Rabbinic Reflection: Rabbi Samuel Kaye

Wake up! 

This week at our Monday night senior school I had the great pleasure to help Cantor Rosen and Robin Malach teach our students how to blow the Shofar. Long before I gave them an instrument though, I asked them to answer a question for me. “Why do we blow the Shofar?” And, almost universally, they responded “Because it’s Rosh Hashanah!”  

And that’s a good answer… but I needed more! Yes, we observe traditions at their times and seasons because that is what makes a tradition a tradition! Is that enough? Shouldn’t we also want ritual to have meaning that speaks to this moment in our life!?  

I reminded our students that the Shofar is an alarm clock, but not for the mind or the body. It is a clarion call for the heart and for the soul! “You can do it,” says the Shofar, “you can make this year a good one.”  

From the lesson, we went into the practical. Teenagers are, as I’m sure you remember, a group that historically gets nervous about standing out. They especially don’t like to make mistakes or do things they may not be good at in front of their peers. And yet, in great number and with great enthusiasm, they enthusiastically volunteered to try to make a call bellow forth from one of humanity’s most ancient instruments.  

The Shofar is not an easy thing to master, several of them walked away a little dejected. At the same time, a cheer group also broke out amongst them whenever one of their friends would do well. When I offered to let the kids try out my own Shofar, which is an ibex horn that I purchased in Jerusalem, teens who had tried without success on the smaller rams horns lined up all over again! (And if you are among the parents who are thinking, that’s a lot of germs! Don’t worry, we sterilized them between uses.)  

I cannot tell you how inspiring it is to see our children enthused about this great and sacred mitzvah. It brought me back to my own childhood enthusiasm for the Shofar. My father served as a chaplain for many years. On Rosh Hashanah, after our morning at synagogue, he would take me with him to the hospital. There we would go from room to room, visiting the Jewish patients who couldn’t be at synagogue, and offering to let them hear the call of the shofar. In those days, before streaming services was a possibility, this gave hospitalized Jews a chance to feel as if they had not missed the holiday. 

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the first step in my road towards Jewish leadership. Who knows, perhaps for some of the young folks this last week, their journey toward a sacred calling has just begun!  

If you want to hear the call of the Shofar, and you can’t wait for Rosh Hashanah, come to morning Minyan for the remainder of the month of Elul.  

May it serve as the sacred awakening we all need this time of year.  

Shana Tovah U’metukah!