Health & Fitness
The Cry of the Shofar - A Rosh Hashana Tidbit
The Jewish new year begins tonight at sundown, for the next two days Jews all over the world will be celebrating the Rosh Hashana Holiday.
[Rosh Hashanah] shall be a day of shofar-sounding for you (Numbers 29:1)
The Holy Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev gave the following analogy:
A king once set out on a journey that led him deep into a thick forest. At one point, he lost his way and could not determine how to get out. A group of villagers passed by, so he asked them for directions back to the palace. But they did not recognize him, so they did not know if they should help him or not, and moreover, they did not know the way to the palace. Eventually, someone passed by who did recognize that this was the king and who did know the way to the palace, so he escorted the king back home. The king was so impressed with the person's knowledge that he made him his personal advisor.
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A long time after this, the advisor wronged the king in some way, and in his anger, the king told his ministers to judge the advisor and declare him guilty of rebellion. The advisor was very upset because he knew what this meant, so he asked the king for one last request: that they both dress themselves in the clothes they wore when they had their first encounter in the forest. The king agreed, and when he put on the clothes he wore then, he remembered at once the tremendous favor the advisor had done him by leading him out of such a hopeless situation. In his gratitude, the king forgave the advisor of his misdeed and returned him to his post.
When we accepted the Torah we did so enthusiastically and with great joy, eventually, our initial enthusiasm waned and we may have transgressed the Torah's instructions in some ways. We therefore sound the shofar to remind G-d of the day when we first "met" at Mount Sinai and the shofar was sounding as we accepted His Torah. The shofar blast reminds G-d of how we accepted His Torah unconditionally, and He forgives our misdeeds.
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Please join us Sep. 29th and 30th at the Chabad Community Shul at 44 Burrill St in Swampscott to hear the call of the Shofar, just as it was sounded thousands of years ago at Mt. Sinai.
May the New Year, 5772, bring you joy and fulfillment, good health, prosperity and abundant success, and may you and all your loved ones be inscribed and sealed for a very happy, sweet and blessed New Year.
Rabbi Shmaya Friedman
