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Rav Haim Lifshitz

 

 

 

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Tekiat Shofar

 

 

 Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai

 

  

Kol – A Point of Encounter:

Expression and Awareness Without Speech

The Object

Kol – Pnimiut

The Inner Self

Subjective Expression

 

“From heaven He made you hear kolo, His (sound) voice…and You made them hear the splendor of kolcha, Your (sound) voice, and the commandments of Your sanctity from the flames of fire.  With kolot (sounds) thunders and lightnings over them were You revealed, and bekol, with a sound of shofar over them you appeared …and there was kolot (sounds) thunders and lightnings…and the kol, sound of a shofar was very strong…and all the nation that was in the camp trembled.  And the kol, sound of the shofar grew increasingly very much stronger.  Moshe would speak and God would answer him bekol (with sound) aloud, and all the nation were seeing the kolot (sounds) thunders.”  Encounter.

 

And in Tehilim (47) we find:  “God has risen with truah, a shattered/exulting/shouting sound.  God in the sound of shofar.”  (He has descended from the seat of judgement and risen to the seat of compassion.)  “With trumpets and a sound of shofar, shout for the king, God.”  Recognition on the part of the people.  Tiku bahodesh shofar.  “Blow a shofar long, in the month.”  And in Tehilim 150: “Praise Him with tekiat shofar, long-blowing of shofar, praise Him with harp and violin:”  After the connection has been made by the shofar, comes the stage of fulfillment and identification, through composite sounds that contain meaning and message.  Le’atid lavo, at a time yet to come.

 

Yeshayahu: (18)  “All inhabitants of civilization and all dwellers of earth” – recognition by all the nations – “like mountains lift a banner, you will see, vechitkoa shofar, and like a shofar is long-blown, you will hear, and it will be on that day, yitaka beshofar gadol, there will be long-blowing with a great shofar…Hashem beshofar yitka, God, with a shofar, will blow long.”

 

Bamidbar: (10)  And in your festival times and in your beginnings of months, utka’atem, you will blow long on the trumpets on the day of your happiness.”

 

And in Hana’s prayer: “Only her lips would move, and kola, her (sound) voice would not be heard.”

 

Kol Hashem, “God’s(sound) voice.”   Kol demama daka, “a delicate sound of stillness.”  Recognizing the pnimiut, the inner being of the Godly Presence that  has been evoked.

 

Melachim I:19: “And behold God’s word [came] to him:” A dialogue develops between Eliyahu and God.  God says: “And you will stand in the mountain before God, and behold God passes by, and a great and powerful wind breaking boulders…Not in the wind is God.  And after the wind, an earthquake.  Not in the earthquake is God.  And after the earthquake, fire.  Not in the fire is God.  And after the fire, a delicate sound of stillness…”

 

And in Tehilim 19: “The heavens tell of the glory of God:”  “There are no speech and no words, unheard is kolam, their (sound) voice” on the one hand.  Yet on the other hand, kol Hashem ahl hamayim, “God’s (sound) voice is over the waters…thundering over many waters, kol Hashem bakoah, God’s (sound) voice is in might…breaking cedars…igniting flames of fire…will cause the desert to tremble.”

 

With Adam HaRishon: Et kolcha, “Your (sound) voice I heard…and I feared.”

Kol Hashem.  God’s sound, God’s voice: How is it possible?

 

The sound of the shofar according to the Maharal in Hidushei Agadot, section one, Tractate Rosh Hashana11:2, learns a distinction from the kabala between the Torah’s instruction litkoa, to blow long, tiku bahodesh shofar, “blow long a shofar during the month,” and bayom hahu yitaka beshofar gadol, “on that day there will be blowing long upon a great shofar,” which is said of the ge’ula, the redemption: The shofar is redemption of the spirit, or of the physical/emotional life force, just as the yovel is for redemption of the slaves.

 

Why?  It would appear that the shofar is an intervention in nature and a bringing of nature to life, as in vayipah be’apav nishmat haim, “and He blew into its nose the breath of life, and the human became a living physical/emotional life force,” leaving behind its enslavement to the mechanical, arbitrary laws of nature, to take initiative.

 

“Whoever sees a shofar in a dream – should await the redemption.” (Brachot 56)  Going forth to freedom.

 

“Elokim – midat hadin – has risen in truah, Hashem – midat harahamim – in the sound of shofar.  Descending from the seat of judgement, God rises to seat Himself upon the seat of midat harahamim.

 

Midat hadin – Elokim – nature.  Midat harahamim – going beyond nature, in the merit of tekiat shofar, the long-blowing of the shofar, which is an action that diverges from nature – and this is the difference between yira and ahava.

 

Haran, in Rosh Hashana 16:  Regarding the reason why human beings are judged on Rosh Hashana, he brings a psikta – Piska 23, in the name of Rabi Elazar, d’tania – who taught:  “On the twenty fifth of Elul, the world was created, and on Rosh Hashana, man was created.  At the first hour, alah bamahshava, it rose in God’s Thought, at the second hour, God advised with the malachim.  At the third, He gathered his dust.  At the fourth, He bounded him.  At the fifth, He fashioned his texture.  The sixth, He made his raw material form.  At the seventh, He threw soul into him.  At the eighth, He brought him into Gan Eden, the “garden of pleasingness.”  At the ninth, he was commanded not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge.  At the tenth, he gave off a rotten stench.  At the eleventh, he was judged.  At the twelfth, he came out acquitted.  Said the Holy Blessed One to him:  ‘This is a sign to your children: Just as you stood in judgment before me on this day, and you came out acquitted, so in future will your children be standing before me in judgment on this day, and they will come out acquitted.’  Here we find that on the day of Rosh Hashana, teshuva was revealed to the human.”

 

 

 

A Labyrinth Dream

A labyrinthian maze indicates confusion, a lack in the feeling of ability to cope with reality.  There are two realities – the natural and the Godly.  In continuation of our discussion on various attitudes to religion, tekiat shofar is leaving the labyrinthian maze and shaking off the shackles of natural reality, which is first perceived as pristine logic, and then revealed as absolute absurdity.

 

In contrast to this reality, the Jewish religion contains law-governed order and method possessing pristine logic and laws.  However, the only possible way that these can be discovered is by breaking the barrier of nature.  This is the purpose of tekiat shofar – which holds nature, the ram’s horn, and beyond nature, the tekia.

 

Kol demama daka, “a delicate sound of stillness” expresses a consciousness and an awareness of self, of quality – this is the goal of teshuva.  The means to this goal – the calling out, on one’s own initiative.  This is tekia, which connects and which serves as an encounter between the Godly voice (the Godly initiative) and the human voice.

 

Confusion is caused by a betrayal of one’s qualitative pnimiut, and a surrender to the external-material, mechanical mechanism.  As opposed to the survival mechanism, which, lacking goal, is propelled by the Sysiphusian mechanism, tekiat shofar is a focusing on the goal.

 

 

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