How significant are the sounds of the Shofar?
Compiled by Rabbi Mordechai Z. Hecht
Shofar introduction
The Shofar -- the traditional horn, although it comes in but one bent shape, it comes in various sizes, it’s the rams horn or a goats horn we blow on Rosh Hashanah (except when the holiday falls out on Shabbat) and at the end of Yom Kippur in the synagogue.
The question is, how important and how significant are these shofar sounds? Come to think of it, there is nothing else like it in the entire Jewish calendar. In Judaism we have Prayers, Torah study or hands on mitzvoth, this is the only musical/instrumental mitzvah of it’s kind, which is practiced in our days, in the exile – when we are not united in Jerusalem with a Temple.
30 DAYS OF SHOFAR SOUNDING
Did you know that not only do we blow shofar on the above mentioned holidays but there is also a wide spread custom to blow Shofar one month proceeding these holidays. In the entire Hebrew month of Elul there is a common custom to blow shofar each day in the morning after services. In fact some Sephardic Jews have a custom to blow shofar as well at Selichot – the additional morning supplications, recited also 30 days prior to and leading up to the High Holidays.
THE DIFFERENCE
The question that arises in this regard is, what is the difference between the shofar sounding on the Holidays and the shofar sounding during the month of Elul? If we blow Shofar already for 30 days so what’s so special about the shofar sounding on Rosh Hashanah?
THE NAMES & THE SOUNDS
The reason why we blow Shofar in the month of Elul is because, like Moshe our leader, when he went up to the Mountain at Mt. Sinai it was accompanied by the blowing of the Shofar. The foolwing days were special days of acceptance by G-d, so the sages (The Tur and the Bach explain) enacted these days to blow shofar each day.
Rosh Hashanah Is the day of the Coronation of the King (G-d), we blow shofar both as a way of up lifting ourselves in holiness, as Moshe did, as well as a way of ushering in the New Year and G-d as King - with Shofar sounds - like bugle sounds.
To truly understand, however the difference between the sounds of the shofar of the month of Elul and the sound of the shofar of Rosh Hashanah we need to first explain the sounds themselves and their sequences.
There are in fact three classic sounds we produce on the Shofar, these three sounds are named and classified by the sages of the Talmud.
1) The Tekiah, which is the long, straight, unbroken blast. 2) The Shevarim, which is the 3 part burst sound and then there’s the 3) Teruah, the nine part - burst sound.
Tekiah means: rooted. Every sound sequence begins with this sound because it is the root of the other sounds; like a branch from a tree trunk which is rooted in the ground. It is a sound of strength. Man is compared to a tree, as a tree needs watering, and pruning and care, so too man needs care to assure it’s growing in the proper way.
Shevarim means: broken into pieces - a staccato like sound, as it’s root, "shin-bet-resh," – shever -- "to break," implies, a sound of brokenness. It is a sigh, a sound of despair. The despair is over the distance felt from Hashem, caused by our sins. In light of the above analogy – we are broken over the fact that we have strayed from our root and “broken” away.
Teruah means: a wave like sound, well unfortunately, the meaning of the "Teruah" is unclear. The Talmud considers three possibilities for its meaning: the 1) "Shevarim," 2) the sound which we call the "Teruah," and 3) the sound which we call the "Shevarim-Teruah." Sorry if I lost you there but that’s true. The actual notes which we are to sound on the Holiday is unbeknownst to us in its exact form – so we blow various different ones to cover all our bases.
THE NINE PRIMARY SOUNDS
The Talmud, in Rosh HaShanah 34a, explains that the nine blasts on Rosh Hashanah (and perhaps a parallel can be drawn to their 10 sequence derivative of Elul) are derived from a combination of three separate verses dealing with the shofar (Vayikra (Leviticus) 25:9, 23:24; Bamidbar (Numbers) 29:1). Taking all three verses together, we find the word TERUAH mentioned three times; this accounts for the three TERUOS. The TEKIAH before each TERUAH is derived from the verse: “And you shall sound the shofar, a TERUAH”... (Vayikra 25:9). Here we see that preceding the TERUAH there is a simple sounding of the shofar, i.e., extended and unvaried, for it is referred to simply by the word “shofar”. After the TERUAH we again find that there is to be a simple sounding of the shofar, for the verse continues: “You shall sound the shofar”. Thus there are nine blasts in all - TEKIAH, TERUAH, TEKIAH, sounded three times. These, then, are the blasts of the scriptural order. (Rosh HaShanah Machzor, Metzudah Publications)
Another possible reason that the “Teruah” and “Shevarim” have to be within – in between- the two "Tekiot" is that a sigh is considered destructive; it can break the body. It emanates from the heart and crushes the heart. Without the uplift of the "Tekiot," the root sound - the effect would be to leave us in a state of depression. So we continually return to the Tekiah - to root – to continually redirect us and reassure that we are always connected – we just need to get back on board the train, if you wish to draw life from that analogy.
THE SEQUENCE OF THE MONTH OF ELUL
It is explained that the sounds we blow in the month of Elul are in the following amount and sequence.
The total sequence is 10. We blow 10 soundings of the above three general sounds. These 10 soundings correspond to the 10 powers of the soul. The shofar sounding is intended to give you an early and general wake up call to do Teshuvah – to return to G-d and the rightoues ways.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe in one of his earliest Talks in the 1950’s explained the sounding of the Shofar which we blow in the month of Elul with the following analogy.
A train, when it wants it’s passengers to know it is leaving the station it blows a horn, and it blows it’s horn again and again, in order to signal the passengers it’s really ready to go. When the passengers don’t seem to get moving and are not taking the train-leaving seriously the train begins to move a tad and only then do the passengers take it seriously. Only then do the passengers really get moving fast and on to the train. The concept here is that man must always be in a state of returning, always looking to strive for perfection and mend their ways, and must always look to get on the train and move forward, on a forward journey. So, the month of Elul is exactly this. We blow the horn/Shofar to get people into the mood and to arouse them to get moving on their way closer to G-d, for after all, doesn’t the verse state: “When one blows the sound in the city will the nation not tremble – ie. be in awe”?! (Amos 3,6) --no one ever wants to miss a train—and we are all in awe when the big locomotives blow those loud horns.
The Torah offers us 40 days to prepare ourselves for the great day of Yom Kippur.
40 days the Jews were in the dessert before they received the Torah at Mt. Sinai
40 days Moses was atop the Mountain before returning and bringing the Torah to Jewish people below.
40 days the Floods of Noach covered the earth with rain to purify the world of it’s impurities.
40 Saah – a measurement of water (aprox. 230 gallons) is the size of a ritual bath - Mikvah that women and men use to bring them from a state of impurity into a renewed state of purity.
Apparently 40 is the number of progression and returning.
These 40 days are divived by 30 days of Elul, Rosh Hashanah, The 10 days of returning –the first 10 days of the month of Tishrei and then ultimately Yom Kippur.
THE SEQUENCE OF ELUL & THE SEQUENCE OF ROSH HASHANAH
So what we are left then is why the 10? We already mentioned that the 10 is corresponding to the 10 powers of the soul. But what does that mean? What are the 10 powers of the soul and why do they have sounds that correspond to it?
Well the 10 powers of the soul are one of the primary building blocks (of understanding) the Universe, from a Chassidic and Kabbalistic perspective. The world is basically divided into 10 spiritual spheres by which the Divine energy progresses and gradually goes through an order and sequence and succession from total spirituality until materialism and corporeality. 10, representing the steps of this order of succession.
Corresponding to these lofty and universal cosmic powers are the 10 macro-cosmic powers that exist within every one of us. 10 powers which are the basic building blocks of our Psyche our energy and our lives in general.
10 EYES – 100 EYES ANALOGY
So putting it succinctly by way of a wild analogy, if I were to wake you up you would need to open both your eyes to that say you were awake, and showing it to me. Imagine 10 eyes of the soul, the shofar needs to wake up and cause the opening of all 10 eye lids, or ears or nostrils. The “shofar 10” is doing its job in this month of Elul to wake us up on a general level –what we do when we wake up is our prerogative. Meaning these 30 days are not Rosh Hashanah they are not days of prayer and or fasting or prohibited to do work, but they are still days we need to open our eyes and ears and nostrils and see our misdeeds, hear our wrong doings, and sense the misdeeds we have done this whole past year.
WHY 100 on ROSH HASHANAH
So why do we blow 100 sounds on Rosh Hashanah? This is because Rosh Hashanah is a specific cleansing of the soul –vibration therapy – the 100 sounds affect and purify the 10 attributes within each of the 10 attributes the totality of each attribute. Elul is a general returning, the wakeup call – Rosh Hashanah is the day we are preparing for.
A STAIR CASE ANALOGY – A SPIRAL STAIR CASE
By way of analogy of a staircase if you have stair case of 10 steps and then you have a landing and then another staircase of 10 steps bringing you all the way up the building or down the building, for that matter, each set of stairs has a set amount of steps that make up the stair case. The 10 powres of the soul are each made up of 10 inner powers and attributes, these inner ones are only deeply cleansed and affected on Rosh Hashanah itself – with the initial help and preparation performed in the days leading up to the great day.
We can even say that these steps are like spiral staircases, that when you’re on one step you can’t always see the next one, because its bent, but the shofar which is bent as well can easily adjust to the necessary curves in the steps and can adjust to any bending needed to rectify the misdeeds and flaws of the past year in your inner character and dynamic.
100 SOUNDS ON ROSH HASHANAH
It is widespread custom to sound the shofar one hundred times on Rosh Hashanah - including tekiot, shevarim and teruot. These hundred sounds are considered symbolic of the one hundred and one letters contained in the lament of Sisera's mother as she awaited her son's return from the battlefield as recorded in the Song of Devorah (Judges, 4).
The relationship of the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and the lament of Sisera's mother bears further explanation. Furthermore, if this is the source of the custom of sounding the shofar more times than required, why do we not sound it one hundred and one times?
The purpose of the sounding of the shofar is to arouse G-d's compassion for the descendants of Yitzchak who was offered like a ram upon the altar, whereas the lament of Sisera's mother was an expression of grief suffused with animosity and hatred. Waiting for her son to return from the battlefield, she imagined that he was busy slaughtering and taking spoils and it was through thoughts such as these that she sought to console herself. Can there be greater cruelty?
Therefore, we implore: May the one hundred shofar sounds of compassion and mercy nullify every one of those other outcries -except one: the sorrow of a mother over her son. For even the most brutal of mothers is deserving of compassion when she laments her son. Thus, we sound a hundred sounds and not one hundred and one.
Among Sephardic communities, an additional tekiah is sounded before the recital of Alenu at the end of Musaf, for a total of one hundred and one shofar sounds. This corresponds to the numerical value of the letters of the name Michael, Israel's guardian angel who seeks mercy on their behalf
Appendix: Stochastic Synchronization & The Shofar Sounds
Over the past decade researchers have finally begun to understand how, the basic insight, loosely described as the BROWNIAN RATCHET PRINCIPLE, is that random noise can be put to good use. The trick is to rectify the noise, to filter out the randomness you do not want so you are left with what you do want. This principle resembles the phenomenon known as the STOCHASTIC SYNCHRONIZATION, whereby increasing the noise in communications channel can actually make it easier to transmit a signal, (remember internet dial up noise).
These principles have been developed to the point that a professor at Lund University in Sweden, Heiner Linke, have used “Triangular quantum dots” which acted as ratchets because it was harder for electrons to squeeze through the vertex, when an oscillating voltage modulated this built in bias, a net current flowed. The triangles caused the electrons to flow out of the vertex. Triangles because it was harder from them to go back (like water in sink drain and trap, sort of, which is designed to keep water from backing up into the sink).
Perhaps we can draw a parallel between these principles and THE SHOFAR SOUNDING PRINCIPLE and say, by blowing the sound of the shofar, it actually has a subconscious motor-neuron effect in our chemicals in our body actually affecting us more than we know. What’s left is for us to chose how to us that newly awakened energy, wisely and beneficially.
Based on this parallel, the shape of the shofar is exact as well, like a triangular shape, once the sound and energy is produced out, it is much harder to go back, because of the bend in the vertex…think about it on a molecular level. Straight horns are not kosher for shofar, only bent ones.
Just a brief side note: It is the “ion pump”, a protein the pushes electrically charged particles through a cell membrane which are the cause of the electrochemical gradients in the membranes which cause life.
The challenge in life is to use the ion pumps properly to cause the energy to travel through the ion channel in the right direction. A hill may allow for a car to roll in the opposite direction, it needs an opposite force to push it up hill – that’s the sounds – the sound of the shofar helping to push you up hill. Like the sounds of a bugle or drums in battle inspiring and motivating the soldier to move forward successfully.
Think about this – it’s real hard science. The shofar part is real hard Torah. Together we have at least areal cute idea and picture.