In the High Holy Days liturgy the text reads “The Great Shofar Is Sounded” and this got me to thinking.  The shofar makes an unusual sound when compared to such others as trumpets of the metallic kind that can reproduces those sounds and we wonder at the skill and breath control, particularly of those who blow a shofar (rams horn) on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  I tried to imagine the sounds made while this world was created. We can extrapolate the sounds this world makes during times when earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and thunder and lighting come with storms and flooding.  One cannot imagine such sounds and the apt expression of the “Great Shofar Is Sounded” seems to be incapable of being reproduced by puny humans.

I have two shofarim.  One is short and is light colored.  The other was purchased in a street filled with such stores in Jerusalem.  It is long, twisted and dark colored.  I can produce sounds with both but I have this curious inclination of trying to make the notes of simple songs.  This has proved to be impossible but then, I may not have tried hard or long enough.

The ritual on the high holy days has a Rabbi announce the sound he wants and the person blowing the shofar either make a short blast, a stuttering one, a combination of sounds and one long concluding blast.  Of all instruments, the rams’ horn makes a unique sound.  We puny humans have ritualized the works of God and have come up with music, sermonizing, group prayer, reading from Torahs (after unclothing and then redressing them) and greeting each other with “Happy New Year” or L’ Shanah Tovah.

I think a lot about the power that rules this world.  We human are puny as individuals but devastating when we coalesce to become armies and develop weapons of mass destruction.  We have the power to destroy the world and try to do so while accumulating national and personal renown.  We tear down much more easily than we build up.  Our history tells us how civilizations come and civilizations go while the process of tearing down speaks of heroes and leaders and the multitudes are victims of pride and ambition.

Yet, the Great Shofar has sounded so many times one would think we would have heard and felt its special notes and realized how puny we really are.  We have very short memories and forget death and destruction while we compete with Nature to see whose strength is more powerful.  The Great Shofar has sounded and it echoes in the world today if we would but listen to its promise and its warning.