On Rosh Hashanah, we blow the shofar, the lone mitzvah the Torah commands us to fulfill on this day. As the years go by and electronic communication becomes ubiquitous in our lives, the practice of 100 shofar blasts can seem anachronistic. I think it is incumbent upon us to dig deeper every year to discover why this ancient mitzvah remains so meaningful. I would argue that not only is it still relevant, it is more relevant than ever before.
Let us first consider what the shofar blasts are intended to symbolize. The commentators offer many different answers. Rav Saadia Gaon as quoted by the Audraham, as well as the Menorat Hameor gives at least 10 reasons, including commemoration of the Akeidat Yitzchak, crying out to God, remembering the events at Har Sinai, and representing the shofar blasts we will hear in the future declaring that Mashiach has arrived.
The Rambam takes a different approach; he focuses pragmatically on the one reason that captures the true purpose of Rosh Hashana. He says the shofar is like an alarm clock that wakes you up today, reminding you not to fritter away your life. It alerts you to discern the meaning of your existence, and act upon that discovery with a renewed sense of urgency. When you think about contemporary life today, the Rambam seems prescient, because the downside of all our new technology is chronic distraction, by email, text, phone, and social media.
For many of us, life is one big distraction. In this light, we need the shofar more than ever.
The shofar alarm wakes us up from distraction. Even though most people can’t sustain this kind of intense focus on the meaning of life every single day of the year, we can all heed the shofar call and block out distractions for this one holiday. And the Rambam is telling us, now is the time.
But time for what? Contrary to common misconceptions, it’s not the time to dwell on our sins. Rosh Hashana is not about sin at all; it’s not Yom Kippur. We don’t recite Viduy, Selichot, or the 13 attributes of God’s mercy. We don’t eat walnuts because of their association with the word chet, sin in Hebrew. The Arizal says we should not even mention the word chet, sin, in the Rosh Hashana prayer service.
This is because Rosh Hashana is a magical gift from God that allows us to make a fresh start, to recreate ourselves for the coming year. Rosh Hashana is called Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day, a day we can accomplish a tremendous amount, simply by thinking about what we really want from our lives, as long as we imbue our choices with meaning by embracing God’s Torah and His reality.
Today is the day to break out of our conventional thinking and allow our aspirations to soar.
We face a stark decision on Rosh Hashana. We can be passive and allow God to define us by our past behavior over the past year, or we can be active and devote this day to defining what kind of person we will be for the upcoming year, regardless of the way we’ve behaved in the past. The critical nature of this opportunity is well-articulated in Bronnie Ware’s bestselling book, The 5 Regrets of the Dying, where she recounts the reflections of people she interviewed on their deathbeds. Of all the misgivings these individuals confessed, the most common regret was, I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself instead of a life defined outside of myself.
Rosh Hashana is the one holiday when we have the complete freedom to define ourselves. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and renowned author of the popular book, Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote that every freedom can be taken away from someone, except for the freedom to choose one’s attitudes.
This is what it means when the Torah tells us ubacharta bachaim, to choose life. We must each decide what our attitudes are regarding our lives; we need to decide today that we would like to accomplish our secular and personal goals in the context of God, Torah and morality. I think it’s fair to say that all of us have aspirations in life and that we want to be good, moral people; we want our accomplishments to bring some benefit to the world. As the Rambam teaches, the shofar is our wake-up call to reset our lives and make these accomplishments a reality. Today is the day to break out of our conventional thinking and allow our aspirations to soar. If we can think this way as we listen to the shofar, we will create a life of genuine happiness and success for ourselves in the upcoming year. Chag sameach. Shana tova.
Copyright 2022 by Eliezer Hirsch