Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation - The Edinburgh Jewish Community Website
Forth Light - Rosh Hashanah

This year Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat. As the Rabbis worried that someone would break Shabbat in order to blow the Shofar, we don’t blow it on Shabbat. For the same reason we don’t take the Lulav or read the Megillah on Shabbat. Yet unlike these other mitzvot, not blowing the Shofar on Shabbat has a biblical source. When the Torah talks about Rosh Hashanah as part of the festival cycle it calls it a ‘a remembrance of blowing the shofar’. In other words there is a day of blowing the shofar and a day of remembrance of blowing the shofar. For this reason, also, Rosh Hashanah itself is designated in our prayers ‘the Day of Remembrance’. How are we to understand this idea? According to Maimonides the reason for blowing the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah is to wake us up. We are to be reminded of G-d and our duties as Jews which we may have forgotten in our daily lives. We are to realise that the world is not ours but has a Master and we are responsible to Him for how we act in His world. We have another day in the Jewish year like this and that day is Shabbat. On Shabbat we also step back and look at the world with new eyes, reminding ourselves that it has a Creator and its not ours to treat as we wish. Thus the weekly Shabbat forms a function similar to the blowing of the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah. A famous Halakhah states that we don’t wear Tefilin on Shabbat because they are a sign of the covenant, as is Shabbat. Having two signs on one day is superfluous. Perhaps in the same way blowing the Shofar on Shabbat is not necessary because the Shabbat already serves as our wake up call. Two alarm clocks might be a bit much. Why then do we need the Shofar at all if Shabbat fulfils the same function? Maybe because even Shabbat can lose some of its effect if it becomes only a thing of habit and we forget its meaning. We need an additional reminder at the beginning of the year to bring us back to our senses. Yet when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat we have a unique opportunity. The very fact we don’t blow the Shofar serves to remind us of not only our yearly wake up call but also that this reminder is available to us every week of the year. On this Shabbat we can reconnect to Shabbat’s true meaning and cherish it throughout the year.

TORAH PREVIEW

FIRST DAY:  117-120                 HAFTORAH:  121-122

The  reading from Genesis tells of the birth of Isaac.

The Haftorah from I Samuel tells of the birth of Samuel.                                            

SECOND DAY: 216-219             HAFTORAH: 219-220

The reading from Genesis tells of the Binding of Isaac.

The Haftorah from Jeremiah describes G-d‘s love of Israel.

KNOW ROSH HASHANAH

  1. Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the creation of mankind on the sixth day of creation.

  2. On it people are evaluated concerning their life in this world.

  3. As it falls on the first day of the month it is kept for two days, even in Israel, and even in the times of the Temple.

  4. Despite being a day of judgement, Rosh Hashanah is a happy day and it is forbidden to fast.

SHOFAR FACT FILE

  1. The Torah requires us to blow a tekiah, teruah, tekiah three times.

  2. As we don‘t know the precise nature of a teruah we blow both a shevarim, a teruah and a shevarim–teruah to be sure.

  3. We thus blow 40 sounds from the Torah to which we add 30 during Musaf and 40 at the end = 100 altogether.

  4. The length of the Tekiah must be at least the same length as the middle notes.

  5. We don’t blow the shofar on Shabbat in case someone breaks Shabbat by carrying it to Shul.