Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank

One of the highlights of the Rosh Hashanah service is teki’at hashofar—blowing the Shofar.  Its sound is raw and penetrating; the ceremony is awe-inspiring; and the anticipation of the teki’ah gedolah, the long shofar blast, is a moment of tremendous hope and excitement.  It doesn’t matter if you are seven or 70 years of age—everyone loves the shofar ceremony.  And that’s the reason why a Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbat is always a bit disappointing:  on Shabbat, we don’t blow shofar.

Actually, there are many activities that are traditionally not done on Shabbat, and that is due to an attempt to render Shabbat unlike any other day of the week.  Shabbat is a day when we put away technology, free the calendar of appointments, shelve our problems, and focus on that which we never seem to have enough time for—our family, our community, and ourselves.  The great sage Hillel said, “Never put off study until that time when you have leisure, for you may never have leisure” (Pirkei Avot 2:5).  So, too, Shabbat—don’t put off spending time with your family or community, or taking care of yourself until your schedule clears, for your schedule may never clear.  If you crave freedom, schedule it—once every seven days.

All the many “don’ts” surrounding Shabbat are meant to create a day when we are sure to focus on more important things.  We get people out of the kitchen via a cooking prohibition.  We get people out of the backyard via a gardening prohibition.  We get people out of the garage or basement via a construction prohibition.  We create a couple of long, lazy meals to get a family seated around a table and interacting with each other.  We go to shul to visit God, and, I might add, our friends.  Shabbat is a day when instead of texting friends, we can actually speak to them panim el panim, face to face—what a concept!

Shabbat is also a day to free ourselves of obsessions or habits.  What would happen if your cash and credit cards were confiscated for a 24 hour period?  Would you get a little anxious, begin to sweat, mouth go dry, hands tremble, teeth chatter?  Maybe all that is an exaggeration, but the point is if we can’t give up something for 24 hours, there’s a good chance we’re addicted.  If we are prisoners to our addictions, then Shabbat is definitely our liberator.

Jewish people have a mission: to bring the presence of God down to earth.  We do that by recognizing the many instances in life where God could conceivably be involved.  We say Barukh HaShem—“Praise God!”—when we return from a long journey, recover from an illness, shep naches from our children and grandchildren, buy a new car, sell an old car, etc.  There’s virtually no situation in life when a Barukh HaShem could not be deployed.  But we know that most people don’t live their lives with a sense or routine gratitude.  Most people miss it—they’re too busy, too distracted, too unpresent, to acknowledge the multiple miracles of the moment.

Shofar is an impressive, engaging, and awe-inspiring ceremony.  We love it and love it dearly.  But Shabbat is more important.  It’s okay to be reminded, sometimes in very dramatic ways, just how weighty a mitzvah the observance of Shabbat can be and how dedicated to the sacred we are.  On Rosh Hashanah, we create sanctity by blowing shofar.  On the Rosh Hashanah that falls on Shabbat, we create an even deeper sanctity by not blowing shofar.  We sometimes measure our freedom by that which we can live without.