HIGH HOLY DAYS I

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR
MORE FULFILLMENT IN YOUR LIFE .. .

• Career Change • Mid-life Shift
• Reentering the Job Market
• Empty Nest

Consult a specially trained professional
to help you through interviews,
assessments and recommendations.

CYNTHIA FISHMAN, M.A.
MONTGOMERY AND ASSOCIATES

770 S. Adams Road
Birmingham, MI
642-8042

Happy and Healthy New Year!

WORKOUT Co

•

Voted Detroit's Best — Monthly Detroit Magazine
Home of the Workout Poster
Winner of All Aerobic Contests

t S.W. corner of Telegraph at Maple

Bloomfield Plaza

0 •

Phone: 855-1033

We're *Celebratine

10

OUR BIGGER AND BETTER STUDIO!!!

•

SHARE OUR EXCITEMENT°.

1/2 off 10 or 15 Class Series

EVERYONE WELCOME!

One purchase per person.
Offer must be purchased by Oct. 30, 1989.

Open Throughout Construction

Feeling Depressed? Family Problems?
No One To Talk To?

855-5444

Call
for
AN IMMEDIATE APPOINTMENT

• Adults
• Adolescents
• Children

PROGRESSIVE COUNSELING

Where Your Progress
Is Our #1 Priority

154

FRIDAY. SEPTEMBER 29, 1989

Eat less
saturated
fats.

WERE FIGHTING FOR
YOUR LIFE

American Heart
Association

Blowing the shofar at the Wall.

The Symbolism Of The
Sounding Shofar

RABBI BERNARD S. RASKAS

Special to The Jewish News

I

n the Bible, Rosh Hasha-
nah is described as a "day
of sounding the horn,"
and one of the central
ceremonies of the holiday is
sounding the shofar. Tradi-
tionally, a ram's horn is used
as a reminder of the ram
which Abraham sacrificed in
place of Isaac. Rabbi Saul
Lieberman, the great
Talmudic Rabbi, called the
sounding of the shofar " a
prayer without words."
The shofar is curved, a sym-
bol that a person must bend
one's will before God. It is
usually softened and shaped
in hot water. There must be
no impairment in the sound
the shofar produces; a split or
hold in the shofar is liable to
render it unfit. It is not
always easy to blow the shofar
— some are extremely dif-
ficult to sound. Often the ba'al
tekiah or b'al toke'ah, as the
blower of the horn is called,
keeps a reserve shofar at
hand.
Before blowing the shofar,
the congregation recites
Psalm 47. This psalm exalts
God as King of all the earth,
a fitting theme for blowing

the shofar. It also includes the
verse: "God is gone up amidst
shouting. The Lord amidst
the sound of the shofar."
Another six verses are then
recited, the first letters of
each verse forming an
acrostic, reading: kera satan,
"tear up Satan." Satan per-
sonifies the power of evil in
the world; the shofar, the
establishment of God's
kingdom on earth.
Normally rabbis recom-
mend an early observance of
a commandment, but
historical events caused the
normal time for blowing the
shofar to be later in the day,
before and during the Musaf
service. The reason, according
to Rabbi Yochanan (3rd cen-
tury C.E.) was that the
enemies of the Jews had
mistaken the trumpeting as a
signal for revolt, and im-
mediately fell upon the Jews.
The sages thereupon ordain-
ed that the shofar be blown
later in the day; the Romans
would see the Jews praying
and reading Torah in the
synagogue and would conse-
quently realize that the
shofar was a part of the
religious service, not a call to
arms.
The first note of the shofar
is tekiah, one loud, clear call