Hearing Voices: The Sounds of Shofar

(1) And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no manner of servile work; it is a day of blowing the horn unto you.

(24) Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall be a solemn rest unto you, a memorial proclaimed with the blast of horns, a holy convocation.

As it is written: "it is a day of blowing horns for you," and we translate this: "it is a day of wailing for you." And it says regarding the mother of Sisera: "Though the window she gazed, and the mother of Sisera wailed." One held that this means a deep sigh, and one held this means wailing cries.

(1) And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying: (2) ’Make thee two trumpets of silver; of beaten work shalt thou make them; and they shall be unto thee for the calling of the congregation, and for causing the camps to set forward. (3) And when they shall blow with them, all the congregation shall gather themselves unto thee at the door of the tent of meeting. (4) And if they blow but with one, then the princes, the heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee. (5) And when ye blow an alarm, the camps that lie on the east side shall take their journey. (6) And when ye blow an alarm the second time, the camps that lie on the south side shall set forward; they shall blow an alarm for their journeys. (7) But when the assembly is to be gathered together, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm. (8) And the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for a statute for ever throughout your generations. (9) And when ye go to war in your land against the adversary that oppresseth you, then ye shall sound an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the LORD your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies. (10) Also in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed seasons, and in your new moons, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt-offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace-offerings; and they shall be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the LORD your God.’

(4) Blow the horn at the new moon, At the full moon for our feast-day.

(16) And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a horn exceeding loud; and all the people that were in the camp trembled. (17) And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. (18) Now mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. (19) And when the voice of the horn waxed louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice. (20) And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, to the top of the mount; and the LORD called Moses to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.

(8) And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and there shall be unto thee the days of seven sabbaths of years, even forty and nine years. (9) Then shalt thou make proclamation with the blast of the horn on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye make proclamation with the horn throughout all your land. (10) And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. (11) A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you; ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of the undressed vines. (12) For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy unto you; ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field.

The commandment of shofar on Rosh Hashanah - that we were commanded to hear the sound of the shofar on the first day of Tishrei, which is Rosh Hashanah...and even though there is no mention hear of this "trumpeting" being with a shofar...or with any other type of instrument, our rabbis of blessed memory had a tradition that it is with a shofar, as we find with the yovel...

The roots of the mitzvah: Because a material person will not awaken to things except by virtue of having something to wake him up, like people at a time of war...so too on Rosh Hashanah, which is established from early days for all creatures to be judged...and the voice of the shofar significantly awakens the hearts of those who hear, and how much more so the "teruah" voice, meaning, the broken voice. And aside from the awakening aspect, there is also a reminder to people about breaking the evil inclination with its worldly desires and passions wen the person hears the broken voices....and the meaning of teruah is as the translation (into Aramaic), a sob, and a sob is a broken voice, meaning a voice that wails. It emerges, that the Torah commanded us to make with a shofar, a voice that sounds like a wail, and because places throughout the world differ in terms of wailing, for in one place they wail with heavy sighs, and in another place more delicately, and in another place they do both, so it was the custom on Rosh Hashanah to do teruah the way that people wailed in that place...until Rabbi Abbahu arose and did not think it was right to have all of Israel differ in their teruah...and he gathered all the customs and established that all places should blow the shofar in the same way...

The mitzvah of blowing shofar on the Yom Kippur of Yovel...it is known that the mitzvah of blowing shofar on this day is to advertise the freedom of every Jewish slave who goes out to freedom, without paying, and it is not like the matter of blowing shofar on Rosh HaShanah, because that shofar blowing is to fix our thoughts on the matter of the binding of Isaac, and to create in our souls as well, like him, that love of God, and in this way we will be remembered for good before God...and this shofar blowing of the yovel is to declare freedom...because it is known that shofar awakens a person's heart...

(4) Even though the blowing of the shofar on Rosh HaShanah is a Biblical decree, it hints at something, i.e., “Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep! And slumberers, arise from your slumber! Search your ways and return in teshuvah and remember your Creator! Those who forget the Truth amidst the futility of the moment and are infatuated all their years with vanity and nothingness that will not help and will not save, examine your souls and improve your ways and your motivations! Let each of you abandon his wicked ways, and his thoughts which are no good."

It is a positive commandment from the Torah to cry out and to call with trumpets whenever trouble befalls the community, as it says: "against the adversary that oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets." ...And this matter is one of the paths of repentance. For at the time when the trouble comes and you cry out and trumpet because of it, everyone will know that because of their bad deeds, this bad thing happened... It is this that will cause the trouble to be removed from them. However, if they don't cry out and they don't trumpet, rather they just say, "this is the way the world is and that's why this happened to us, and this trouble just happened to happen." Behold, this is a path of cruelty, and leads them to stick to their wicked deeds. This trouble will be compounded by others...