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When the Shofar Sounds

The shofar's sound is like no other ... it's melodious and haunting, convicting and compelling. There is nothing mystical about a shofar, which is simply the horn of a ram or goat or deer, removed from the animal, hollowed and cleaned. A shofar is a beautiful object to look at and touch, but its power comes from its sound. In the days of the Bible, the shofar was sounded to call our ancestors to G-d and to freedom.

So ... the shofar's power comes from its sound. When the shofar is sounded, people stop talking, sit up and pay attention. For countless generations, our people have heard the shofar sound and have responded to its call ... and to G-d's call. For each and every generation, the shofar has the same message: Something is happening! G-d is at work in the world and in your life! Are you awake and paying attention?!?

Blu Greenburg calls the shofar a 'Moral Alarm Clock', quoting Rambam, who said in reference to the shofar's call: Arise from your slumber, you who are asleep; wake up from your dead sleep, you who are fast asleep; search your deeds, repent, and remember your Creator. Those of you who forget the truth because of daily trivialities, indulging throughout the year in the useless things that cannot profit you nor save you, look into your soul, amend your ways and deeds ..."

When the shofar sounds, we who hear it have a choice. We can respond to it as to a 'Moral Alarm Clock' or a 'Spiritual Alarm Clock'. We can heed it's message: Something is happening! G-d is at work in the world and in your life! Are you awake and paying attention?!?

We can 'arise', 'wake up', 'search [our] deeds, repent and remember [our] Creator' ... we can 'look into [our] soul[s], amend [our] ways and deeds ...' Or we can ignore its message.

When the alarm clock blares early each morning and wakes up, each one of us has a choice: we can turn it off and roll over to go back to sleep ... or we can turn it off and get up to start another day. Each one of us has to make that choice for ourself and live with the consequences. So think about the shofar ... think about the call of the shofar ... think about when the shofar sounds. Think about how you will respond when the 'Spiritual Alarm Clock' sounds and spiritually wakes you up.

You can ignore it. Or you can heed it and obey it ... you can 'arise' and ask yourself Hillel's famous questions: If not now, then when? And if not me, then who?" And then you can find the answers to his questions and your questions. You can ask yourself, "Who am I? Why did G-d create me? Am I doing what G-d created me to do (and if not, why not)?" It's not really easy asking yourself questions like these. It's definitely not easy finding answers to questions like these! But is it worth it? I think so ... Rambam and Hillel thought so (and they knew what they were talking about!) ... I think G-d thinks so too.

It's so easy to drift through life ignoring the call of the shofar ... ignoring the greater call of G-d ... protected by apathy against the realities and difficulties of life. I have to admit that the older I get, the more attractive apathy appears! It keeps me from too much enthusiasm, but it also saves me from too much disappointment. It keeps me from too much joy, but it also saves me from too much pain. It keeps me from too much living, but ... um, but that's the problem, isn't it? It keeps me from too much living.

The life G-d has given me - has given each of us! - to live is painted in colour, all the colours of an artist's palette, all the lights and darks of enthusiasm and disappointment ... joy and pain. But living with apathy is like living with a pair of sunglasses on, through which we view the canvas of life in black and white. Do you know how many shades of blank and white there are? There are a lot, but they're essentially all a variation on a common theme: black and white. They lack the joy and variety of blues and pinks and greens and golds. They lack the warmth and depth of reds, browns and greys. Black and white is just that ... black and white. No more. And yet ...

It's easy to yearn after the protection of apathy ... the safety of black and white. I know it is! In the same way, it's easy to yearn after the protection of the silence and ignorance that the call of the shofar shatters. It's easy to yearn after the safely of not asking too many questions ... of not trying to find answers. Maybe it's 'just' apathy that provokes such a yearning. Or maybe it's fear ... because black and white is safe and ... predictable. Asking Hillel's famous questions is not 'safe'. And finding the answers is not predictable! It requires the removal of the sunglasses and the experiencing of all the colours of the Artist's palette ... and perhaps it's just too risky, too unpredictable.

Perhaps it is. Undoubtedly it is risky and unpredictable. But too risky and unpredictable? Look at that question in the light of Deuteronomy 30:19: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you might live, you and your descendants."

G-d is in the business of creating and giving life. Fundamentally, He created each one of us and He gives us physical life for every moment that we are physically alive. In addition, He has given us eternal life ... even when our physical life ends, He ensures our spiritual life continues for eternity. As if that wasn't enough, Yeshua says in John 10:10: "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly."

G-d has given us, through Yeshua, abundant life ... He's painted the canvas of life with a riot of colours ... and yet all too often we insist on ignoring the call of the shofar, refusing to take the sunglasses off and look at the colours as they really are, looking at a black and white impression of the life G-d has given us. Even though He's set before us 'life and death' and has commanded us to 'choose life'

These High Holy Days, I will hear the shofar sound. So will you. So will hundreds of thousands of our people around the world ... from New York to London to Jerusalem, the shofar will sound.

Its message for this generation is the same as it was for past generations: Something is happening! G-d is at work in the world and in your life! Are you awake and paying attention?!?

It doesn't matter whether you are thirteen or twenty-three or fifty-three or ninety-three (or one hundred and three!). When the shofar sounds, don't ignore its call ... or G-d's call. For me, I believe it is: Hear the shofar's call and don't ignore it. Find out who you really are and what G-d created you to do. Take off the sunglasses. Experience - and enjoy! - all the colours of the Artist's palette, painted on the canvas of your life. Look at the canvas of life as it really is. 'Arise'... be enthusiastic and joyful, overcome fear and live life to the full. Choose life ... and live it abundantly!

Judith Allen, Tishrei 5768