What Will the Shofar Sound Like This Year?

What do you think the Shofar will sound like this year? No, I don't mean just the actual sound. I'm curious about what the sounds will inspire this year? When we sound the "Shevarim" note, literally translated as "fragments," will it live up to its name, a poignant and mournful reminder of all the brokenness we have witnessed? If so, will that reminder tempt us to indulge in self-pity, or will we hear instead a call to action, spurring us to survey the wreckage and begin picking up whatever pieces we can lift? Will we be paying attention to the long unbroken "Tekiah" note and hear an ode to survival and perseverance, to see the brokenness from the prism of the blessing we DO have; beginning with the miracle of remaining alive Baruch HaShem?

As I write this, I'm painfully aware that the powerful bonding moment of communal transcendence that we share yearly during Shofar blowing will not come to be for many of us. If so, the sound you will hear when you ask yourself the questions I posed, can still be asked. The only difference will be that it's a sound that you are both hearing AND creating! That's right. I am suggesting that those of you who can't attend this year in person purchase and learn to blow the shofar on your own. You can actually buy one on Amazon! If you decide to go this route, I am happy to be your guide and can teach you the basics in a twenty-to-thirty-minute Zoom class. Let me know!

Let's start the lesson with this tip from one Shofar blower to another, inspired by one of the greatest "Bluezzers" of all time (that's an English-Yiddish word I just invented for this article that combines the Yiddish word for blowing, "blooz," the English idiom "blow" often used to denote great jazz horn players, and of course the English word "blues" as in "blues music," a genre that is all about soulful and melancholy), none other than the Jazz "Gadol" Louis Armstrong, who said, "You blows who you is ..."

This can get real interesting!