Skip to main content

Elul

Tonight begins Rosh Chodesh Elul, the new moon.

Starting on Sunday every morning services will end with the blowing of the shofar as a reminder that Rosh HaShanah and all of the internal work we need to do to prepare is soon coming.

My father died on the fourth day of Elul. Those of you who grew up in Quincy remember his shofar blowing. He was a powerful shofar blower.

The year after my father died our rabbi asked if anyone in our household blew shofar. I volunteered. Since then, every day during the month of Elul I run through the blasts.  First I go through the shofar blasts on the tan shofar and then on the black one.

The tan one is HARD to blow. The black one is ugly but is easy to blow and produces the sharp shrill sounds I remember my father producing.

When my mother was still alive I used to call her before I practiced. I would ask her if she wanted to hear me blow shofar. She always said yes.  I would  put down the phone and go through the blasts. When I would be done, my mother would usually be weeping and then she would thank me for letting her listen to me practice.

Each time I practice I remember watching my father as he blew shofar. I also remember blowing shofar with my mother at the other end of the phone.


There is something so deeply satisfying about going through this month of my father's death visiting this task he did so well each day of the month.


I try to blow so that the blast vibrates in the chests of the people davening in the same room with me. I try to blow so that even the people sitting in the very back of the balcony feel it in their bones. I think about how no matter who is blowing the shofar, you just want their blasts to be true and strong. In a deeply primitive way the calls of the shofar are carrying the prayers of the community. You just want that message to be delivered clearly.

When I stand up to blow shofar on Rosh HaShanah I often think of my body as a hollowed out tube whose job it is to deliver the prayers of everyone in the room. It's a profound experience. I am fortunate to be able to do it.

Wishing all of you a meaningful Elul.

Comments

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee.  If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it.    My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid.  I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed.   A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee  and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...
1 comment
Read more

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

 I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night.  I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1)  אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה  God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2)  אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר   May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3)  יָאֵר יְהֹ...
8 comments
Read more

A Passover loss

 My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of  linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin.  You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...
2 comments
Read more