A faded photo captures the power of the shofar sounded by a doctor in uniform, emotionally bringing the message of the ram’s horn to American Jewish soldiers on the Pacific island of Guadalcanal in September 1943.
Prof. Françoise Ouzan, a noted scholar of Jewish history and antisemitism, tells a poignant story in her recently published book by Indiana University Press, True to My God and Country. “The photo, miraculously preserved, shows Captain Benjamin Fenichel, shaved and blowing the shofar with half-closed eyes, his prayer shawl thrown over his head.”
Ouzan offers her interpretation of this wartime scene: “The image captures the intensity and fervor of those who linked their destinies with God. In that instant, Captain Fenichel’s deeds seemingly stretched him to heaven. As he blew the shofar in that hostile setting, the spirit of transcendence imparted by ancient traditions renewed the chain of transmission” (p.118).
The historian’s words pierce through. I asked her, “What transformation do we need amid the overwhelming atmosphere since October 7, 2023?”
She replied, “The soul must undergo that cathartic journey as it breaks in unison with the fragmented shevarim and teruah sounds.” After a pause, she elaborated: “Let the final tekia gedolah awaken us, conveying our call to survival and hope, connecting us anew to our traditional values as it carries us back to reality.”
The shofar's call
Fenichel’s Guadalcanal experience recalls for each of us how the deep, rousing sound of freedom and liberty attained with Rosh Hashanah can bring another dimension to the notes of the shofar.
“As it was just over 82 years ago,” Ouzan reflected, “the shofar’s call tears through our silence. It stands as a symbol of spiritual resistance and a means of maintaining our Jewish identity. Listening to it can move us to good deeds that reconnect us with our heritage and our people. This connection strengthens us even in our darkest moments – when we can only imagine our hostages starving in underground prisons – by helping us hold onto hope that we will see them free again.”
What a year it has been. What a year it will be. In his seventies, a post-World War II baby, Rabbi Richard Hammerman reflects in this manner.
“The shofar announces to us that you must rise up in this coming year, since each of us is needed now more than any other. We must react now as we are surrounded with news of despair concurrently in the US and Israel.
“For many of us who grew up in the post-Shoah era and were thrilled with Israelis’ achievements and celebrated the promise of America, never have we felt such fear of reading the day’s news from Washington, DC, and Jerusalem, Israel.”
The shofar shakes us to the core
Thus, he stresses that our ram’s horn has a special task this year. “The shofar will and must shake us up to the core, starting in Elul and continuing to Ne'ilah on Yom Kippur. Those sounds, hopefully, will reignite a faint flicker of hope for a better new year.”
I am holding a shofar in my hand – looking at it carefully – actually caressing it. I am trying to pull the notes from the shofar without even blowing into it. As I hold it, I am watching two types of pictures on television – one makes me cry immediately.
I see the faces of our handsome and courageous soldiers who have died in the last 24 hours. I retreat to the small second room with my bed and computer. Then I hear from the TV– it has been so many days, our loved ones in captivity are still alive, and those presumed to have been killed. Then, in the background, we hear from the prime minister and other ministers: “We will bring all the hostages home.”
My shofar starts to quiver – trying to jump out of my hands and emit the sounds we all know.
The Szyk shofarot
The shofarot of artist Arthur Szyk were drawn at different moments to inspire the Jewish people. “Szyk’s shofarot,” writes Szyk scholar Irvin Ungar, “capture the spiritual elements of the Days of Awe while summoning the necessary call to protect the sacredness of the physical Jerusalem and its spiritual essence for the Jewish people.
“In his 1948 Rosh Hashanah card – in the year of Israel’s birth,” Ungar continues, “Szyk features his own artwork of an Israeli soldier, without fear and knowing God’s presence accompanies him, declaring ‘Hashanah hazoh b’yerushalayim’–’this year in Jerusalem.’
To guarantee this perpetual spiritual and physical survival, Szyk adds a photograph (on the back of his Rosh Hashanah card with a prayer inside emphasizing survival) of a Holocaust survivor (with a numbered tattoo on his arm) holding the shofar held high next to an upraised rifle, both pointing upward to the words ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem.’”
I stand frozen. The shofarot from the past blew to give us confidence. Now we need inspiration; now we need pragmatic calls. Yes, that is something the shofar can do.
My next shofar image is one of many preserved in the collections of the National Library of Israel. Some of these images capture the traditional shofar blasts of Rosh Hashanah and the annual cycle of renewal. Others document moments when the shofar was sounded in very different settings – at public gatherings, in the streets, and at historic turning points, when its voice became a symbol of protest, proclamation, or a heralding call.
Each image reflects a unique context, but all are bound by the same spirit: the shofar as a voice that goes beyond words. My own shofar joins this lineage, as a call to me: “Let my soundings be known in the present as they were inspirational in the past.”
The shofar as a symbol of freedom
Prof. Jonathan Sarna, a noted expert on American Jewish history, has chosen to remind us what this year has in store for us. “The shofar, in addition to being a central symbol of the High Holidays, is also in our tradition a symbol of freedom.”
Sarna makes the point strongly: “Sound the great shofar of our freedom, which our tradition ensures that we recall the three times a day as Jews speak out with enthusiasm in the Shemoneh Esreh prayer. Freedom is proclaimed – the jubilee year speaks to us – slaves are freed, and property is returned to its original owners.”
Meaningfully, Sarna then points to the real thrill for Americans and, hopefully, for the world of the sounds this year. The 250th anniversary of the United States will take place this year. Let it be as the Hebrew numerology reminds us: The letters resh (200) and nun (50) can be transformed to the word “ner” (“candle). Enlighten the world with freedom, and “let freedom ring.”
The cry too deep for words
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of Great Britain, in his commentary on the Mahzor, wrote as follows: “The shofar is the wordless cry at the heart of a religion of words. Judaism is a profoundly verbal culture, a religion of texts, impassioned conversation, and ‘argument for the sake of heaven.’”
Then he spoke to us all: “Yet there is a time for emotions that lie too deep for words.” This year, we need the shofar’s calls more than ever. “The sound of the shofar breaks through the carapace of the self-justifying mind and touches us directly.”
In this day and age of major Judaica collections – scanned, personal ones, and at institutions – we can study actual shofarot, manuscripts depicting a baal tekiah, plus printed and scanned illustrations of the blowing of the shofar.
What kind of shofarot does the library have so that images of them can be used? What types of manuscripts or printed illustrations of the blowing of the shofar does the National Library have? Are there pictures of craftsmen actually making shofarot? Listen to this quote from a famous sermonizer: “When we recognize our human limitations, we stop demanding perfection of ourselves.”
That is one of the functions of the shofar: to listen to the shrill notes reminding us that we are just flesh and blood. Why do the High Holy Day attendees actually stop whispering to make sure the shofar can be heard clearly? They know the shofar’s sounds mean business. This is sacred music to the ears. When that occurs, those present feel more powerful beats in their hearts and are ready to alter “something” in their Jewish lives. Will we who hear well truly march on with enthusiasm because the shofar’s function is to “wake us up”?■