A Song for the Year Ahead

Last night, I went to a powerful shiur about the shofar. What, she asked, do you think about when the shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah? Are you focused on your hopes and dreams for the year ahead? Do you hear it like a foreboding blast, representing Gd’s judgement of our behavior for the past year? Do you see it like the coronation of a king, heralding in the year ahead?

She explained that it’s possible to see the shofar as connecting us to the past, present and future. It’s connected to remembrance – the remembrance of Akeida Yitzhak (the sacrifice of Isaac), the remembrance of Har Sinai (the giving of the 10 commandments at Sinai), and more. It’s connected to the present – Maimonides describes the shofar’s blast as a call to current spiritual awakening. It’s connected to the future – the shofar represents the coronation of Gd as our King; it also represents the idea of the ingathering of the exiles, of people returning to Israel and to redemption.

These ideas made me think of my own feelings and actions surrounding the shofar’s blast. I was surprised by my internal answer and the connections the conversation brought up for me.

I experience my most spiritual moments of the year during the shofar’s blows and during a wedding ceremony.

During a wedding ceremony, there is always a time when we stop our joyous celebration to remember the destruction of the Temple and our yearning for Jerusalem to be complete again. As it says in Tehillim 137, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue cling to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.” I was once told that this is a time to ask for personal and national prayers.

I find the same heightened spirituality while “Im Eshkachech Yerushalayim” is sung under the chuppah and while the shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah. During these moments, I always feel Gd’s presence, I feel/see a white light of connection between the earthly sounds and the heavens. Just as Rosh Hashanah connects us to the past, present and future, I feel the same connection during a chuppah. We sing about the Temple’s destruction and our dispersion (past), while watching this beautiful young couple come together (present), for the future they will build (in our case) in Jerusalem and the hills surrounding it.

These moments of song and shofar connect me deeply to our people, our shared history, our current desires and needs, and our future pleas. We have a shofar in the house, displayed prominently, that one of our dear friends gifted us at our wedding. I look at it now and think about what a beautifully appropriate gift the shofar is for a wedding and how deeply connected the sounds and actions experienced at these emotionally-charged moments are.

My tefillah as we approach Rosh Hashanah is that the shofar may stir something beautiful in all of us. That it should connect us to our roots, enable us to connect to Gd and each other in the present, and allow us to pray for health, safety, family, love, and all our desires and needs for the future.

May it be a beautiful year ahead. A year heralded in with the blasts of the shofar; a year that brings us to many, many weddings to build our people and our Land.