The Shofar: A Source of Memory and Meaning

Rosh Hashanah is called Yom Teruah, the day of the sounding of the horn. But what instrument fulfills this mitzvah? The Torah itself does not specify, entrusting the Oral Torah (Torah she’ba‘al peh) to provide clarification.

The sages located their proof in the laws of the Jubilee year (sh’nat ha-yovel), which was inaugurated on Yom Kippur of the fiftieth year with the sounding of a horn:

“You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the shofar loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the Day of Atonement…” (Leviticus 25:8–9).

While the association between Rosh Hashanah and the shofar likely predates this verse, it provided rabbinic confirmation. Still, a question lingered: what kind of horn qualifies as a shofar?

The Mishnah preserves a debate:

All shofarot are acceptable except that of a cow, because it is a keren [horn]. Rabbi Yossi said: But aren’t all shofarot called keren, as it says, ‘And when a long blast is sounded on the keren yovel’ (Joshua 6:5)?” (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:2).

For Rabbi Yossi, the very fact that the ram’s horn at Jericho was called a keren yovel proved that the categories overlap. If so, even the horn of a cow should be valid.

The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 26a), however, rejects Rabbi Yossi’s view. On a technical level, the structure of a cow’s horn differs from that of acceptable animal horns. But the discussion does not stop there. The Talmud adds a striking theological reason: a cow’s horn evokes the sin of the Golden Calf. On Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment, when Israel stands before God pleading for mercy, it would be inappropriate to sound an instrument that recalls the nation’s greatest betrayal (the story of the golden calf). As the principle states: “ein kategor na’aseh sanegor – one does not turn the prosecutor into the defense attorney.” The very blast intended to plead for forgiveness would instead serve as an accusation.

This shift from legal taxonomy (keren vs. shofar) to theological memory (the shadow of the calf) demonstrates how rabbinic halakhah is never just about form, it is also about meaning. The shofar is not merely an instrument of sound; it is an instrument of memory for us and for God as well. We want its plaintive cry to carry with it forgiveness and redemption, hope and renewal.

This lesson endures beyond the High Holy Days. The shofar reminds us that sound and symbols can stir memory, for good and for bad with the potential to shape our moral and spiritual lives all year long, indeed, our destinies.