Filling the Silence of the Shofar with Hard Truths
There’s a silence that washes across the congregation as the shofar’s cry reverberates across the sanctuary on Rosh Hashanah. According to Rambam, the call of the shofar is supposed to rouse us to change, but what it isn’t very clear is what we’re supposed to do while we listen to the shofar, or what it is about the shofar that is supposed to inspire that internal change in any distinct way from the Vidui confessional prayers we recite throughout the season. Though we aren’t supposed to speak while we listen to the shofar’s cry, we are called to fill that silence — our silence — with something. But with what?
The Torah describes Rosh Hashanah as a “Yom Teruah,” a day of Teruah, and the sages of the Talmud discuss the sound of the cry of the Shofar and its Biblical source. According to Abaye, the source for the sound of the Teruah blast is, confoundingly, the whining of the mother of Sisera.
Sisera was a Canaanite army commander who went to war against the Israelites in the Book of Judges and was killed while his mother eagerly awaited his victorious return. “Through the window, peered Sisera’s mother,” as she waited for him to return home, but as time went on “Sisera’s mother wailed”, sensing that something was wrong. What is particularly heartbreaking about the way that she cried is that instead of decidingly mourning her son. Instead of falling silent as Aaron did at the news of the death of Nadav and Avihu, Sisera’s mother asks questions as she cries. “Why is his chariot taking so long? Why can’t I hear the clatter of his wheels?”
Her world is unraveling. Her expectations are crumbling. Her happily ever after is warping into a dark tragedy, but she can’t bring herself to admit it — not yet. Instead, she comes up with excuses for his lateness. “They must be dividing the spoils they have found…spoils of dyed cloth for Sisera…”
Life is full of questions that we don’t ask ourselves, sometimes because we don’t want to address them. Or, more painfully, because we already know the answers and don’t want to say them out loud.
On Rosh Hashanah we are laid bare and vulnerable before God’s scrutiny, but we’re also supposed to be laid bare and vulnerable before our own. Abaye’s suggestion that the source and inspiration for the Shofar’s cry is a woman asking herself heartbreaking questions implies that we should be doing the same. Especially those questions that we already know the answers to. Maybe the dream job that you have isn’t as good as you thought it would be, or the person you are dating actually isn’t right for you. Sometimes the life we planned for ourselves doesn’t go as planned and continuing to pretend otherwise will only hurt us in the end.
Through this process of reflection, we painfully and inevitably recognize that some of the beliefs that we have been carrying — and the beliefs that have been carrying us — are not true. And, like Sisera’s mother, we may fall apart. But sometimes, if a house has faulty foundations, it’s better to knock it down ourselves and rebuild it rather than let it collapse on top of us.
Still, engaging in this process without proper guardrails can be dangerous, which is why we inspire this change with a ram’s horn. According to Rabbi Abbahu, the reason we use a ram’s horn as a shofar is to remind God of the lengths to which Abraham went to obey the commandment to slaughter Isaac, with the hope that we reap some kind of benefit from the reward Abraham received for his obedience. But I wonder if the ram’s horn is also supposed to remind us of something.
I can only imagine the conflict, the pain, and the inescapable sense of unease that Abraham experienced approaching Mount Moriah — both as a Jew whose faith in a just and loving God was being put to the test by an impossible command — and as a father. And yet, just as Abraham was about to slaughter his son, an angel stopped him, and a ram appeared, taking Isaac’s place as a sacrifice. The ram became a sign for Abraham that everything was going to be okay. Maybe it should be the same for us.
Approaching Rosh Hashanah can feel like Abraham approaching Mount Moriah, preparing to make ourselves vulnerable, perhaps tearful and shaky, unsure of what will happen in the new year. And the experience of Rosh Hashanah can feel like Sisera’s mother realizing that the worlds we thought we knew were no more. But the shofar is our reminder that we will survive it — because just as much as God wants us to push ourselves to change, God also wants us to survive the experience. Just like God had faith in Abraham and was with him throughout his ordeal, God is with us in ours.
Real transformation is a result of painful self-scrutiny married to a healthy sense of faith in our own ability to survive that scrutiny. The former without the latter would leave us broken and vulnerable. The latter without the former would leave us empty and unchanged.
In the silence of the shofar blast, ask yourself the tough questions, and reckon with the hard truths you’ve refused to face. It will be hard, but God knows you will survive it.
