Some shofar thoughts

I have had the honor of blowing shofar at my synagogue since the year my father died. I practice during the entire moth of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah.

When I practice, I do a run through with each of the shofarot you see here. One was a bar mitzvah gift given to my nephew, the other was a bar mitzvah gift given to my son. The black one is easy to blow. the paler one is difficult to blow.

Each time I practice I do a run though first with the difficult shofar and then with the easy one.

We Jews like rules. There are lots of rules about shofar blowing.

I try to blow with the same power that my father did.

As a small child I was told that the three different sounds of the shofar correspond to a wail, and then sobs and finally completely broken up sobbing.

This year I learned something new. I learned that the long blast represents God's mercy and the shorter blasts represent God's judgement.

I can produce a long shofar blast. A previous year I read that one needs to make all of the blasts exactly the same length. For a while I worked on perfecting that skill.

This year, I believe that we all need a greater degree of mercy than we do of judgement. So when you hear me blow the shofar this year, it will be with a long, long blast for mercy.

My role as a shofar blower is a complicated one. It isn't a performance. I want the sound to be felt inside the bodies of the people in my congregation. When you hear a good shofar blower, at first you hear the sound but when the sound is sustained you begin to feel the sound reverberating in your chest.

My task is also to somehow send the hopes and prayers of my community up to the great Divine. It's a powerful honor

Shabbat Shalom!

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