Posted September 6 2007
The Many Sounds of the Shofar
As I was standing in shul one Elul morning, I heard the powerful sounds of a shofar blown with considerable demonstration of skill and not a little flair. Next to me, a young boy asked his father, “Why did that man blow the shofar so long?” His father replied, “He’s showing off.”
This disturbed me greatly, and every year since I have thought more carefully about the sounds of the shofar and the thoughts they engender. Was the blower, as the father claimed to his son, merely showing off, or was he trying to engender some more subtle message with his extravagant showmanship?
The varying typologies of shofar blowing are well-known to any shul-goer. The high, straining whine of the tiny, thin shofar, as the blower tries, with red face a-steaming, to force air through a hole the size of a pin; the deep sousaphone-ish quality of the great and thick shofar, easily pushing the bass tones through the bones of the listeners as the blower tries to keep the heavy horn aloft; and everything in between. While each sound is as unique as the shul that houses it, there are commonalities that have defined the experience for hundreds of years.
The problem is defining the experience. We like, as a religion, to go into experiences with expectations: the liturgy is set, the steps are rehearsed, the process is clear, and the end is known. The vast majority of the Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur service has that quality. Despite the length and girth of the service, the depth is often lacking as fewer and fewer congregants muster enthusiasm for the complex and obscure Aramaic and Hebrew poetry that so inspired (we think) the Jews of the past. Is it possible they had just as hard a time?
But all those who flee at the rabbi’s footsteps up the podium to deliver his prodigious proclamation promoting peace and pleading to prevent a pause of propping for paupers, all those who nervously eye the door each time the cantor attempts to dazzle the room with yet another rendition of an Italian aria set to a piece of the liturgy while wearing a white poofball hat, and all those who mysteriously take twenty minutes each time their oddly shrunken bladder calls them yet again to the lavatory to get stock tips from the broker holding court next to the urinals, surprisingly seem to flow back into the main sanctuary just in time for the shofar. What is it that they find so attractive among the rest of the seemingly odious service that pulls them so inexorably to the shofar’s blasts?
Schoolchildren are taught about conversations between Satan and God regarding our use of the shofar, references to a national triumph (though a nation of one) at the Akeidat Yitzchak, a mourning mother for an evil general and her whimpering, and many other curiosities of Midrash and commentary. In fact, there are reams of intellectual, technical, and halachic explanations for the shofar, its sounds, its origins, and its purpose. But the truth is far simpler and clearer. One merely has to listen.
Listen carefully.
Don’t say anything.
Don’t think.
Just listen.
Hear that?
That’s the sound of a soul crying.
Add This Blog to Your Technorati Favorites
Jewish Blog, Jewish, Jewish Leadership, Jewish News, Jewish Values, Jewish Events
