Hearing the shofar blown this month should help prepare us for Rosh Hashana, when we approach God emphasizing our close relationship with God.
By REUVEN HAMMERshofar 88 blowing (photo credit: )
We are now in the middle of Elul which over the centuries has become the month of preparation for the High Holy Days that follow in the month of Tishrei. According to rabbinic tradition, this is the month of reconciliation with God or, if we are not estranged, of strengthening the loving relationship. The sages said that Elul is the first letters of the words in the verse 6:3 in the Song of Songs ani l'dodi v'dodi li - I am my beloved's and my beloved in mine - the beloved being God (as is also the case is the Shabbat hymn L'cha Dodi). This is in line with the ancient midrashic tradition that interprets the Song of Songs as a love song between God and Israel depicted in anthropomorphic terms.
If this is indeed the month of strengthening the ties of love between us and our creator, it seems strange that the main feature of this time is the blowing of the shofar at each morning service. The shofar is usually experienced as a sound that makes us tremble with fear, a signal of danger and often a call to battle. It does not seem to have much to do with love. The Torah gives no reason for sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashana. It merely says that the first of Tishrei is "a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts" (Leviticus 23:24). In Numbers 29:1 it is also stated that it is a day "when the horn in sounded." What stands behind all that is shrouded in mystery.
Of course the practice of sounding the shofar daily in Elul is not to be found in the Torah at all. It is borrowed from the commands concerning Rosh Hashana and is mentioned in the eighth-century work Pirkei Derebbi Eliezer, which states that the on the first of Elul Moses received the second set of tablets of the Ten Commandments and that the shofar was sounded at that time. The idea of connecting the shofar with the Sinai revelation is very old. The Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo calls Rosh Hashana "the trumpet feast" and connects it with the sounding of the shofar at the time of revelation.
The rabbis, on the other hand, connected it with the story of the binding of Isaac. According to the midrash, the Lord tells Abraham that the reward for his fidelity to God is that when Isaac's descendants sin and stand in judgment before God on Rosh Hashana, "if they want Me to find some merit for them and remember the binding of Isaac, let them sound this shofar before Me." Abraham then says, "What's a shofar?" after which God shows him the ram caught in the thicket by its horns and says, "Let them sound the horn of the ram before Me and I will save them and redeem them from their transgressions" (Tanhuma Vayera).
Viewed in that light the shofar is not a signal for fear but a remembrance of the loyalty and fidelity of Abraham to God and a request that God recall that event at a time when we stand before Him for judgment.
In the ninth century, Sa'adia Gaon offered 10 reasons for the sounding of the shofar, which include a remembrance of the Akeda, a remembrance of Sinai, a remembrance of the warnings of the prophets, of the destruction of the Temple and of the day of judgment. This is a wonderful example of the way in which symbols can be interpreted in many different ways, some of which contradict one another.
The first of Sa'adia's reasons is that it proclaims the acceptance of God's kingship over all of creation. There is good reason to believe that this may indeed be the original reason for sounding the horn on the first of the seventh month since many scholars believe that the first of Tishrei was originally celebrated as the coronation day of God, in parallel to ancient pagan practices in which some god was proclaimed king accompanied by the sound of horns, as even today horns are sounded at the coronations of kings and queens. This is reflected in the words of the psalm, "With trumpets and the blast of the horn, raise a shout before the Lord, the king" (98:6).
In the early days of the development of our liturgy for Rosh Hashana, the sounding of the shofar was done three times and each of the three was accompanied by the recitation of 10 biblical verses. The first set was on the theme of God's kingship, the second on God's remembrance (meaning that God fulfills His promises to Israel) and the third concerning the shofar itself. Most importantly, all of these verses had to be positive, to reflect God's goodness and mercy and not to mention punishment or suffering (Rosh Hashana 4:5).
This ancient practice, originally done early in the service, is today the central part of the Musaf (additional) service. This emphasis on positive verses would certainly fit with the idea that the shofar is to be a sign of the loving relationship with God, and not with fear and trembling.
Hearing the shofar blown this month, then, should help prepare us for Rosh Hashana, when we approach God emphasizing our close relationship with God, a God of love and mercy.
The writer is an author and lecturer who serves as the head of the Rabbinical Court of the Masorti Movement.
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