yom 

Kippur prayers. 

The Final Word 

“Perhaps, in the case of this ancient tradition of the scapegoat, we have an example where 

all the interpretations provided through the centuries may be correct!” 413 The shofar blast 

of Yom Kippur reminds us that, like either of the goats, an individual may live or may 

die. At the prospect of death, the shofar stokes the embers of our soul so our prayers will 

blaze in flame. And at the prospect of life, the shofar calls us forth to face the demons we 

fear and enter the uncharted wilderness of the new year. 


413 Rabbi Harvey J. Fields, in Elkins pg. 120. 


Chapter 1-12 – The Jubilee and the Prophet’s Words 

“It is possible that the world will be without the opportunity to perform the 

freeing of slaves [because there could be a time when there are no more slaves], 

but it is impossible that the world will be without the opportunity to perform the 

sounding of the shofar.” 414 

On Rosh Hashanah, we are charged to hear shofar in the first person singular. Each of us 

focuses on personal teshuvah – the individual’s making of amends to himself or herself, 

with others, and with God. 

The shofar blast of Yom Kippur is different. On Yom Kippur, we confess our sins in the 

first person plural, saying “we” have sinned. As Abraham Joshua Heschel puts it, “Some 

are guilty, but all are responsible.” The tekiah gedolah is a powerful call for the collective 

teshuvah of our family, community, clan, tribe, and nation. 

On Rosh Hashanah, it is customary to listen in silence as shofar is blown so we can each 

do the inner work of teshuvah, the turning of the heart. In the quiet, a worshipper may 

hear the still small voice of the shofar whispering, “Don’t just do something, sit there.” 

The shofar of Yom Kippur is different. The tekiah gedolah at the fast’s conclusion 

signals that we are purged of the sins of the past and our souls are purified. We are 

sealed, God willing, in the Book of Life, and to be alive requires us to take action. 

In the desert after Sinai, God commanded us to blow trumpets to gather and set the tribes 

into motion and to provide for the common defense. 415 The tekiah gedolah of Yom 

Kippur still commands us to act and to provide for the common good. 

Talmud says, “An individual’s repentance will not overturn Yom Kippur’s unfavorable 

decree. However, a community’s repentance has the power to tear up an evil decree that 

has already been issued against it.” 416 Even though, in the final moments of Yom Kippur, 

one’s judgment may have already been sealed, the teshuvah of the community can bring 

mercy even on its members. 

How do we know that the final shofar blast has the power to move a community? We 

know because the shofar announces the Jubilee, “a unique Israelite attempt to combat the 


415 Numbers 10:2-9. 

416 Rosh Hashanah 17b. Expounding on this, Note 17 says, “There are a large number of statements in the 

words of the Sages attesting to the greater potential of a community over individuals. In this respect, the 

whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Midrash Tanchuma (Netzavim §1) teaches, for example, that the 

Jewish people are like a bundle of reeds: a single reed can be broken by even a child, whereas a bundle of 

reeds cannot be broken by even an adult. Although each individual may be unworthy of a certain spiritual 

level, together they are worthy of that level… the repentance of a community is great for it reaches until the 

Throne of Glory.” 


social evils that had infected…society and to return to the idyllic period of the desert 

union when social equality and fraternal concern had prevailed.” 417 

The Jubilee 

The sages say, “It is the custom in all Israel to blow the ram’s horn at the close of Yom 

Kippur; we have found no reason to believe it is an obligation, but it seems to be a 

memorial to the Jubilee.” 418 It is recorded in Leviticus that, 

“You shall count off seven weeks of years – seven times seven years – so that 

the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then 

you shall sound the shofar loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the 

month – the Day of Atonement – you shall have the shofar sounded throughout 

your land and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim freedom 

throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of 

you shall return to his holdings and each of you shall return to his family.” 419 

In the Hebrew, “jubilee” is “yovel,” another term for shofar and a word that devolved 

into “jubilee.” 

The Jubilee was a revolutionary approach to building an egalitarian society. 

• Land returned to the clan to which it had been originally assigned to impede the 

establishment of a landed aristocracy. 

• We neither sowed nor reaped our fields so the land had a chance to rest and regain 

fertility. 

• Slaves were freed and debts forgiven so that everyone could make a fresh start among 

equals. 

There is a spiritual precept underlying the politic: We must not abuse the land “for 

the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with me.” 420 Slaves must be 

redeemed, “For it is to Me that the Israelites are servants: they are My servants 

whom I freed from Egypt. I the Lord your God.” 421 

The Jubilee worked. “These halachot and practices exercised a decisive influence, which 

accounts for the fact that in the last generations of the Temple period and for a 

considerable period afterward, most of the land in the country was not in the hands of 

large landowners but remained in the possession of small holders.” 422 

As a nation, Jews stopped observing the Jubilee when we were taken into exile in 

Babylon. But the ordinance is still on the books. 

417 Jewish Encyclopedia 14:578a. 

418 Rav Hai Gaon (10 th – 11 th century), quoted in Agnon, pg. xv and pg. 270. 




422 Jewish Encyclopedia 14:582a. 


Moreover we no longer have to wait until the fiftieth year to proclaim freedom. Now, on 

each Yom Kippur when we hear the Tekiah Gedolah, we are called to take action to build 

a more just and equitable society. 

The scriptural clause about returning to your holdings became, I believe, the basis for 

later prophetic visions about the great shofar being blown to herald the ingathering of 

exiles. This vision is so powerful in the Jewish psyche that it is incorporated into the 

Eighteen Benedictions of the Amidah prayer said three times a day in traditional worship: 

“Sound the great horn for our freedom; raise the ensign to gather our exiles, and gather us 

from the four corners of the earth. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who gatherest the dispersed 

of thy people Israel.” 423 

With All Your Wealth 424 

“The Sefer HaChinuch… points out that the matter of sending away one’s servants is 

very difficult for a slave-owner to carry out. Slave owners sustained a very substantial 

financial loss… The Chinuch says that in order to give the people the strength and the 

encouragement to fulfill this very difficult command, the Torah requires the sounding of 

the shofar throughout Eretz Yisrael – the land of Israel, – to give everyone the sense that 

they are not alone in making this sacrifice… 

“The words of the Chinuch are correct, but they don't solve the whole problem. The 

Talmud 425 relates that the Yom Kippur blowing on Yovel – the Jubilee – actually 

consisted of the exact same sequence of sounds with the exact same prayer ritual as 

performed ten days earlier on Rosh Hashanah. Why did the Yovel ritual replicate Rosh 

Hashanah all over again? 

“…One of the main factors of shofar blowing on Rosh Hashanah is that we should 

remember the binding of Isaac. When we hear the ram's horn on the New Year, we 

remind ourselves of the dedication and self-sacrifice of our Patriarchs and we decide 

mentally that we are also ready to sacrifice for God's sake. 

“But what type of sacrifice? The sacrifice of ‘With all your heart and with all your soul’ 

(bechol levavcha u'vchol nafshecha), was on Rosh Hashanah. The sacrifice of Yovel - 

Yom Kippur is ‘With all your wealth’ (bechol me'odecha). 426 

“Let's not kid ourselves – we love our money. We are attached to it. It is difficult to give 

away our money. When the Torah tells us to give away our slaves, it is telling us that we 

have to make a mesiras nefesh – a dedication of soul – of money. This requires almost as 

much mesiras nefesh as giving away one's life. Therefore it becomes necessary to once 

423 The Authorized Daily Prayer Book, Revised Edition, Dr. Joseph H. Hertz, ed., pg 143 

424 Rabbi Yissochar Frand, “Rabbi Frand on Parshas Behar – Bechukosai, 

www.torah.org/learning/ravfrand/5758/behar.html, December 2, 2006. 


426 Deuteronomy 6:5 and part of the Shema prayer. Me’odecha is frequently interpreted as “your might.” 


again conjure up in our minds the image of the binding of Isaac. We have to picture what 

it means to be a Jew. What it means to be a Jew is not only to serve G-d with our very 

lives, but even with our money. 

“This is exceedingly difficult for a human being. We have to hear Kingship! We have to 

hear Remembrances! We have to hear Shofar Sounds! We have to remember the binding 

of Isaac. Because we are asked to give up something that is extremely precious to us...our 

wealth… 

“...the trial of the generation which preceded us and lived through the Holocaust was the 

trial of ‘with all your hearts and with all your souls’. They had to pay the price of being a 

Jew with their own lives. Our trial, the…test of Jews in America [now] is ‘with all your 

wealth’. Give your money. Give your money to yeshivas, give your money to the mikveh, 

give your money to settle the Russian Jews, give your money. It is hard; it is dedication 

of soul; but that is what we must do. It is the trial of our generation.” 

A Call for Ten Shofar Blasts on Yom Kippur 

As the excerpt above describes, the Yom Kippur shofar blasts during the yovel consisted 

of a ten-blast reprise of the Rosh Hashanah pattern: tekiah shevarim-teruah tekiah, tekiah 

shevarim tekiah, tekiah teruah tekiah gedolah. While most communities sound a single 

tekiah gedolah at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, some congregations preserve the 10blast 

sequence as a memorial to the Jubilee. 

I believe that one of the trials of this generation is to foster an increased yovelconsciousness 

– an understanding that we must take action to restore justice. Ritual is one 

way of creating the awareness that can lead to action, and I suggest a change in the shofar 

ritual of Yom Kippur to sound the watchman’s alarm. 427 

I propose that at least once every seven years, on the shemittah – sabbatical year, 428 all 

congregations sound the Yom Kippur shofar as if it were the start of yovel. Breaking from 

tradition may cause some to ask, “Why is this year different from all other years?” and 

provide an opportunity for individuals and communities to resolve to take actions in 

alignment with the purposes of the Jubilee. 

Raise your Voice like Isaiah 

However, we must not wait until the Jubilee or Sabbatical to pursue tzadakah – justice. 

Indeed, the Haftorah we read every year on the morning of Yom Kippur, from Isaiah, 429 

contains an urgent plea, and the shofar is its herald. We are told to 

“Cry with full throat, without restraint; 

Raise your voice like a ram’s horn!” 

427 

Ezekiel 33:2. 

428 

Extrapolating from Encyclopedia Judaica Vol. 14, pg. 586, the next sabbatical year is 5775 in the 

Hebrew calendar (2014/2015 CE). 

429 

Isaiah 57:14 – 58:14. See Meditation for Twenty-Second Day of Elul. 


The prophet decries the hypocrisy of people who beat their chest during prayers on Yom 

Kippur, and then beat their employees on the following day. 

“Is this the fast I desire?” The prophet asks rhetorically in the name of God. Then he 

answers, NO! 

“…the fast I desire is 

To unlock the fetters of wickedness, 

And untie the cords of the yoke 

To let the oppressed go free. 

It is to share your bread with the hungry. 

To take the wretched poor into your home; 

And when you see the naked, to cloth him.” 

To “raise your voice like a ram’s horn,” you must sometimes become the shofar and be 

the teruah that breaks and shatters convention in order to end complacency. This is 

dramatically described in the following essay: 

The Leopard in Isaiah 430 

“How shall we read the Great Haftorah – the passage from Isaiah that the rabbis taught 

us to read on the morning of Yom Kippur? 

“…it seems to me the whole point of the passage is to break through ritual patterns to 

address the urgent needs of the poor. I try to read it like an outraged activist who has just 

heard that some president signed an ‘Act for the More Efficient Starvation of Children.’ 

“There are several things about the Haftorah that seem important to me: 

“1. The whole rhythm of Isaiah's speech is to move from ecstatic ‘religiosity’ to concrete 

acts of loving-kindness, and then through this connection with the humble and humiliated 

to reestablish connection with the Infinite. 

“In other words it moves from a fake high to a deep grounding to a real high – real 

because everyone, including the lowly, is part of it. 

“2. I connect this speech with (Deutero) Isaiah's explanation of his mission in Chapter 

61, which in Verse 1 talks of ‘likro lishvuim dror, to call out to prisoners release.’ Isaiah 

Chapter 61 explicitly talks of ‘calling for the Year of YAHH's favor/pleasure/will’ and 

talks of ‘dror [release],’ a word powerfully used in the Leviticus passage about the 

Jubilee and used by Jeremiah when he calls for the people explicitly to release their 

slaves, as required in the Year of Jubilee. 

430 Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 9/2/2003, www.shalomctr.org/node/446, May 15, 2006 


“Chapter 58 of Isaiah, which is part of the Yom Kippur reading, bears several strong 

hints at calling for the Jubilee (e.g. the Yovel was supposed to be announced on Yom 

Kippur with the blowing of a shofar; I read ‘Lift up your voice like a shofar’ as the 

Prophet's feeling himself called to substitute his voice for the Shofar that was not being 

sounded to call for a Yovel). 

“The other specifics in 58, like those in 61, fit the notion of the Jubilee. What's more, the 

shift to Shabbat at the end of the passage would make special sense if the Prophet had in 

mind the super-Shabbat of the Jubilee. If he did, then part of it would be the release of 

indentured servants. 

“3. I think the speech was actually given as an interruption of a Yom Kippur service, or at 

minimum is deliberately written as if it were. I fantasize Isaiah elbowing his way thru the 

crowd at the Temple or through the crowd at a Super-Synagogue in Babylonia – and 

interrupting – shouting out this radical challenge to the liturgy. 

“4. Unfortunately, the result of the Rabbis’ assigning this to be read on Yom Kippur is 

that it becomes not a challenge to the liturgy but a part of it. There is a wonderful story by 

Franz Kafka: 

‘One day a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing his tail. Three 

weeks later, he had become part of the liturgy.’ 431 

“Many synagogues read the Haftorah in Hebrew or English as another droning piece of 

the machzor. 

“I have therefore tried hard to break thru this drone. For several years, I worked with 

someone in my congregation to interrupt my reading of the Haftorah by shouting out 

short lines – headlines from the newspaper – that exemplify poverty, homelessness, etc.: 

‘72-Year-old Man Freezes to Death on Philadelphia Street.’ 

‘Post Office Announces 30 Jobs, 300 Line Up to Apply.’ 

“I read a line of Isaiah about the poor – and the ‘plant’ interrupts. I pause, read another 

line – and he interrupts again. We make sure people get the content of the interruption. 

At first the congregation is scandalized – ‘He's INTERRUPTING THE SERVICE!!!’ 

They even shake their fists, just as the Haftorah says. Then they get it, and they listen 

with a deeper part of themselves… 

431 The actual quote from Kafka is “Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the 

sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it 

becomes a part of the ceremony.” It is found in Aphorisms, published in 1918, 

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka, December 30, 2007. Waskow says it is from Parables and 

Paradoxes, in a letter dated January 8, 1996 at www.mljewish.org/cgibin/retrieve.cgi?VOLUME=5&NUMBER=107&FORMAT=html, 

December 30, 2007. 


“This understanding of the Yom Kippur speech comes from the way I try to read these 

(and other) texts, which is to put myself in the place of someone saying these things and 

to ask myself –What was going on for the author, the editor, of these words? What 

spiritual struggle, what ‘political’ despair, had arisen for him?... 

“Then I ask myself, ‘What images, symbols, passages of Torah arise in my head and 

heart as I overhear the struggle that led to these words upon this paper?’ What social / 

spiritual struggle is really eating at my kishkes? 

“I try to unleash the leopard in the liturgy and the leopard that is stalking in me, in the 

synagogue, and in the world. I try to hear the Divine roar of passion and compassion, and 

give it voice.” 

This is the voice of the shofar of Yom Kippur. 



Chapter 1-13 – From the Belly of a Wail 

“Praise the Lord…all sea monsters and ocean depths.” 432 

It is customary to read The Book of Jonah during the long Yom Kippur afternoon. I hear 

the sound of the shofar resonating in the story of the prophet; it rings with shofar imagery 

and the horn’s call to action 

In the Ship 

God instructed Jonah to take action: 

“Go at once to Nineveh, and proclaim judgment upon it; for their wickedness has 

come before Me.” 433 

Instead of obeying, Jonah fled in the opposite direction. He boarded a ship that soon 

became embroiled in a life-threatening storm. With all hands on deck struggling to keep 

the ship afloat, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the vessel and fell asleep. We are 

told, 

“The captain went over to him and called out, ‘How can you be sleeping so 

soundly! Up, call upon your god! Perhaps the god will be kind to us and we will 

not perish.’” 434 

The captain’s words echo Maimonides statement about shofar as a wake up call: “Awake, 

ye sleepers, and ponder your deeds. Remember your Creator, and return to him in 

penitence… so that God may have mercy on you.” 

It is as if the captain blew the shofar to sound the alarm. Like shevarim he urges, “Wake 

Up! Wake Up! Wake Up!” If the captain had been Jewish, he might literally have woken 

Jonah with a shofar since, “a Tannaitic source tells…of the Jewish sailors’ custom of 

fasting and blowing the shofar in the hour of danger on the high seas.” 435 

Two Types of Sleepers 

“There are light sleepers who awaken at the slightest sound. These people are aroused by 

the sound of shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The primal piercing sounds inspire repentance. 

But there are those who can sleep even through a powerful explosion. Nothing bothers or 

budges them. They sleep through the sound of the Shofar. The ship is about to break, but 

they sleep. The Titanic is sinking but they bask in their first-class accommodations… On 

this holiest day, God’s sheer truth reaches even those who are trying to hide under covers 

432 Psalms 148:7. 

433 Jonah 1:2. 

434 Jonah 1:6. 

435 Raphael Patai, The Children of Noah: Jewish Seafaring in Ancient Times (Princeton University Press, 

1996), pg. 93. 


and blankets. On Yom Kippur, even those deep in slumber hear the captain cry; ‘Arise! 

Call to G-d!’” 436 

The shofar of Jonah tells us to wake up to our responsibilities. Personally and 

collectively, Jonah represents the part of each of us that runs from God and our 

responsibility to others – the people of Nineveh in Jonah’s case – and sleeps through 

God’s call to action. 

Another Voyage 

“Rabbi Simha Bunam of Pzhysha said, ‘Rabbi Eleazar of Amsterdam was at sea on a 

journey to the Holy Land, when, on the eve of New Year’s Day, a storm almost sank the 

ship. Before dawn, Rabbi Eleazar told all his people to go on deck and blow the rams’ 

horn at the first ray of light. When they had done this, the storm died down. ‘But do not 

think,’ Rabbi Bunam added, ‘that Rabbi Eleazar intended to save the ship. On the 

contrary, he was quite certain it would go down, but before dying with his people he 

wanted to fulfill a holy commandment, that of blowing the ram’s horn. Had he been out 

to save the ship through a miracle, he would not have succeeded.’” 437 

In the Fish 

Jonah is thrown into the sea where he is swallowed by a giant fish. He remained in the 

fish’s belly three days and three nights. In his prayers, he cried, 

“In my trouble 

I called to the Lord, 

And he answered me. 

From the belly of the abyss 

I cried out, 

And You heard my voice.” 438 

This verse echoes Psalm 118 that says, “Out of the narrow place I called upon God, who 

answered me in spaciousness.” The Psalm can be understood as a description of the shape 

of the shofar, narrow at one end and wide at the other, and of the process of teshuvah, 

moving from the constricted space of the hardened heart to a place of redemption. 

This imagery, consciously or not, has been captured by visual artists throughout the ages 

who depict the great fish in a distinctly shofar-like shape. 

436 Yosef Y. Jacobson based on the Lubavitcher Rebbes’ teachings, www.jewishholiday.com/insidejonah.html 

and www.askmoses.com/article.html?h=695&o=1952652&pg=2, January 

27, 2008. 

437 Buber, Tales of the Hasidim, Book 2, pp 247-248. Also told in Rosh Hashanah – Its Significance, Laws, 

and Prayers, pg 117. Another version of the story is in The Complete Story of Tishrei, (Kehot Publication 

Society, Brooklyn NY) http://ramshornrammer.blogspot.com/2005/09/shofar-in-high-seas.html, May 7, 

2006. 

438 Jonah 2:3. 


Artists throughout the ages have depicted the great fish as distinctly shofar-like. 

Above: Speculum Humanae Salvationis, c.1400-1500. 439 

Below: Phillip Ratner. 440 

Perhaps, while in the depths, Jonah heard a deep silence that was like the still small voice 

of shofar. Or did he hear the calls of sea creatures? Many people have compared the 

voice of shofar to the song of a whale. For example, the composer of a “soundscape” 

inspired by Jonah says: 

“‘Jonah Under the Sea’ is an attempt, through the medium of electroacoustic 

composition, to ‘listen in’ during Jonah's journey [from the ship into the fish’s 

belly]… In Jonah's mind's eye, while freely descending into the sea, he perceives 

an endless array of images and sounds, particularly those relating to his watery 

environment. He remembers earlier moments in his life near a port of call, 

especially the call of fog horns. Jonah notices how similar these sounds are to 

439 http://collecties.meermanno.nl/handschriften/showillu?id=17067, August 12, 2006. 

440 The Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum, 1998, www.ratnermuseum.com/heroes/_img0041.html August 

12, 2006. 


those of the whales that surround him now. The sounds also call to mind the 

ancient call of the shofar, the ram's horn.” 441 

Like cetacean calls, shofar can be haunting and ethereal. The song of the whale travels 

great distances in the watery realm, just as shofar blasts transverse the vast spiritual 

realm. Although unintelligible to us, the melodies of each are clearly informed by an 

intelligence. 

Shofar in shape of fish. 442 

It is said that, “The fish that swallowed Jonah had been assigned this task since the six 

days of Creation…” 443 The ram of the Akedah – whose one horn was sounded at Sinai 

and whose other horn will be blown when the messiah comes – is also said to have been 

created at twilight at the end of the sixth day of creation. 444 

In Nineveh 

God sent Jonah to Nineveh to prophesize to its citizens. “Nineveh was an enormously 

large city, a three days’ walk across.” 445 Jonah walked for one day into the heart of the 

city, and from there he proclaimed God’s message. Despite the size of the city, the 

midrash says, “The sound of his voice carried across the entire city.” 446 

How did his voice carry throughout such a large city? Did he raise his voice “like a ram’s 

horn!” in fulfillment of Isaiah’s exhortation that is read on Yom Kippur morning? 447 Or, 

as is more likely, did he actually sound a shofar to call the citizens to assemble and to 

repent? 

441 

Bob Gluck , “On Composing Jonah Under the Sea,” 1997, 

www.olats.org/africa/projets/gpEau/genie/contrib/contrib_gluck.shtmlsansMP3, January 10, 2007. The 

essay explains, “Most of the sound materials in ‘Jonah Under the Sea’ derive from recordings of sea 

sounds: ocean waves, dolphins, whales, fog horns, plus sounds of voices and rams horns. At times these are 

highly digitally processed.” ‘Jonah Under the Sea’ has been recorded on the CD, Stories Heard and Retold 

(1998, EMF 008). 

442 th 

Ethiopia, 19 Century, in Jewish Museum, New York City, 

www.britannica.com/eb/art/print?id=73196&articleTypeId=1, January 14, 2008. 

443 

Rabbi Tarfon in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, “Jonah and the Sailors,” translated by David Stern, Rabbinic 

Fantasies: Imaginative Narratives from Classical Hebrew Literature, ed. David Stern and Mark J. Mirsky 

(Yale University Press, 1998) pg. 64. 

444 

Chapters of the Fathers, Samson Raphael Hirsch, 1972, 5:9. 

445 

Jonah 3:3. 

446 

Rabbi Dovid Meisels, Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Secrets, translated by Rabbi Avraham Y. Finkel, 

2004, pg. 241. 

447 Isaiah 58:1. 


While the Torah and Haftorah readings on Rosh Hashanah deal primarily with individual 

and family behavior, Jonah describes the redemption of an entire city. The shofar of 

Jonah calls us to move beyond self interest to serve the greater good. This is a central 

theme of Yom Kippur when, 

“the confessional is in the plural – yet, it is clear that none of us have committed 

all these sins. Why should we confess even to transgressions of which we are 

innocent? ...Our concern on Yom Kippur is not just for the self. Toward the end 

of the day, after spending so much time looking inward, we read the Book of 

Jonah. Jonah, called by God to save the city of Nineveh, flees the responsibility 

of carrying out God's word. When at last this reluctant prophet reaches Nineveh 

and prophesizes the city's doom, people repent and God relents. Instead of being 

happy that he has succeeded, the only prophet in the Bible that anyone ever really 

listened to, Jonah is unhappy. For Jonah was never worried that he might fail, but 

rather that he might succeed. He just did not care about the people of Nineveh nor 

their fate. In the end, sitting outside of town, he swelters in the sun until God 

causes a sheltering plant to miraculously grow over him. Jonah is briefly happy 

until the plant dies. God asks him if he is deeply grieved about this single plant 

and Jonah says: ‘Yes, so deeply that I want to die.’ God responds: ‘And should 

not I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred 

and twenty thousand persons...and many beasts as well?’ 448 God is disappointed 

in Jonah. For despite everything that has happened, Jonah just doesn't get it. His 

concern lies only with himself. We read his story to remind us that, even as we 

spent hours looking inward examining who we are, we can not forget to look at 

the world around us.” 449 

As another teacher puts it, 

“Jewish universalism is carved into the sacred texts of the Bible selected to be 

read aloud during the Days of Awe… Why else did the rabbis choose for the 

prophetical portion to be read on Yom Kippur the Book of Jonah that repudiates 

the provincialism of Jonah who thinks that a Jewish prophet is to be concerned 

exclusively with Jews and with no others? The narcissism of Jonah, self-buried in 

the narrow womb of the whale is repudiated… Jonah had forgotten Abraham who 

was blessed so that ‘in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’” 450 

Like the other prophetic text read on Yom Kippur, Jonah tells us that our atonement is 

only complete when we take action to serve the greater good. As the prophet tells us, 

Nineveh was saved not through prayer, but through their actions: 

448 Jonah 4:9,11. 

449 Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, A Book of Life: Embracing Judaism as a Spiritual Practice, 

www.thesaj.org/rabbi/HHexcerpts.html, January 9, 2007. 

450 Harold M. Schulweis, “From Which End of the Shofar?,” Yom Kippur, 1992, 

www.vbs.org/rabbi/hshulw/shofar.htm, January 10, 2007. 


“God saw what they did, how they were turning back from their evil ways. And 

God renounced the punishment he had planned to bring upon them, and did not 

carry it out.” 451 

Soon after the Yom Kippur reading of Jonah, we enter the final service of the day and 

then hear shofar. It is the conclusion of the fast, but it is also our call to action throughout 

the rest of the New Year. 

When confronted with Jonah’s prophecy, the people of Nineveh declared a fast. The King 

of Nineveh issued an edict enforcing the fast and requiring that, “man and beast…shall 

cry mightily to God,” to signify their repentance. 

In times of danger, Jews, too, fast and repent. We also sound the shofar. The shofar is 

symbolic of the ram that was the totem of the Hebrew nation. When we sounding the 

ram’s horn, we literally demonstrate “man and beast” mightily crying together to God. 452 

Death and Rebirth 

Rosh Hashanah, the start of the New Year, is considered the birthday of the world, and 

the shofar blasts are compared to the cries of a newborn child (see Chapter 7 – The Ewe’s 

Horn). In the waning hours of the Yom Kippur, Jonah provides another reminder of the 

potential of spiritual rebirth, and prepares us to hear the birth cries of the ram’s horn. 

These ideas are expressed in the following essay: 

“One answer to this question focuses on the symbolism of the belly of the fish. 

The fish, we recall, swallowed Jonah, after he fled God's call. He then remained 

and prayed in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights before being 

vomited onto land… The symbolism of three days and nights is also associated 

with the time it takes to travel to Sheol, the Netherworld; Jonah's descent into the 

fish can thus be viewed as a descent into a type of death. Furthermore, the belly 

of the fish directly parallels the womb of a mother. Jonah's emergence from the 

fish can then be seen as a type of rebirth. After traveling to Sheol, Jonah repents 

and is then resurrected. 

“This symbolism of death and rebirth appears in many of the customs associated 

with Yom Kippur… Is this…fast perhaps an attempt to simulate death? …Finally, 

when the Yom Kippur fast ends, we reenter the physical world with the blasting 

of a ram's horn, the simplest sound known to ancient man. Perhaps this shofar 

blast should be seen as parallel to the cry of a baby exiting the womb and 

emerging into the world. 

“This explains why the story of Jonah in the fish's belly figures so prominently in 

the Yom Kippur liturgy, as the story teaches us that true repentance is 

451 Jonah 3:10. 

452 Book 3 of Hearing Shofar: The Still Small Voice of the Ram’s Horn discusses these topics in more 

depth. 


accompanied by a metaphysical rebirth. And indeed, when true repentance 

occurs, like a newborn baby, our potential is infinite.” 453 

Augmenting the theme of birth in Jonah is the midrash explaining that Jonah was in the 

belly of a pregnant fish. 454 

The fish that swallowed Jonah is masculine in its Hebrew gender – “dag,” but the fish in 

whose belly Jonah finally prayed for relief is feminine – “dagah.” The midrash explains 

this discrepancy by suggesting that Jonah was too comfortable in the spacious interior of 

the male fish to feel the urge to repent. God had the male fish regurgitate Jonah and, in 

turn, a female fish swallow the prophet. The female fish is pregnant with thousands of 

tiny fish inside her waiting to be hatched. In this crowded environment, Jonah feels 

himself in the tight space of the pit; the confinement that precedes deliverance. Prayers 

are squeezed out of Jonah like shofar blasts are squeezed out of the belly of a shofarist. 

For then every ba’al tekiah knows the truth of Jonah’s song: 

“In my trouble, I called to the Lord, 

And he answered me’ 

From the belly of Shoel I cried out, 

And You heard my voice.” 455 


453 Shmuel Herzfeld, “Why We Read the Book of Jonah: A Fishy Tale of Repentance on Yom Kippur 

Afternoon,” Forward, 9/20/2000, www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-79271127.html and 

www.rabbishmuel.com/files/torah_sermons34.whale.doc January 27, 2008. 

454 Midrash Jonah, see Yvonne Sherwood, A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in 

Western Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pg. 116—117, 

http://books.google.com/books?id=VDv-h76xSl8C, January 29, 2008. 

455 Jonah 2:2. 


Epilogue – Elul Story 

I did not set the brake when I parked my car. As a result, my car rolled into the car parked 

in front of it and pushed that car into a third car. Neither my car nor the one directly 

ahead of it were damaged, but the chain reaction dented the car at the end of the line. I 

realized that I had to locate the owner of damaged car, and inquired of people on the 

street until someone pointed out a building where they suggested I might find the one 

whom I was seeking. 

I was not certain what type of building it was, and the neighborhood was unfamiliar, so it 

is with some fear that entered the building. Beyond the vestibule was a stairway that I 

started to ascend. At the top of a long fight up, an abrupt turn in the landing lead to 

another flight of stairs going down a few steps. At the bottom of this flight, a turn in the 

landing lead to another long flight up. Again, the next landing lead to several steps down, 

an abrupt turn, and another long flight up. 

The landing at the top flight had a door that opened to a large, noisy room. Inside were 

many people. Artisans and traders busy at their work. Teachers and students. People 

coming and going. Some sitting idly, others sleeping. Cooking and eating. Crying. From 

somewhere came the muffled sounds of sex and the boom of laughter. 

I wandered through the room, observing all the activity, until I came to another, smaller 

room. Around a large table, people were earnestly debating the merits of some enterprise 

and planning it's future. 

Someone approached me and offered to show me the way out of the building. She was 

dressed and spoke in a manner that reminded me of how spirits are sometimes depicted 

on the stage. “She must be an actress,” my mind rationalized. 

But there was nothing rational about the encounter, as this was a dream received during 

the full moon of the month of Elul, the month of preparation for the holy work of the 

Jewish New Year and a time for taking measure of one's life. I come from a long line of 

dream readers -- How would Joseph have interpreted the vision? The Ba’al Shem Tov? 

Freud? 

The car accident was a call to repair any damage I had done to others, and a lesson in 

how my actions can have far reaching consequences, harming even those with whom I 

have no direct contact. 

The stairway reminds me that the path to my higher self will not be without unusual turns 

and periods of descent. 

The large room is my life. Here are Michael the businessman, Michael the child, Michael 

the lover. And all the other people I have been, am, and will be. “Take stock of your life 

Michael,” the dreamer says. “Are you pleased with what you see, Michael?" 


In the small room, The Infinite One listens as the angels take the measure of my life and 

my days. No one can know his own future, so a spirit is sent to lead me from the room 

before judgment is pronounced. 

As we hear shofar during the Days of Awe... 

...may your heart be open to give and receive forgiveness. 

...may you have the courage and strength to seek to know your soul. 

...may you find satisfaction with your life and demand justice in the world, 

...may your Judge have mercy and compassion. And 

...may the Holy One send a messenger to guide you in times of need. 

RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS PROCEED TO BOOK TWO

Book One – The Call of the High Holy Day By ... - What is Shofar?

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