20
Friday, September 28, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
FROM THE RABBIS
The sound of shofar
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BY RABBI IRVING GREENBERG
Special to The Jewish News
The liturgical feature of Rosh
Hashanah is the sounding of the
shofar. In the Torah, the first day
of the seventh month is declared a
holiday, a yom Teruah, a day of
blowing or sounding the horn
(Numbers 29:1). But what is the
the symbolism or meaning of the
blowing? And why on this day?
The Torah gives no explanation.
The shofar, by tradition, is a
curved musical instrument, gen-
erally made from a ram's horn —
although the horn of a goat, ante-
lope or gazelle is also permitted.
The shofar is one of the oldest
musical instruments in human
history which is still in use.
Blowing the shofar predates
Judaism. It is believed that pre-
Biblical use focused on the "magi-
cal" power of the horn. In ancient
times, people believed that blasts
from a horn could drive away de-
mons. It is striking that this asso-
ciation is picked up by the Talmud
which suggests that the shofar
can drive away Satan and evil
spirits. Hence, on Rosh
Hashanah, the shofar blasts drive
away the "prosecuting attorney"
— the angel who seeks to convict
people when they are on trial for
their lives — as all people are
judged to be on New Year's day.
But the Bible gives no hint of
any such function. What did the
Bible have in mind by sounding
the shofar? For that matter, if the
shofar's "power" is to drive away
evil spirits it would long ago have
lost all significance with the de-
cline of belief in evil spirits.
There are hints of the possible
function of the shofar in the Bible.
In actual useage: when the Lord
"came down" on Sinai, the shofar
was sounded in a long blast
(Exodus 19:19); when the 50th or
jubilee year arrived — the year
when slaves were set free and the
land was redistributed to all the
inhabitants — the shofar was
sounded (Leviticus 25). The verse
quoted on the Liberty Bell: "pro-
claim freedom throughout the
land for all its inhabitants" was
fulfilled by the shofar blast
(Leviticus 9).
Saadya Gaon points out that
the shofar was blown at corona-
tions. The sounding of the shofar
on the first day of the seventh
month hints at a possible corona-
tion theme. There are scholars
who have argued that Rosh
Hashanah is somehow linked to
Canaanite annual divine corona-
tion ceremonies when the powers
of the gods were "renewed" by
human ritual and sympathetic
magic so that the earth's fertility
would be assured. But the Bible
totally rejects any notion of hu-
mans giving power to God or and
divine need for "renewal."
In the Jewish context, the
shofar blast represents the Jewish
people's proclamation that the
Lord is their King or Ruler — be-
yond any earthly ruler — and also
that the Lord rules over all the
earth. This theme is celebrated in
the traditional liturgy for Rosh
Hashanah in the Kingship (Mal-
chuyot) section which incorpo-
rates ten Biblical verses citing
God as ruler of the world, followed
by shofar sounding.
The truth is that in the Bible,
Rosh Hashanah itself is not
openly identified. The first day of
the seventh month (now called
Tishrei and the day of Rosh
Hashanah) is called "a holy day"
and "a day of blowing." But the
month of Nissan is called "the
head of the months . . . the first of
the months of the year" (Exodus
12:1). We know that kings' reigns
and other political dates were fig-
ured from the month of Nissan
which was the "political New
Year." It remained for the Oral
Law and Rabbinic literature to
articulate the full theme of the
Jewish New Year with all the
classic associations of humans on
trial because every year God as-
sessed each individual person for
life and death.
Tradition insisted
that the shofar be
made of a ram's horn
to summon up the
association with the
"Akedah," the
binding of Isaac.
Once the trial theme was elabo-
rated, every Jew needed all the
help he could get to pass the trial
successfully. Here another asso-
ciation was summoned up. Ab-
raham had bound his son, Isaac, to
the altar, prepared to make the
ultimate sacrifice in faithfulness
to God. A ram was substituted at
the end; God wanted no human
sacrifice. But the willingness to
sacrifice, both on Abraham and
Isaac's part, in itself was a merit
that every Jew wished to draw
upon. The binding was a classic
symbol of Jewish faithfulness.
Tradition insisted that the shofar
be made of a ram' horn to summon
up the association with the
Akedah, the binding of Isaac. In
this interpretation, the shofar
sound is a cry for mercy and for-
giveness, and possibly one which
recollects the cries and tears of
Isaac's (and all Jewish) martyr-
dom. This theme was built into
the second section of the tradi-
tional liturgy whose ten Biblical
verses summon up God's remem-
bering for mercy and grace.
The two primary sounds of the
shofar capture both themes. The
first called Tekiah, is a straight,
long blast — a grand sound which
was used for proclamation and
coronation. The second sound is
called Teruah, three broken or
wavering sounds.
The tradition was to blow one
straight blast, one broken and one
straight, in sets of three together.
After the destruction, Jews came
together from communities with
differing versions of the teruah.
To avoid splintering dissension,
Rabbi Abbahu of Caesarea ruled
that a set of each sound version be
blown and, for good measure, one
incorporating both broken sounds
together. This became the prac-
tice in vogue today.
Judaism is a religion with a
powerful forward thrust. The cen-
tral Jewish dream is of a final re-
demption in which the whole