Recalling the Sound of the Shofar

We gather on Rosh Hashanah, a day that the Torah describes as Zichron T’ruah, a remembrance of shofar blasts, a rest day, a day of Holy Assembly. On this day of remembrance, we are specifically asked to remember the shofar blasts we heard at Sinai. The passage in the book of Exodus is frightening, even spooky. It says: “There was thunder and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain, and the sound of the shofar was very powerful; the entire people that was in the camp shuddered. Moses brought the people forth from the camp toward God and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. All of Mt. Sinai was smoking because God had descended upon it in the fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the entire mountain shuddered exceedingly. The sound of the shofar grew continually much stronger. Moses would speak, and God would respond to him with a voice.” Just after that, God spoke the 10 Commandments to the entire nation.

This is not the Rosh Hashanah we usually celebrate: the New Year, the beginning of a new season, a time to stir ourselves out of our summer pleasures, and return to a more active mode of working and living, a time of celebration: good food enjoyed with family and friends, a time of renewal. Of course, it’s also a time to begin the process of introspection, correcting our faults, leading up to Yom Kippur, but also a time for remembering our links to our families and to our tradition. The Torah asks something more from us – a response to the act of remembering. What did we learn at Sinai when we heard the sound of the shofar, getting louder and louder? What was aroused in us? Can we even put into words the content of that experience? Perhaps we can try.

There is hint after the giving of the 10 Commandments. At that time the people begged Moses to listen to God on their behalf, for the experience of God speaking to them was much too terrifying. Moses reassured them, that the frightening sounds and appearances were indeed to keep them away from sin and transgression. But surely the experience contained was much more that that. The sages say that a unification occurred that day – a special kind of connection that was unknown in human experience before this singular event. The Chassidic master, Rabbi Elimelech of Lisenzk said, “when a person draws God into the world, this is called unification.” We, through our partial physicality and our partial Divinity have the unique mission to live in both the physical and spiritual worlds, having the possibility of unifying earth and heaven.

Rabbi Zalman Shacter Shelomi in his book, Wrapped in a Holy Flame quotes Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach interpreting a Chassidic teaching from the 19th Century Rabbi Zakok HaKohen, who said, Some say the “world is getting less and less religious. On the contrary, the souls are becoming more and more refined.” Rabbi Carlebach taught that it looks like many people are breaking away from God…meaning formal religion, but on the inside, they are becoming increasingly holy.” This is happening in our society, to each of us, across religious lines, in a very broad way, as human consciousness evolves, through the death of one generation and the birth of the next. This is why although we have much to teach to the young, they also have much to teach to us. As we are changing, due to this evolution and also out of our own efforts to change ourselves from the inside, there is a great hunger for a reconnection to our spiritual selves; there is a compulsion not only to seek out spirituality, but also to express the expansion of our souls and the changed people we have already become. This is not to say that we have arrived at a state of holiness. Not at all! We are all still becoming. We are all, as I like to say, "Not Yet." But we are inwardly different from our parents, and our Judaism reflects that as well. This is one message of Rosh Hashanah: the possibility of living just a little more in the spiritual realm, a realm of great blessing beyond what we can even imagine. It is the realm of our potential.

In Judaism, the traditional view of humankind is that we are engaged in a struggle between the yetzer hatov, the impulse to do good, and the yetzer hara, the impulse to do the wrong thing. And it’s a useful view, up to a point. An additional perspective is that the struggle is always a battle between the old and the new: the people we have been and the people we can become, or will become. We see this also on a global scale. The Older understanding struggles against the Newer Understanding. The psalmist said, “you are children of the most high, all of you.” And we long for this special connection to the Divine. It can be achieved in many different ways, but most importantly by changing our inner dialogue. If we change ourselves from the inside, our lives will change and the world around us will change for the better. If we believe that the goodness of life, the goodness of the ultimate Divine can be and is expressed through us, then we can realize the spirituality that is our gift and birthright. We will live up to our potential. We will see great blessing from our growth, even miracles. We only have to make a commitment to the intention to express our holiness.

And this is not to suggest that we should go through life feeling spiritual. Rabbi Rami Shapiro, a teacher of meditation and mindfulness, has a great teaching about this. Once a woman said to him, I have no need of spiritual practices. I feel spiritual all the time…He said, the next time you have a spiritual feeling, take a cold shower. Then dry off and do something kind for someone else.”

Perhaps what we are called to remember today is who we really are and who we were created to be. The sage Ben Sira, quoted in the S’Fat Emet, said, there was one who found a glowing ember and blew on it, lighting up a flame. There was another who found a glowing ember and spat on it and the flame was extinguished. The S’fat Emet said, the ember is to be found everywhere, and I might add, in everyone. And the Apter Rebbe, Abraham Joshua Heschl of Apt said, there is only the ever present of God knowing and understanding God’s self. We are part of that self. We house the ember that can become a flame. I invite you to be inspired by this day, when we are asked to remember why we are here, why we heard the shofar and what is our mission of unification in this world. I invite you to be inspired by who your really are and by who you can be. Then shall it truly be a New Year.