Memories of the shofar

Listen for it as Elul arrives.

By DAVID GEFFEN
RAPHAEL OSTROVSKY (photo credit: Courtesy)
RAPHAEL OSTROVSKY
(photo credit: Courtesy)
This article is dedicated to a close friend and colleague for over 60 years – the late Rabbi Raphael Ostrovsky, who died in May. Born in Jerusalem in 1938, his parents moved with him to the United States in 1942. His father, hazzan Akiva Ostrovsky, was employed in the 1940s by the Beth El congregation in Birmingham, Alabama.
Hazzan Ostrovsky (“Mr. O,” as he was known) learned how to sound the shofar from an expert here in Jerusalem. He passed on his knowledge and skill on to his son, Raphael, who passed this skill on to his son, Joel Ostrovsky and his granddaughter, Samantha. From Jerusalem to US, four generations of ba’aley tekia. (His son Joel wrote me that his father tried to educate people to use the word “sound” instead of “blow.”)
Raphael developed extensive Interfaith Holocaust programs in Hammond Indiana, where he had his pulpit for almost 40 years. His programs became so well known inthe US that they were featured in The New York Times.
We first met at a Jewish camp in North Carolina in the late 1950s. We were counselors in the same unit. I noticed that he would disappear when we had a break and soon found out that he went into the forest to practice sounding the shofar so he would be ready for the High Holidays. I used to kid him: “Be careful – the bears may chase after you.”
I have never heard the shofar blown so well (although Kal Feinberg, our neighbor in Talpiot-Arnona, the champion Baal Tekia in the USA, is also amazing).
MY CLOSE friend and noted author, Robert Hersowitz, shared with me a story about his earliest memories of the shofar when he was growing up in South Africa:
“I couldn’t have been more than three years old. My father would lift me up so I could see and hear the ‘instrument.’ I remember being fascinated, almost mesmerized by the short notes that resounded throughout the sanctuary. It was over all too quickly and I wanted to hear it again.”
His appetite has been whetted.
“Every year I looked forward to those sounds. I began to associate the shofar blowing with a very mysterious time of year when our huge synagogue was filled with people dressed in their Rosh Hashanah finery. Everyone remained silent as the notes were sounded. This took place in Johannesburg, where I was born and raised.
“Most of the congregants, including our family, were ‘three times a year’ Jews. Nevertheless, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were observed with great reverence. As I grew older, I became more observant and more Zionistic. I began to understand the full significance of the shofar.”
Robert has a memory he always carries with him.
“Most stirring for me was hearing the shofar as I watched the footage of the recapture of the Old City of Jerusalem when Rav Goren sounded the shofar in front of the Kotel. From then on, the shofar began to assume new meaning for me. It became the harbinger of significant events for Jews, whether festive and positive or for something like a rallying cry when Israel and the Jewish People are about to face some huge existential wake up call. Hearing that ancient instrument for the first time in the month of Elul each year still gives me goose bumps.”
The shofar is one of the most important symbols of Elul, then Rosh Hashanah and the conclusion of Yom Kippur. This year, due to Shabbat, we have the excitement of listening to the shofar only on one day. An insightful assessment was made by Amichai Lau-Lavie, an innovative Jewish educator, about the importance of the objects we use during the festive season:
“During the High Holidays, we are involved in the verbal process of acknowledging who we are and how we wish to change ourselves for the better. But beyond the words we use, we do many things and experience the season through our bodies, not just our minds. We eat certain foods, like apples and honey, and remember the taste and mood of the holiday. We hear certain sounds, like the shofar, and we experience something inside that goes beyond words. The sights, smells and feelings all amount to one thing... an integrated awareness in our bodies and our minds of the New Year. Very often the things we do, rather than the things we say, are what we remember.”
THE FIRST sounding of the shofar each year is at the beginning of Elul, a month before Rosh Hashanah, which begins this year on September 18. Each morning we recite Psalm 27 at the end of the Shaharit service, then the tekiah, shevarim and teruah are sounded. This daily act (except for Shabbat and the morning before Rosh Hashanah) reminds that the days of judgement are near. Moreover, this pandemic year, we hope that the shofar sounds will lead us back to good health.
The shofar is one of the oldest instruments known to humankind. Mentioned 69 times in the Bible, it first appears in Exodus 19:16. “Thou shalt cause the shofar to sound... you shall hallow the 50th year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants, and you shall return every man to his family.”
This verse from Leviticus was selected, even before the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, to be engraved on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. In Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem, it is possible to examine the replica of that famous American icon – Biblical verse and all.
Numbers 29:1 mentions the shofar in the ritual for Rosh Hashanah: “You shall observe it as a day when the horn (shofar) is sounded.”
The shofar was defined as a ram’s horn by the sages, who included in the Rosh Hashanah service the story of Isaac on the altar and his replacement by a ram caught in the thicket by its horn.
The horn became a symbol of God’s mercy. Hence the sounding of the ram’s horn reminded God that He should forgive the Jewish people their transgressions. Maimonides taught: “Although the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is a mitzvah for which no reason is stated, it is as if the shofar were suggesting, ‘Arise from your sleep, you who slumber. Repent with contrition. Remember your Creator. Peer into your soul and improve your ways and your deeds.’” Then God will forgive you.
The shofar became “the ritual horn” of the Jewish people as well. When the Torah was given on Mt. Sinai, the shofar was sounded. When the walls of Jericho fell, the shofar was utilized. The victory of the Judge Ehud ben Gera over the Moabites was marked by the sound of the shofar. At Ein Dor, Gideon and his hundred men blew the shofar as an accompaniment to their surprise attack.
I HAD a different experience when the Kotel was captured. When that victory occurred in June 1967, I was serving as a chaplain in the US Army stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. To be honest, we did not know too much about the war because American TV provided limited coverage. However, about noon on the third or fourth day of the war, Oklahoma time, I drove over to the post office to pick up our mail. As I was about to turn off the car’s engine, there was a news flash on the radio. The announcer said that the Wall was liberated by the Israelis, and then I heard loud and clear the tekiah gedolah from the shofar of the chief chaplain Shlomo Goren. What a thrill, neve to be forgotten.
Fifteen years ago in The Washington Post, a story before the High Holidays, was entitled “A Rabbi’s Unorthodox Reveille.” The reporter wrote the following lead. “The 30-second television ad begins with a blast of the shofar, the Jewish ceremonial ram’s horn. A young bespectacled rabbi then extends an invitation. ‘Please join me for an incredible Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at Washington’s National Synagogue. For a free brochure on the congregation, ‘Please call 18888 Prayer.’”
Many Washington Jews were critical of this PR blitz by an Orthodox rabbi, but the shofar caught people’s attention. The phone rang nonstop and the shul was packed for the High Holidays.
When pointing to the specifics of shofar blowing, the baal tokea must make sure that the ram’s horn emits 100 notes on each day of Rosh Hashanah. This year, however, the shofar sounds will only be heard on the second day, since the first day is on Shabbat, September 19. On Sunday, September 20, we will get to hear all the notes and a week later at the end of Yom Kippur, September 28, the sounding of the majestic tekia gedola.
My fellow chaplain in the United States army, Alan Greenspan, made aliyah with his wife after a distinguished career in the army. I have written about his experiences while serving in Vietnam 1965-1966. He was under fire while I was stationed at Fort Sill Oklahoma. There, we were training the draftees for Vietnam, where they would serve in artillery divisions in that horrendous war.
In Greenspan’s book, With a Siddur and a Salami, or S.O.S. Send over Salamis, he writes about an experience he had at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1965:
“A Jewish student (in the Officer Training Program) had been chosen an acting commander of his unit. He asked if he could borrow a shofar... as an instrument to rally the men. This after all, was how it had been used in biblical times. It was some sight seeing soldiers being led by a commander who summoned them with the blast of the shofar and marched them with an Israeli song.”
In 1948, a few months after the establishment of the State of Israel, Rebecca Affachiner, who became known as the “Betsy Ross of Israel,” barely made it down the stairs from her apartment on Jabotinsky Street across the street where today the Van Leer Institute and Beit HaNasi are located. It was the first day of Rosh Hashanah; she wanted to hear the shofar sounded in the synagogue rather than have someone come to her apartment. Slowly she made her way down Balfour Street, finally getting to King George Street. She made it past the Jewish Agency Building and then crossed the street to the Yeshurun synagogue to daven and proudly hear the shofar sounded (story told to me by Ezra Gorodesky). The handmade Magen David flag she made from a bedsheet colored by crayons and flown on May 14, 1948, is now housed at the Ben-Gurion Archives in the vault where the original Ben-Gurion diaries are stored.


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