BS”D

ROSH HASHANAH: THE SILENT SOUND OF THE SHOFAR

Shira Smile shiur – 5776/2015

Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein

            The mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah is hearing the shofar. What should we be thinking of as we hear the shofar blasts that will make this mitzvah relevant?

            In the Mussaf Amidah of Rosh Hashanah we ask Hashem to remember the akeidah, the binding of Isaac, and in the shofrot section of the Amidah the references are to the shofar blasts at Sinai when we accepted the Torah. What is the connecting theme between the shofar, the akeidah and Sinai? And if Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Judgment, why don’t we discuss teshuvah and have viduy (confession) as part of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy as we do on Yom Kippur?

            What is interesting, notes Rabbi Walkin in The World Within, is that the mitzvoth associated with the other holidays don’t constitute the essence of that holiday. Eating or not eating matzah does not change Pesach, but listening to the shofar makes Rosh Hashanah Yom Teruah, and the purpose of the shofar is to arouse our hearts to do teshuvah and to make our hearts aware that there is a King Who sits in judgment. The Rambam sees this as the clear purpose of the day, as he writes, “Wake up, sleepers from your sleep …examine your deeds and perform repentance.”

            What is this sleep? Rabbi Schwab on Prayer observes that removing sleep from our eyes is part of the morning blessings, but appears out of place as the last of the blessings instead of the first. Perhaps the sleep referred to here is different from the daily sleep we experience each night. Rabbi Schwab posits that this is exactly the case. After Hashem created Adam, He put him into a deep, trancelike sleep to separate him and form Chava. Before this sleep, Adam saw Godliness in front of him everywhere; he was fully conscious of God’s presence. Then Hashem put him to sleep. But the Torah never says that Adam awoke from that sleep. Adam and all mankind has been in that sleep state now for thousands of years. The goal of the shofar blast is to wake us up to that level of consciousness Man had before that sleep, a consciousness we experienced as isolated flashes in our history, such as during the Exodus, at the splitting of the Sea, and at Har Sinai.

            How can we try to actualize this consciousness? Our first thought upon hearing the shofar must be that I am doing God’s will. Whether or not I understand the reason for the shofar or I appreciate the sound is irrelevant. I do because Hashem commands. I submit myself fully to His will as we did at Sinai. The service of the day, writes Rav Lugassi in Mishpat le’Elokei Yaakov, is to connect to God as our King, to be totally dependent on Him, and to submit completely to His will. It is for this reason that a shofar from a cow’s horn is not kosher for Rosh Hashanah, for it is reminiscent of the golden calf, notes the Talumd. When we blow the shofar, it is akin to entering the Holy of Holies, and one cannot bring a memento of a strange god into the Sanctuary. But why is sounding the shofar similar to entering the Holy of Holies?

            The Tallelei Chaim explains that when we hear the shofar we should imagine ourselves in a state of intimacy with Hakodosh Boruch Hu, and a state of holiness like the state the High Priest was in when he performed the Yom Kippur service in the Kadosh Kodoshim, the Holy of Holies. There it was only the Kohain Gadol and Hashem in earnest communication and intimacy. The shofar should bring us to that state and remembrance.

            But we pray that the shofar should also bring the remembrance of the akeidah to Hashem. How can that be when we also attest that there is no forgetting before Hashem?

            The Tallelei Chaim continues. We react to the world on two levels, an inner world and an outer world, and Hashem interacts with us on both these levels. Our inner world, our pure neshama, is taken from beneath the Kisei Hakavod, God’s holy throne, and implanted within us. The Kisei Hakavod in heaven parallels the Kadosh Kodoshim on earth. In that place there is no forgetfulness. But forgetfulness does exist in the outer world where there is darkness, and curtains and veils cloud our vision. This is a world of mistakes, a world of trancelike sleep. We ask that Hashem take that remembrance from the pristine place and bring it to this world where there is sin and folly. The shofar lets us enter the Holy of Holies within ourselves, brings us into our pure, untainted souls, for the only way you can blow the shofar is by releasing your breath into it, the breath through which God blew the soul into Man at creation.

            When we listen to the shofar, writes Rabbi Gavi Meir Zilverberg in Sichot Hitchazkut, we ask to take that moment of purity and see the truth with the clarity and light of the Kadosh Kodoshim, and allow that light to permeate my life and to connect to Hashem in every aspect of my life. May the shofar be the tool to open not only our hearts, but also Hashem’s heart, writes Rabbi Pincus. The sound and shape of the shofar are meant to break through barriers, to bring us from the narrow point of our lives to burst forth into open, unconstricted space. May we imagine Hashem Himself blowing the shofar and calling us back to Him, writes the Shem Mishmuel.

            The very sounds of the shofar are symbolic of the message of hope for the New Year, writes Rabbi Yonatan Emett. Citing Rav Aaron Soloveitchik, Rabbi Emett writes that we are in the middle, in the troubled state of teruah, entangled if not in sin itself, at least in the uncertainty of life. But we started with a strong tekiyah of our past, of the pure neshamah at our source, and we end with the strong tekiyah of hope for purity for the future. Just as Abraham’s ram was caught in the thicket by its horns, so are we caught in the entanglements of our sins and troubles all year. Hashem commanded us to take a shofar, the ram’s horn, and blow it to remind us that we need to wake up and change our routine to enable us to get out of our entanglements, and then to end with hope that we can return to that initial pure state.

            The idea of the inner purity of a Jew is reinforced by Rabbi Roberts in Timeless Seasons. The shofar’s sound is created with the inner breath of the individual. All year long one may sin with all parts of the body, from one’s head to one’s soles, but the innermost soul remains pure. It is this inner purity that is evoked before Hashem with the sound of the shofar, and ignites the sense of love and friendship between Hakodosh Boruch Hu and Bnei Yisroel. That’s why the day is called Yom Teruah, a day of Reut, love and camaraderie, rather than a day of Tekiyah.

            Every Jew wants the connection to Hashem through doing His will but what prevents us is the yetzer horo. Our will to do His will is part of our DNA since the binding of Isaac upon the altar. The moment Isaac was ready to sacrifice himself for God’s will, that desire to give ourselves over completely to Hashem was implanted in all his descendents and was manifest again at Sinai, writes Rabbi Emmanuel Bernstein in Devar Mikra. The tekiyah reminds us of these past experiences and gives us a vision for the future successful struggle to free ourselves from our entanglements.

            What actually happened on Rosh Hashanah? According to one opinion, Hashem conceived the idea of creating the world on Rosh Hashanah and carried out the idea in the month of Nissan. On Rosh Hashanah, writes Rabbi Frieman in Shaarei Derech, we go back to the state of thought. Just as Hashem “thought” before He took action, so must we think before we do. Yiddishkeit says we are responsible for our thoughts as well as for our actions. In action, circumstances can get in the way of our performance, but nothing can stand in the way of our desire. Our desire itself must be strong and pure, because it may never actually come to fruition. On Rosh Hashanah we are being judged for our thoughts and the strength of our desire to be close to Hashem.

            Rabbi Kluger expands on this idea in Soul Desire. The three books open before Hashem on Rosh Hashanah, the Books of Life, of Death, and of the In Between are really books imprinted in our minds according to our priorities. If God’s will is primary, if what we desire is to do His will even though we often do no succeed, we are in the Book of Life. If earthly pleasures are primary, we are already in the Book of Death. Most of us are in the middle. What motivates the individual will outweigh his actions.

            Where are you now in your priorities, asks Rabbi Wolbe? You are being judged in accordance with your current priorities, not for the future or what you did in the past. To what extent are you open to the will of God and want a relationship with Him? That’s why we don’t say viduy on Rosh Hashanah, because Rosh Hashanah is about finding out where we are and making concrete changes, of going back to a place of purity and extricating myself from the thistles. We ask Hashem to help us improve ourselves and lead us back to Him.

            We are being judged on that desire on Rosh Hashanah. We try to live that desire at least on these two days. We are trying, and we aspire to the victorious tekiyah gedolah. Once I set that within myself, I am ready to work on the viduy of Yom Kippur.  May the shofar blasts enter our souls and awaken us to desire to do His will.