I find myself drawn to Rosh Hashana’s fascinating minhagim.
We don’t eat nuts because the word egoz has the same gematria as chet.
Many don’t nap on Rosh Hashana because they are worried about having a sleepy year. (Though hopefully an exception is made for those who daven vatikin.)
Later today we perform tashlich, where we symbolically cast our sins into a river
But I would like to discuss today a minhag that you may have noticed in the past. A minhag that will be performed in just a few moments. We have a peculiar practice of playing hide and seek with the shofar. As the bracha is recited the shofar is tucked under its cover, out of sight. We reveal the shofar only after making the bracha.
This minhag is not only strange, but it defies halachic norms. We generally recite a bracha as close as possible to the performance of the mitzva. We would never make a bracha on a tallit while it sits in the bag. We go out of our way to hold the etrog upside down because we know we can’t make the bracha while it rests in a case.
In fact, some poskim point to this inconsistency and reject the covered shofar minhag. The maintain that the shofar should be held high in the right hand during the recitation of the bracha.
But the minhag to cover the shofar has prevailed and has become almost universal.
(Allon, you better cover the shofar today or you’ll ruin this drasha.)
Why do we do this?
Why do we cover the shofar?
As I began researching this question, I came across some answers which seem borrowed from popular minhagim.
Like other customs this time of year, perhaps we are trying to confuse the Satan.
Others draw a parallel between covering the shofar and our weekly practice of covering the challah during kiddush. Just as we do not embarrass the challah by keeping it waiting, we don’t want to embarrass the shofar.
But the answer I would like to focus on today is based on a Midrash relating to the first appearance of the shofar in our history, at the end of Akeidat Yitzchak.
We will read the details tomorrow, but here is the CliffsNotes version: G-d tells Avraham to spare Yitzchak; he has passed the test.
The moment which follows cements the episode into Rosh Hashana lore: Avraham looks up and sees a ram caught in the thicket by its horn, he brings the ram in Yitzchak’s stead, and the image of the ram’s horn becomes a symbol for the Akeidat Yitzchak episode.
But the Midrash provides a twist in that final scene:
אמר הקב”ה לאברהם כשיחטאו בניך יתקעו לפני בשופר בר”ה ואני מכפר להם
G-d tells Avraham: when you descendants sin, they will blow the shofar before Me on Rosh Hashana, and I will forgive them.
How does Avraham respond?
אמר אברהם מהו שופר
Avraham says: “What is a shofar?”
What is a shofar!
Everyone in this building probably knows what a shofar is and how it is made, but it’s not so intuitive that the horn of an animal can be bored to create an instrument. The very fact that a ram’s horn can produce sound was a revelation to Avraham.
He sincerely asked- what is a shofar? He was unfamiliar.
אמר הקב”ה חזור לאחריך מיד וישא אברהם את עיניו וירא וכו
G-d tells Avraham to turn around, and Avraham lifts his eyes and sees
Avraham sees the ram, and G-d shares with him the secret. The ram is not just an animal to sacrifice, but its hollowed horn carries the secret to forgiveness.
This midrash, suggests Rabbi Baruch Rosenblum, explains why we cover the shofar during the brachot. We are recreating Avraham’s eureka moment. You and I know what a shofar is. Avraham did not. We reenact the dramatic revelation of the shofar by keeping it hidden until the final moment.
It seems fitting that we would try to inject some drama into this mitzva. All of us have heard the shofar blown before. We hear it during Elul, we heard it last Rosh Hashana, and we have heard it year after year after year. I had a chance to rehearse with Allon this week, and I look forward to what will hopefully be a great performance. But let’s be honest: the shofar is a simple instrument- no fingerholes, valves, or keys on it. I find it somewhat humorous when people discuss how wonderfully a baal tokeah performed. The performance has zero creativity; the goal is simply to minimize mistakes. You won’t hear a tekiah, shevarim, or teruahs on any top 10 songs or find the shofar played at any orchestras. From a musical perspective, the shofar is incredibly boring.
Of course, we all know some people who get excited by the shofar. We call these people children. I am blowing shofar at the groups later today, and if you have ever seen kids around the shofar, you know these kids will be jumping off the walls in excitement. Part of that is because kids love loud noises, but another part of it is that there is something taking place that is authentically exciting. Beginning a month ago, we have started a buildup to Rosh Hashana. As adults, we shift our attention to the details, which are often mundane. We think about our seats, the menu, and our outfits. Children don’t worry about that stuff. The shofar takes center stage on Rosh Hashana, and the innocent and worry-free children can appreciate the drama of the shofar.
Children appreciate the centrality of the shofar, Avraham appreciated the novelty of shofar, but for us, though we know the shofar symbolizes uri yisheinim mishinaschem (wake up sleepy ones from your slumber), we could not really imagine a more boring instrument to wake us from our slumber. The shofar and its predictable doo doo doo don’t exactly animate us. Our Sages understood this would be difficult, so we cover the shofar during the bracha to build the suspense and mark the significance of what we have been building up to this past month.
The challenge of combating our shofar fatigue is emblematic of a larger trend. It’s not just the shofar that becomes boring. Our religious lives stagnate. We are a religion of consistency, of tradition, of ritual. It is not difficult to generate a Jewish calendar running through the rest of our lifetimes: we have a predictable cycle of holidays, a weekly shabbat, set times to pray each day. There are no surprises. Our Judaism is traditional, predictable, and dare I say boring.
Our society tackles the issue of refreshing a process with something new. A sports team under-performs, they need a new coach. Every few years we need new cars, new phones, and new gadgets we never needed before. For some, the knee jerk reaction to a relationship beginning to stale is to find a new spouse.
On Rosh Hashana we don’t refresh by doing something new. We find newness within our tradition, in familiar rituals, and in an old fashioned shofar; we find newness in the old.
In Judaism we do not combat complacency and stagnancy by replacement. If we did, we would probably be blowing a flute this morning, or more likely after the millennia of change, we would have a full orchestra. The challenge is never to replace or even tweak with the mitzvot, but to find a way to bring them to life. To bring ourselves to life. We cover the shofar to remind ourselves not to get bored. Find ways to invigorate and liven up our performance of mitzvot.
The challenge is immense. Covering the shofar is not in it of itself the solution, but a reminder of the challenge and a reminder that the solution won’t come automatically.
Some of us have davened shemone esrei a thousand times this past year and tens of thousands of times in our lifetimes.
Can we really make that fresh?
Maybe we should just cover our siddur and pull off the cloth. Abra kadabra- davening is now exciting! Maybe it’s worth a try, but I don’t think that will be a sufficient solution.
We may have davened 1000 times, but for every single one of us, there is room to uncover another layer. I am embarrassed to admit that there are parts of davening that I have recited thousands of times that I cannot even translate. Instead of rushing through davening, choose a part to focus on. Think about what the words mean. Think about the relevance. As we recite the piyyutim during chazzarat hashatz, go about it differently than you have in the past. Choose a part of davening to uncover.
If you already know what the teffilot mean, find a commentary to read this year. You can find one of the many books published in the past few years at many bookstores and websites, or you can study one of the classics.
Choose a mitzva to uncover this year. If you have a technical mind, study its halachot. If you have courage, study its deeper philosophical underpinnings. If you want to feel its warmth, note the new Chassidic influence within modern orthodox communities like our own.
We are warned in our semicha classes that in 2019, our shiurim and drashas are compared to Rabbi Jonathon Sacks. Every one of you can listen to classes from world class speakers and read parsha sheets from incredibly creative thinkers. We may read the same 54 parshiot each year, but you can find fresh new material each year to uncover the weekly parsha and print enough parsha sheets to last a lifetime.
Every week a new book comes out. Every thirty minutes a new shiur goes up on YUTorah.org.
Uncovering our Judaism can take less than an hour of our week. If you don’t feel you have the time, you can glance at the commentary already printed in the chumashim and siddurim that you already use. Even a few seconds of thought can add meaning and freshness to our mitzvot. I recently began waiting just two or three seconds before making kiddush or havdala. These few seconds allow me to actually focus and think about entering and departing shabbat or yom tov. One of my colleagues began preaching that when we make a blessing on food, we should make sure our hands are not moving towards our mouth as we mutter the words.
Some may see Rosh Hashana as the day that an old-fashioned people blow a monotonous instrument. If we treat our religion as a boring, persistent set of rules and traditions, we have missed the message.
Uri Yishenim Mishnaschem- the call of the shofar is a call to wake us up from a slumberous Judaism.
May it be a year of health, happiness, and meaning for us all, as we use Rosh Hashana to uncover a deeper layer of inspiration for the year ahead.
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