Rosh Hashanah Day
5768
US Naval Base, Yokosuka, Japan
Talking to God
There is this Chasidic tale told by the Birditscher Rebbe- he has this disciple who loves his Rebbe will do anything for him. Oh Rebbe, I love you so much! Let me polish your shoes. Oh Rebbe, I love you so much, let me carry your tallis, Oh Rebbe I love you so much let bring you your books from your study... One day, the Rebbe asks, do you know what hurts me? Disciple says, no. How can you love me if you do not know what hurts me?
We began our High Holy Day season today where we declared over and over our deep love for God. But, the Birditcher Rebbe raises an important question for us. How can we love God if we do not know what hurts God?
And then, the almost impossible next question, how do we ask? How do we talk to God to find out? Our High Holy days give us a tool, a way to not just talk to God, but to have a conversation. This tool is the shofar.
Some of you might be skeptical that we can converse with God. But think about it, is the shofar a way for us to call out to God, or for God to call out to us? I think we can easily see how blowing the shofar is us calling out to God[1]. It is a loud blast, it gets everyone’s attention. It is even loud enough to get God’s attention. But how can the shofar be God calling to us? Does God respond and converse with us?
Well, let’s start by looking at the blessing for shofar: Baruch atah adonai, elohaynu melech haolam asher kidshanu bmitzvotav vitzivanu lishmoah shofar. Blessed are you God, our God, that makes us holy by commanding us to hear the shofar. Well, if you have ever attended Rosh Hashanah services, or have ever heard a shofar blast at any time in your life, I think it is clear you do not need to be commanded to listen to a shofar, of you are in ear shot, you are going to hear the shofar. The commandment is not to sound the shofar-which we would all of course notice whether we wanted to or not. It is to hear the shofar. The word, lishmoah, to hear, has the same root as shma. It is more than just to hear, it is to listen, to pay attention to. Why would God need to command us to attend to the shofar, something that grabs our attention no matter what we are doing? Perhaps it is God’s vehicle for talking to us.
Still skeptical? Well let’s look at what God might be saying by looking at where and when the shofar is used.
Shofar is not just a tool for the high holy days. The shofar appears in the Bible in several places and has different uses. There are two words used to identify what we do to make the shofar produce a sound. Sometimes we tokeyah shofar, we sound the shofar like the word t’kiyah. In our service the tekiyah blast is the one long, simple note. In the Bible, this word describes when the shofar is used to gather the community, to mark the beginning and ends of holidays and as part of offering sacrifices. These are all times when the shofar is used in some way, as a comfort. Community gatherings and marking time offer structure and give life a controllable, comfortable quality. Maybe this is God’s way of keeping us grounded and secure.
The other verb for blowing shofar is litroah like teruah. This word is used when there is an attack or when the whole camp is moved. Teruah is the triple blast on the shofar. It sounds more like an alarm or a siren. This verb is used when things were at their most scary and unstable. War is clearly frightening, but so is moving camp. In fact, it seems that there is little as scary as moving camp. Think of it, there are 70, 80 thousand people and this alarm sounds, everyone gets up and starts walking. No one knows where they are going, no one knows how long they will walk. They just get up and go. Maybe this is God’s way of offering us protection in troubling times.
Tekiyah, comfort, teruah, protection. And we still have our third shofar blast-shevarim. This does not appear in the Bible, but is root does. Shin, vet, resh means broken. It is the broken, staccato cry of the shofar-nine short choking sobs…yes choking sobs. Midrash says the sounds of the shofar mimic crying. So just as there are many types of crying-the long wail of tekiah, the deep hiccups of teruah and the choking sobs of shevarim, there are many kinds of shofar blasts. Not only are we crying, so is God. Here we can understand that God is hurting and crying to us in the shofar calls.
The shofar itself also facilitates a conversation between us and God. First of all, the shofar itself is from an animal, it is not a man made instrument, it is a God made instrument. How could God talk to us with something like a trumpet, flute or clarinet?
According to mishnah, the shofar cannot be made out of a cow’s horn. Why is that? Because cows link us to the golden calf, our worst, most sinful moment as the Jewish people. When we are talking with God about repentance at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is best not to be so provocative and bring forth a symbol of our darkest hours.
The shofar should be made from a Ram’s horn. We see the ram, the ayal, in our Rosh Hashanah Torah reading at the end of the Akedah or binding of Isaac. Abraham is about to sacrifice his son when God calls out to him and tells him not to. Abraham then looks up and sees a Ram caught by his horns in a thicket. The ultimate tool of a ram’s power, his horns, is what gets him entangled and ensnared. Again, this could be a message to us from God to be humble, not to let our greatest strengths become our greatest weaknesses.
Now the size matters. It has to be big enough that when the shofar is held in the hand of the blower, some part of it sticks out on either side of his hand. You have to be able to see that the sound being made is not in fact coming from the person blowing the shofar, but from the instrument itself. We could easily stand up and call tekiyah and all cry. But that would be a monologue. The shofar must be visible. It is not just the blower of the shofar, it is also the shofar itself. There is a dialogue occurring.
The shape and structure of the horn are also important. The shofar is allowed to be blemished or have a hole in it as long as the hole itself or a repair done to the hole does not interfere with or affect the shofar’s sound. Animal’s used for ritual sacrificed must be entirely unblemished but shofar can be slightly damaged. It makes the conversation more accessible, more real. We are not unblemished. We are not without holes with and without repair. Yet, we still are worthy of conversing with God.
And the shofar must be k’fuf, or bent. Why? We learn this lesson from Bruce Wayne’s father in the movie, Batman Begins. Bruce’s dad asks, why do we fall down Bruce? So we can learn how to pick ourselves up. The bent horn of a ram is God’s way of telling us we are bent, we are human and we are made this way. But we use this time of year to strive to be straightened.
So the shofar is our conversation piece where we cry out to God in our bent, imperfection and God cries out to us reminding us we are like the ram and need to be humble in our accomplishments, and like the bent horn and need to strive for greatness in our humilty, but that God is there offering us comfort and protection even though we are nishbar, broken.
But what is God crying about? What is it, Oh God, that hurts you so that You are crying?
Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote a book entitled God in Search of Man. Heschel’s thesis is this, God needs us as much as we need God. Think back to a few minutes ago when you had such skepticism at the idea that we can converse with God. The Chasidic Rabbi, Rav Nachman of Bratslav one night descended on his disciples in a crazed manner and questioned them wildly, “Where is God? Where is God?” They all posited answers and all of them, according to the Rabbi were incorrect. Finally he told them, God is wherever God is let in. Why should it be so absurd that we can talk with, not to, but WITH God? Because we do not let God in. We leave no room for God, and God is crying over our absence.
It is Rosh Hashanah. Our fate for the year ahead is almost done being written and in ten days it will be sealed. The Gates to Heaven are still open, God is talking to us. Are you listening? God wants to hear to us. Are YOU talking? God is crying because we have walked away from the conversation.
I pray this year, 5768, that you will all be blessed with the strength to be bent and the determination to strive to rise up and be straight so that you may stand tall when you speak with God.
We now turn to page 308 for the blowing of Shofar.
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