Shofar

Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav Kook

Shofar

(These moving remarks were made by HaRav A.Y. Kook, in Hurvath R. Yehudah HaHassid Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, on Rosh HaShanah 5694 (1933) - shortly after Hitler had come to power in Germany.)

SHOFAROTH

"And it shall come to pass in that day,/That a great horn shall be blown;/And they shall come that were lost in the land of Assyria,/And they shall worship the L-rd in the holy mountain at Jerusalem." (Isa. 27:13)

"Our G-d and G-d of our fathers, sound the great Shofar for our freedom..." (Tefillath Shofaroth - Musaf of Rosh HaShanah)

The prophet foretold that the shofar of Geulah (Redemption) would be a "great horn". And indeed it is for the sounding of a "great horn" that we pray.

For the shofar of Geulah exists on different levels: there is a great shofar, but there is also a middling shofar and a small shofar.

And the shofar of the mashiah - of the Geulah - is likened to the shofar of Rosh HaShanah.

The halakhah enumerates three different levels in relation to the shofar of Rosh HaShanah:

a) The mitzvah of the shofar of Rosh HaShanah should be fulfilled through the use of a ram's horn. (Shulkhan Arukh, Orekh Haim 586a)

b) Bede'eved all shofaroth are kasherim (ibid.)

c) A shofar made from a horn taken from an unclean animal, as also a shofar from animals used in idolatry or heathen worship is invalid, but if one sounds it he has fulfilled his obligation. And it is permissible to sound any shofar that is available if there is no shofar kasher, as long as no benediction is made. (v. Mishneh Brurah, op.cit.)

The three levels of the shofar of Rosh HaShanah which are enumerated by the halakhah parallel the levels on which the shofar of Geulah are to be found.

What, in truth, is the shofar of Geulah?

The purpose of that which we call the "messianic shofar" is to bring about an awakening, to serve as a drive, which will cause the rebirth and the redemption of the People of Israel. The sounding of the horn which will gather together the lost and the exiled, and bring them to the holy mountain in Jerusalem, is the call to awakening.

There has been in Israel at different times and today too, in the many and the few, an awakening and an aspiration whose origins lie in Kedushah (holiness) - in the ardent faith in G-d and the Torah, in the holiness of Israel and its mission, and in the desire to fulfill the will of G-d which is the whole and perfect Geulah of Israel. This is the great, the most excellent shofar - the zeal of a people to be redeemed out of the lofty desire to fulfill the great mission which cannot be accomplished while they are wretched and exiled.

There are those in whom the holy aspirations have weakened. They have not within them a passionate fervour for the lofty ideas of Kedushah. But there still remains man's healthy human nature. And its origins too lie in holiness. And this healthy human nature will bring about the natural desire in the nation to establish self-rule in its land, to rise up and be free, to live simple lives of freedom as do all peoples. This natural desire arising out of ordinary human patriotic emotion is the middling shofar - which is to be found everywhere.

This shofar too is kasher even though the mitzvah that is fulfilled at the higher level is greater and more complete. Nonetheless "bede'eved all shofaroth are kasherim".

There is, however, also a third level of messianic shofaroth. It too has a parallel in the shofaroth of Rosh HaShanah. This is the small, unfit shofar, which is blown out of necessity, when the shofar kasher of the first two levels is not to be found. If the holy fervour and the sumblime aspiration for Geulah which derives from it has been exhausted, if natural human patriotism and the desire to live as a nation with dignity is also gone - if it is not possible to sound a shofar kasher for Geulah - then the enemies of Israel will come and sound in our ears the signal for redemption.

They will force us to hear the sound of the shofar. They will sound the alarm, they will raise a clamour in our ears and allow us to find no rest in the Golah (Exile). The shofar of an unlcean animal is transformed into the shofar of the mashiah. Amalek, Pietlura, Hitler, and their ilk sound the awakening to Geulah.

And those who do not hearken to the sounding of the first great shofar, and whose ears are sealed so that they will not heed even the second, middling shofar - they will hear the unclean, the unfit shofar. Against their will, they will hear.

And they too will have fulfilled their obligations. This patriotism of the scourge, of the "calamities of the Jews", in it too lies redemption. However, there is no benediction upon this shofar - "no blessing can be made upon that in which there is malediction." (Mishneh Brakhoth, 6:4)

And so we pray that G-d will not bring us to the point where against our will we hear the unfit, unclean shofar. Nor, do we long to hear the sound of the ordinary, middling, almost wordly shofar.

We pray: "...sound the great Shofar for our freedom...",the shofar which rises out of the depths of the holiness of the soul of Israel, out of the holy of holies within us. Then there will be the whole and perfect Geulah.

(Excerpt taken from Me'Oroth HaRe'iyah LeYareah HaEitanim: An Anthology of the Writings of HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook on the Mo'adim of Hodesh Tishrei published by Machon HaRav Tzvi Yehuda, Jerusalem.)

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