Every year comes around, and we go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah to listen to the shofar.
We blow a ram’s horn as loud as we possibly can, let the sound reach the heavens as our eyes tear up, and know that this is somehow making a difference to the year to come.
The blessings, the challenges, all is decided, and in the middle there is the shofar.
The hundred blasts we blow, somehow making a world of difference.
The shofar is such a deep theme throughout this period that we sound it for a whole month in anticipation of the holiday.
And it is said that at the moment of the sounding of the shofar, Hashem rises from the throne of judgment and moves to the throne of kindness and mercy.
In some way, it seems to serve as a foundation for how we must begin our year.
Some sort of transformation must be elicited by this mitzvah. Some way in which we will be changed to take in the new light that descends at that moment to enliven the entire year ahead.
So what is it telling us?
How should we translate its message from the blasts it emits?
The Torah calls Rosh Hashanah Yom Teruah, “a day of Teruah,” and also Zikhron Teruah, “a remembrance of Teruah.”
I believe the shofar is here to remind us of something.
Something so foundational that it will hold us up throughout the coming year.
It has a language, if you will, through which it is loudly trying to transmit its message to us.
The most comprehensive stanza of shofar blasts is comprised, for our purposes, of four parts, though technically the two middle ones can be considered a single thing:
Tekiah: An opening, long, single blast
[ ───── ]
Shevarim: Three medium-length blasts
[ ── ── ── ]
Teruah: Nine or more short, staccato blasts
[ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ]
Tekiah: Another closing, long, single blast
[ ───── ]
Like a heavenly Morse code, I think these blasts are sharing a story.
Tekiah
The story begins with a single blast.
An existence of pure unity.
G-d.
There is one indivisible consciousness, with no room for separation or independent existence. Perfect in every way.
[ ───── ]
Shevarim
But then comes Shevarim.
Through a process described in Kabbalah, G-d created a vacuum where He then invested His light and consciousness in a continuously concealing and limiting process that ultimately results in this world and our limited perspectives, where unity is concealed behind a veil.
One of the crucial stages in that process is called Shevirat HaKelim, the breaking of the vessels.
This stage is seen as a spiritual root of fragmentation and multiplicity: reality becomes divided into separate, seemingly disconnected parts rather than appearing as one unified whole.
The concept of division emerges, and with it, the second step of the shofar’s story:
[ ── ── ── ]
Teruah
Intriguingly, some commentators associate the word teruah with ra (רע), evil. In this reading, ra carries the deeper sense of brokenness or fragmentation, and the teruah is precisely that: one sound shattered into many pieces.
Evil, from the Jewish perspective, is not its own independent existence, because everything comes from G-d. Rather, it is the result of a process of concealment that allows us to believe in the illusion of separation.
It is the way that the concept of separation in Shevarim becomes fully expressed.
Not in concept, but in reality.
A reality of division, multiplicity, and discord.
A reality where one can believe wholeheartedly in the false narrative that we are separate individuals, independent from each other and from G-d.
We may believe this to such an extent that it can even make sense to us to prioritize our own perceived benefit at the expense of someone else’s, whether that be another human being or G-d Himself.
What began as oneness now appears before us as division and selfishness.
[ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ]
It is at this point, dear reader, that you might think the story the shofar is screaming in our ears is a sad one.
A story of downfall, from a pristine, perfect reality of oneness and goodness to a failed, fallen state of division and strife.
But the shofar hasn’t said its last words just yet.
Tekiah
The shofar closes its narrative with one more paragraph.
One more Tekiah.
And in it lies the moral of the shofar’s story.
Tekiah shares its root with the word takuah, which means fixed or embedded.
The climax of the shofar’s story is the single note that reminds the universe that even after this process of disintegration into separation and even evil, after all that, it was all part of the process.
An elaborate illusion of multiplicity.
The reality has never changed.
It was “fixed” throughout.
Always One.
Always good.
Always part of the plan.
Every staccato blast is in reality the same breath, not a separate broken entity.
And soon, the Geulah (Redemption) will come.
With it, we will hear the Shofar Gadol, the last Tekiah Gedolah (Great Tekiah) inscribing it’s message in our hearts and opening our eyes, so we can truly see with our eyes of flesh.
On that day, we will truly see the oneness that has always been before us.
The story of the Shofar will have concluded.
[ ───── ]
So the story comes, as it were, to remind both Hashem and us (Zikhron Teruah) of this reality.
Hashem sits on the throne of judgment, and the shofar rises before Him with this story:
That everything He reviews in this world, every bit of negativity and failure He finds during His judgment, was always One, was always part of the plan, and will serve in some way to bring forth more light.
The Judge and the judged are one and the same at the core.
When this perspective is brought forth, He rises from the throne of judgment and sits upon the throne of mercy.
And we, too, have to remember.
Remember: you are not your brokenness, your mistakes, or your failures.
You are so much more.
And therefore, you should do everything you can to live up to that reality, in your thought, speech, and action, and in the way you see yourself.
Our job is to let go of that perception of ourselves and embrace our G-dly core.
To do Teshuvah, means to return.
To G-d.
To our true selves.
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Amazing! This is eyes opening!!!