The Shofar: A Call to Collective Responsibility

This year the sounds of the shofar are already landing differently for me. Unlike in years past, when the shofar’s blasts roused my soul as an atavistic war trumpet, I am now hearing this annual charge as a spiritual call to support those whose lives are being exhausted by hate and violence. The reverberations feel sourced in the ancient echoes of God’s breath into humanity, on the first Rosh Hashanah, desiring life and freedom; asking us to amplify and protect that holy spirit.

The Talmud teaches that we are meant to emulate God’s attributes; “Just as God is compassionate, so too you must be compassionate.” This framing prompts us to examine God’s nature and practices of kindness as the way to inform our own interpersonal relationships. It isn’t enough to simply treat each other as we would like to be treated; we must enhance our exchanges with each other until we treat people the way we imagine that God would treat each of us.

Although Adam is created as the lone human, God decrees, just a few verses later, “It is not good to be alone.” This movement from singular consciousness to communal responsibility teaches us that we have a duty to continually perfect the world for the benefit of others.

The shape of the shofar itself, too, models this shift from a preoccupation with the self to the wellbeing of the collective. One blows into the narrow end for the sound to be intensified as it travels through the wider opening. King David alludes to this transition in Psalms:  “מִֽן הַ֭מֵּצַר קָרָ֣אתִי… עָנָ֖נִי בַמֶּרְחָ֣ב יָֽ-הּ – from the dire straits I called upon God; God answered me with expansiveness.” In Hebrew, the word for “oppression” and “narrowness” are the same – “tzar” because it is our constrained focus on the self that causes all distress. 

The more we stretch our concerns to include each other, the more we liberate our souls from the confinement of our physical bodies. As Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me, BUT if I am for myself alone, what am I.” If I only care about myself, I trap myself within my own flesh and become less than a full human, a “what” not a “who.” 

Approaching Rosh Hashanah caught up in our self-inflicted narrowness, worrying only about our own success for the coming year, denies the purpose of creation and is about as productive as blowing into the wrong end of the shofar. It simply does not work.

Salvation comes by connecting ourselves to the outside world. The easiest way to avoid the pressure of being overwhelmed by our own suffering or sadness is to extend our care to the broadest margins of society. Paradoxically, this is best achieved by encountering each person as if they are the singular center of the universe, just as God did on the first Rosh Hashanah.

Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, known at the Alter of Slobodka, posits that our patriarch Abraham himself acquired this elevated level of kindness from his deep understanding of the Divine characteristic of individualized attention. Abraham was able to place his own physical pain aside, while recovering from circumcision, by running to provide for the three angels who appeared to him as travelers. The Talmud narrates that Abraham slaughtered three calves, one for each visitor, even though one calf clearly would have provided sufficient meat for all three guests. Abraham, though, did not just want to feed his guests. He wanted to supply each guest with the choicest portion, the tongue, so that each would know that Abraham was honoring him. Abraham learned from God’s act of creating a whole universe, for just one person, that it is important to approach each person as if they are their own universe. 

We, as students and descendants of Abraham, need to internalize the sounds of the shofar as the cries of other people’s suffering. When we hear each blast, representing so much pain in the world, it is meant to pierce through the walls that we have built to separate our connection to those who could use our help, rallying us to join organizations, collectives, and unions that serve as practitioners of this wisdom. Faith isn’t just a way for us to cope with our own personal struggles during difficult times, but rather it is the belief that by taking care of other people – God will take care of us.