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The Shofar: After the Bombing
2001
I apologize for having abandoned the Navigator format for Rosh Hashanah. It did not seem to adequately serve the needs of these outrageously surreal times. I generally feel that when the times speak so loudly, it is best to keep one's counsel, but the Day of Judgment approaches and words are our vessels for comfort.
Rosh Hashanah serves as a day of judgment, a new year, a day of conception and creation and a day of fear and trembling.
The Talmud in the tractate of Rosh Hashanah reports a dispute over what the shofar -- Rosh Hashanah's defining symbol - should look like.
The Mishnah states: The shofar should be made from a mountain goat, and be straight. The Talmud brings the opinion of Rabbi Levy who argues that it should be from a Ram and be curved. Why the difference of opinion, the Talmud asks? The Mishnah argues that it is better to address God in prayer standing straight, while Rabbi Levy argues that it is better to address God in prayer bent in contrition. (Rosh Hashanah 26b)
The Midrash teaches (Pesikta Rabati 23:3) in the name of Resh Lakish when Israel blows the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, she moves God from the attribute of stern judgment to the attribute of mercy -- how should the shofar "stand" when it sounds out the Ruler of the Universe? In the face of absolute justice would one offer defiance or would one be bent in contrition? Pride is for the guiltless and none of us is guilt free. Only once the shofar is blown can we regain our posture. Resh Lakish says that we are transformed by the shofar's sound as God moves from justice to mercy.
Erev Rosh Hashanah a year ago, the so-called Al Aksa Intifada began a wave of sustained terror that has numbed and bewildered all who love Israel. Now, a year later, here, in America, we prepare for Rosh Hashanah by giving blood to our neighbors, sharing their grief, or grieving ourselves. We are bent and we must go through a process in order to stand tall again, and it is through the medium of the shofar that we regain our ability to look the world and its magnificence in the eye.
The shofar, the Talmud teaches, should ideally come from a ram to remind us of Isaac and the sacrifice that did not take place. But its sound is also the cry for alarm, and as the midrash says: The last gasps of Sarah when she heard that Isaac was taken, sounded like three blasts from the shofar. (Pirke d'Rebbe Eliezer, Chapter 31) It is this last image that reflects the reality of the past week. All those people victimized -- sacrificed by a fight they had no idea they were in. Thousands of people left wondering just as Sarah mourned over the unknown fate of her only son. We hear their cries as the shofar wails and we pray that it is enough to move the Holy One from stern justice to absolute and relentless mercy. It is for this we pray so that we may stand and look forward to what the new year may bring.
May everyone be inscribed and sealed in the book of life.
Prepared by Rabbi Avi Weinstein Director, Hillel's Joseph Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Learning.
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