The שופר/Shofar is the essence of the holiday of ראש השנה/Rosh Hashana. Many of us can recall from childhood the moments when we watched and listened in amazement to the sounds of the שופר. The תלמוד/Talmud in tractate ראש השנה, teaches two very important lessons about the שופר and also about the concepts of the day, including תשובה/Teshuvah/Repentance. On pages 26a and 26b we find two disconnected ideas and two very important symbols of the day.
The first is a conversation about which animals’ horns we’re allowed to use to make a שופר. The conversation centers around not being allowed to use the horn of a bull. The rabbis ask all sorts of questions about this and eventually they come to the realization that the prosecutor cannot become the defender. That is their rationale. This sounds a bit obscure, but then they reference that the כהן גדול/Kohen Gadol/High Priest was forbidden to enter the קודש הקודשים/Kodesh HaKodeshim/The Holy of Holies on יום כיפור/Yom Kippur while wearing his gold clothes. The reason is the same as the cow horn – they are both reminders of our great sin as a people when we built and worshipped the עגל הזהב/Egel HaZahav/Golden Calf. The cow horn as a שופר and the gold clothes are both seen as reminders of what we’ve done wrong in the past and so we didn’t use those items on the day we were most intently praying for our ability to change and be forgiven.
A bit later in this passage we find a discussion about different שופרs, specifically the rabbis were debating ones that are bent and those that are straight. They asserted that we need to use bent ones on ראש השנה as we are bending our minds and our bodies to repent and to work on improving. We’re humbled at that moment and the שופר we use is meant to remind us of that humbleness. On יום כיפור we use a straight one so we can conclude the ten days of repentance and have our minds and posture straightened.
These two conversations about the physical שופר itself, paint a picture of the vision of doing תשובה: we need to confront the bad, but we cannot allow it to intrude on us now. We must leave it behind and in the past. To think of the cow as a reminder of the low point in Jewish history when we betrayed God and ourselves, is to remind us we’re not defined by the low points. We cannot judge ourselves, or others, based on their worst day.
The idea of utilizing a bent שופר to remind us of our posture on ראש השנה as being bent and humbled, is something to also remind us of the process of תשובה. When we accept that we’ve done wrong, we’re humble and recognize we have fixing to do. A person who’s ruled by pride is unable to fully see the person in the mirror and recognize places where they need to make changes. The person who’s ruled by ego does not begin to change because, in their eyes, you cannot change/fix perfection. The שופר and the act of תשובה push us in the opposite direction: to humbly recognize we all have work to do.
This year, ראש השנה falls on a weekend. This is a great opportunity for us to be more mindful of the two days of ראש השנה. For too many generations certain groups of Jews of the diaspora have wrongly asserted that ראש השנה is a one-day holiday since it is a one-day holiday in Israel. The problem with this assertion is it’s factually false: ראש השנה was established as a two-day celebration universally in Israel and in the diaspora. There’s no difference between the two. When ראש השנה falls on a שבת/Shabbat, we are unable to sound the שופר, which means we only sound it on the non שבת day – Sunday. This year, we’ll only be able to fulfill the commandment of the שופר on the second day of the holiday. I hope to be able to celebrate with even more of our congregants this year so we can fulfill this beautiful and sacred tradition together. For those of you who are curious about how often this has happened in your lifetime, our Ritual Team put together this website to calculate the number of times. Please click here to see how many times in your lifetime the שופר has been silenced by שבת. I hope you’ll come to OVS on the second day of Rosh Hashana this year to hear it.
