Erev Rosh Hashanah 577/2014 The spiritual meaning of the Shofar service

This summer, we were fortunate to spend a glorious week on Cape Cod. One of the highlights was watching our kids find confidence swimming in the ocean and facing down the waves. Our son Ziv, who is 7 ½, was doing really well with the waves. But inevitably, like every beginner, Ziv had that experience of getting knocked down and rolled under the water. I imagine many of us can identify with this awful experience – it comes out of nowhere, you’re disoriented, scared and powerless. And then finally when you surface, sputtering and coughing, you feel angry and defeated. You had forgotten that all-important principle of the ocean – once you have tackled one wave, there is always going to be another wave after that! And another one after that one!

What a great metaphor for our lives, and especially for the world these past few months. Crisis after crisis has been knocking us down and rolling us under. The waves of terror, violence, shootings, rockets, sirens, bombings, refugees, beheadings, and plane crashes in places like Syria, Ukraine, Iraq, Kurdistan, Ferguson Missouri, and of course, Israel and Gaza. It has been hard to catch our breath long enough to make sense of any of it, let alone to figure out what we should be doing to respond, as individuals or as a country.

In our own lives, I imagine many of us have had our own crashing waves to contend with – illnesses, injuries, cancer diagnoses, the death of loved ones; job losses; business troubles; divorce; moves; life not going as we had planned; worries for ourselves, our parents, our children. We get our footing just long enough for the next wave to come along.

Tonight as we embark on these next 10 Days of Awe I want us to explore some prayers and images we will be encountering in the prayerbook that may help to frame our experiences of this past year in spiritual terms. Few of us have the chance to spiritually prepare for the holidays, and so tonight and tomorrow, when we open the holiday prayerbook, the machzor, we are hit in the face with words that we haven’t had much time to wrap our minds around. Tonight, I thought we’d take some time to prepare for the Shofar service that we will be experiencing tomorrow and Friday mornings. I do this because I think the prayers surrounding the blowing of the Shofar can anchor us, comfort us, and provide some guidance as we confront the chaos and the uncertainty of our own lives and of the times that we are living in.

It’s kind of amazing that these ancient words, composed by rabbis who lived almost two thousand years ago, still move us and speak to us today. I invite you, as I speak, to follow along in the machzor/HHD prayerbook as I reference the prayers of the shofar service. Of course, if you would rather just listen, that is fine too.

In our Reform tradition, the Shofar service begins after the Torah is read on Rosh Hashana morning. You’ll find it on page 138 (Gates of Repentance.)

We begin with a quote from the Torah where this shofar-blowing holiday is announced. Then on page 139 we have this beautiful poem that begins in Hebrew, “Uru, y’shaynim mish’nat’chem,” “Awaken, you sleepers, from your sleep! Rouse yourselves, you slumberers, out of your slumber!” And it goes on. . . . “v’zich’ru Bor’eichem, eilu hashoch’chim et ha-emet b’hav’lei ha-z’man,” “Remember your Creator, you who are caught up in the daily round, losing sight of eternal truth.”

All year long we have been sleepwalking. We’ve been wrapped up in the details of our daily lives; bogged down in the Facebook posts and newsfeeds about Israel and ISIS. We think we’ve been paying close attention, or getting things done. But in fact, we’ve been asleep to what is really true. We’ve been distracted. We’ve been obsessing and worrying. Or we’ve been avoiding.
Wake up! Look around you and remember that you are part of something larger. There is a bigger picture that we can perhaps only glimpse, in which, perhaps all that is confusing us makes sense.

And what is that bigger picture? We learn this in the next three sections of the shofar service: Malchuyot (kingship or power), Zichronot (remembrance), and Shofarot (the sound of the shofar.)

First, Malchuyot –kingship. On page 140 you’ll see the words of the Aleinu. “We must praise the Lord of all, the Maker of heaven and earth. . . .” “We therefore bow in awe and thanksgiving before the One who is Sovereign over all, the Holy and Blessed One.” The liturgy continues on the next page with quotes from Psalms, “Lift up your heads, O gates! Lift yourselves up, O ancient doors. Let the King of Glory enter”

Here we have a traditional, masculine image of God as a king entering the gates, about to seat himself on the throne. We are supposed to praise and thank God, our king for ruling over us, and we actually bow as we chant some of these words. Last year you may remember my speaking about how the male king on a throne is not the only image for God – that some of us may better related to God as a woman, or as a non-human image such as breath or source of life.

But there is a spiritual purpose to using this king image her. We proclaim, “Lift up your heads, O gates! . . . Let the King of Glory enter” – and then we hear the blasts of the shofar. Suddenly the sanctuary is transformed into a palace. A powerful, loving presence enters the room and takes a seat on the throne. We are reminded that God is not absent from the world. God is here, and God is in charge. As God enters the gates of this throne room, we remember that ultimately we are not in control.

Whether or not I believe in God as some supernatural being, I do know that the waves crashing over me are answering to a power much bigger than myself. This may give some of us comfort –I don’t have to be in control of everything! It also may be scary – I have to let go of believing that I am in control of my life! Either way, the blasts of Malchuyot wake me up to this truth – I am not in charge.

The second round of shofar blasts comes in a section called Zichronot, or remembrance. If you look on page 144, you’ll find the words “You remember the work of creation, You are mindful of all that You have made. You unravel every mystery; all secret things are known to You. For there is no forgetfulness in Your presence, nothing hidden from Your sight.”

The classic way of understanding this is that God is watching your every move, so you should be careful of making a wrong move, or else!

But I like to read it differently. First of all, how beautiful to remember during these chaotic times that God created us and has not forgotten us. The text reads, “pokeid kol y’tzurei kedem” – God is taking note, and giving us caring attention. “There is no forgetfulness in your Presence” – what a comfort to know that we are not forgotten. We are not left hanging out here – we are not abandoned.

On page 145 “The Torah proclaims: God heard the enslaved people’s groaning, and remembered the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The psalmist affirms: You remembered Your covenant with us; in Your great love, You comforted us. The prophet declares: I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant.”
God remembered us in Egypt, and God will continue to remember us. Therefore, whether you are hospitalized or homebound; depressed or hopeless; in a war zone in the Middle East or on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri – God always hears and remembers the groaning of those who are suffering.

And so, what do we hear in the sound of the shofar blasts of Zichronot? We hear and remember what God remembers about us: All of us have a spark of the Divine within us – all of us have value. As a colleague said to me recently, “God is not out to get us: We are okay, and we can make ourselves and this world better.”

In those shofar blasts, we can remember what God remembers – that all the way back in the beginning of the world, all human beings– Jews, Christians, Muslims, Black, White, Arab – were created in God’s image. As the waves come rolling towards us, we are not abandoned to our struggles, and therefore must not abandon each other. We are not forgotten and therefore must not forget each other. The blasts of Zichronot wake us up to the truth that we are loved and that we must extend that love to all beings.

The third and final section of the shofar service is called “Shofarot,” which simply means “blasts of the shofar.” On page 148 the liturgy describes the moment when our people were gathered at Mount Sinai and heard God’s voice, revealing the Torah to us. “Your sacred word came forth amid flashes of fire. There was thunder and lightning; and, with the sound of a Shofar, You were manifest to us.” On page 149 we read in the last paragraph, “The Eternal will appear; God’s arrow will flash like lighting. The Eternal God will cause the Shofar to be sounded, and stride forth with the storm-winds of the South. Thus, O God, will You shield your people with peace.”

Here we have the traditional notion of revelation and redemption – that in the past, God appeared to our people and spoke to us directly, bringing us the Torah– the blueprint for building a holy community and for healing our world. At Sinai, amidst the sound of the shofar – we woke up to what God expects from us. And in the future, God will appear again, accompanied by that shofar-sound – to herald the Messianic age, a time of eternal peace.

This alone is a hopeful message – the shofar wakes us up to the possibility of future redemption. It reminds us that it won’t always be this hard. That the world can change for the better – and we can be a part of that change by heeding the call of Torah in the voice of the Shofar.

But there’s even more – I want you to see something surprising on the next page (150). There we ask God directly, to “Sound the great Shofar to proclaim our freedom; raise the banner for the redemption of the oppressed; signal liberty for all who are in exile; bring lasting joy to Zion and to Jerusalem, Your holy city.” The section ends with the words, “We praise You the merciful God who hearkens to the sound of the Shofar.”

So, what is happening in this final round of shofar blasts? Not only are we waking up to the possibility of future redemption. But we are actually blowing the Shofar so loud and so hard and so long that GOD will wake up too! So that GOD will wake up and lead us in our efforts to bring freedom, joy and peace to the world.

You are not in control.
You are remembered, and loved.
Things can and will change – and you can be a part of that.
“Wake up!”

This is what the shofar comes to remind us, we who have been like slumberers, stumbling through the chaotic landscape of this world.

I want to close with the words of a poet who also lived through a time of terrible chaos and uncertainty. Walt Whitman lived through the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict that has ever taken place in our land. In the wake of those waves of suffering that rolled over this land, Whitman wrote a poem called “The Mystic Trumpeter.” This poem would fit beautifully into the liturgy of our shofar service. In the final stanza, he calls upon the trumpeter – perhaps he is addressing the angel Gabriel, or God – to bring us hope and joy, renewal and peace. He calls upon the trumpeter, asking for that day of redemption to come, when all we will do is live and breathe in a world of purity, health, wisdom and joy.

Please rise as I recite this poem, and I invite Joe Gister to join me on the bimah with the shofar, so we can hear it once tonight, as we prepare to hear it tomorrow…

Now trumpeter for thy close,
Vouchsafe a higher strain than any yet,
Sing to my soul, renew its languishing faith and hope,
Rouse up my slow belief, give me some vision of the future,
Give me for once its prophecy and joy.
O glad, exulting, culminating song!
A vigor more than earth’s is in thy notes,
Marches of victory—man disenthral’d-the conqueror at last,
Hymns to the universal God from universal man—all joy!
A reborn race appears—a perfect world, all joy!
Women and men in wisdom innocence and health—all joy!
Riotous laughing bacchanals fill’d with joy!
War, sorrow, suffering gone—the rank earth purged—nothing but joy left!
The ocean fill’d with joy—the atmosphere all joy!
Joy! joy! in freedom, worship, love! joy in the ecstasy of life!
Enough to merely be! enough to breathe!
Joy! Joy! All over joy!
Tekiah Gedolah!!!