Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi's shiur about the Chabad custom in blowing the shofar (Elul 5770)

00:00 Speaker 1 A medium-length groan, like three medium-length sobs. What does “medium” mean? What exactly does “medium” mean here? We said that according to Rashi, a teruah is three beats. Yes, you have three beats. That is, three separate beats, so each part, each third of the teruah, is one beat. Now a tekiah is as long as all three. So according to that, how long is a shever? Two. He should say two. What is the point of saying “medium”? A shever has to be two. Why? Why use the word “medium”? He then repeats that word several times: medium. Three shevarim, three medium-length beats—medium, medium, medium. He doesn’t explain what “medium” means. You remember I wrote about this in the kuntres. The source is the wording of the Ran, but he also uses the word “medium.” I wrote there that it presumably means two beats. If each beat of the teruah is one beat, and a tekiah is three beats, then each shever comes out to two. But he should have said “two.” What does “medium” mean?

01:37 Speaker 2 It could also be any length at all.

01:38 Speaker 1 It could also be any length at all. So why call it “medium”? It should simply have said so. Why this word “medium”? Look, perhaps we’ll first get to the argument about what “medium” means, and then we may understand what it means here.

01:54 Speaker 2 Three lines.

01:56 Speaker 1 What?

01:56 Speaker 2 Three lines. Like three—three teruos, three lines.

02:05 Speaker 1 The tekiah is as long as the teruah. The teruah has three beats. The teruah has three beats. The tekiah has to be as long as three beats. Well?

02:15 Speaker 2 Teruah.

02:16 Speaker 1 The tekiah for the teruah has to be as long as three beats. Well?

02:19 Speaker 2 So the tekiah that he blows is certainly a very short tekiah.

02:22 Speaker 1 Not short. According to Rashi, it certainly isn’t short.

02:23 Speaker 2 Why? But why two? That’s not relevant. If one tekiah is as long as three, the shevarim—the tromitin—are three short beats.

02:30 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:31 Speaker 2 That’s the teruah.

02:32 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:32 Speaker 2 So the shevarim have to be—

02:34 Speaker 1 How long?

02:35 Speaker 2 Each one cannot be as long as all three of them.

02:38 Speaker 1 Then it’s a tekiah? Then it’s a tekiah?

02:41 Speaker 2 A tekiah twice. Yes, what can we do?

02:44 Speaker 1 Well, that’s the question.

02:45 Speaker 2 That’s the question.

02:46 Speaker 1 That’s the question—what can we do? What can we do?

02:49 Speaker 2 So wait. Either—or we have the option—or if we make one as long as all three, it will be a tekiah.

02:55 Speaker 1 Yes. If we make it one, it will be a teruah. So—

02:59 Speaker 2 And the length has to reach seven, so two is the ideal solution.

03:02 Speaker 1 Seemingly. So it has to be two. Then what does “medium” mean?

03:08 Speaker 2 “Medium” also includes the third.

03:10 Speaker 1 Huh?

03:10 Speaker 2 “Medium”—and “medium” also includes the third.

03:12 Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait. But he doesn’t say how it supports that. Still, it has something of a rasha and something of a tzaddik, right? Right?

03:21 Speaker 2 Its required length isn’t—

03:22 Speaker 1 Its required length certainly isn’t. Wait, wait, I want to get to the substance of the—

03:24 Speaker 2 “Beinoni” doesn’t mean “in between.”

03:26 Speaker 1 No.

03:26 Speaker 2 “Beinoni” doesn’t mean “in between.”

03:28 Speaker 1 Right.

03:28 Speaker 2 It’s something else.

03:29 Speaker 1 Right, but it is made up of both of them, right? That’s the main difficulty here. Another thing: we said that the disagreement is between Rashi and Tosafos. According to Rashi, it’s exactly as you say: two, two, yes? According to Rashi, if he wants to make one shever as long as three...

03:56 Speaker 2 Then it’s already a tekiah.

03:57 Speaker 1 What?

03:58 Speaker 2 Then it’s already a tekiah.

03:59 Speaker 1 Then it’s already a tekiah. So, the Alter Rebbe goes on and writes as follows: in the sequence tashrat—no, in tashat—he certainly cannot do that, because it would be a tekiah. But in the sequence tashrat, where the tekiah is longer, he can—he could make it two, three. Nevertheless, the Alter Rebbe writes not to do it. Why? Since in the sequence tashat it is considered a tekiah, he should not do it. So we have to make it differently. We cannot make it three. The second opinion is the Riva’s opinion in section 6: it is three tromitin, and the length of a teruah is three sobs, which are nine tromitin. So the length of the teruah—again, it’s all multiplied by three. Each beat is three tromitin, and the teruah is nine tromitin. How long is the tekiah? Nine tromitin. The tekiah in the sequence tarat is about nine tromitin. And now—

05:12 Speaker 7 Tashrat.

05:12 Speaker 1 In tashrat—

05:14 Speaker 7 Eighteen.

05:14 Speaker 1 Why eighteen?

05:17 Speaker 7 Nine plus nine: eighteen.

05:18 Speaker 1 Nine plus nine. That comes to eighteen.

05:19 Speaker 7 Not in tarat—in tashrat.

05:21 Speaker 1 How long will it be in tashrat?

05:22 Speaker 7 Eighteen.

05:23 Speaker 1 Eighteen. All right, let’s say, as above, that it will be eighteen. Fine, we won’t get into that right now. Let’s say it’s eighteen units. Just a moment. What does he say? What does he write next? Section 6—[unclear]. “In a matter of Torah law, one should be stringent in accordance with the latter opinion.” What does one have to do?

05:43 Speaker 7 Make it long.

05:44 Speaker 1 Huh? “In a matter of Torah law, one should be stringent.” That’s the question: what does it mean to be stringent? What does it mean to be stringent in a matter of Torah law in accordance with the latter opinion?

05:56 Speaker 7 Blow a tekiah.

05:56 Speaker 1 Come, let’s understand this properly. A person wants to fulfill his obligation according to both opinions, but he can’t.

06:02 Speaker 7 Right.

06:02 Speaker 1 Huh? If he blows three, he hasn’t fulfilled—according to Rashi, that’s no good. If he blows two, that’s no good according to the Riva. So what does it mean to be stringent in a matter of Torah law in accordance with the latter opinion?

06:15 Speaker 7 What, he makes a tekiah?

06:16 Speaker 1 Huh?

06:16 Speaker 7 A long tekiah—then it’s only possible.

06:18 Speaker 1 What? What?

06:19 Speaker 7 He starts—

06:19 Speaker 1 Then that isn’t a stringency. You’re doing either one or the other.

06:22 Speaker 7 What does the length of the tekiah have to do with it?

06:24 Speaker 1 According to Rashi, that’s no good. Which tekiah?

06:27 Speaker 7 The tekiah—

06:27 Speaker 1 No, the shevarim. He’s talking about the shevarim right now. He begins with the required length of the tekios, then the required length of the teruah, and then of the shever. So what does it mean to be stringent? What’s more, you know what? Let’s leave that for now. What I mean is this: suppose a person wants to account for the uncertainty in a Torah obligation. He wants to blow shofar and fulfill his obligation according to every opinion. According to this, it turns out that we can’t do that. It’s impossible: either Tosafos or Rashi. If you blow two—that is, two beats—you haven’t fulfilled your obligation according to Tosafos. If you blow three, that’s no good according to Rashi, because three is the length of a tekiah in tarat. That’s my humble opinion, I think. And this is the root of the entire disagreement. I’ve searched extensively through the later authorities on this; today there are [unclear]. Where did these two opinions, these two customs for shevarim, come from—whether one makes “tu” or “tu-tu”? But the plain explanation is that this is the disagreement between Rashi and Tosafos. According to Rashi, when you make “tu,” that’s two sounds. According to Tosafos, when you make “tur-tur,” that’s three sounds. “Tur-tur.” In other words, those who blew “tur” followed Rashi’s approach. When we look closely at the Alter Rebbe’s wording here, we can infer several things. We’ll come back to that. There’s an even stronger inference coming up: those who followed Rashi’s approach blew “tur,” so they have two sounds, “tur” and “tur.” Those who followed Tosafos’ approach blew “tur-tur.” What? Three? Three beats. But what? You can even prove it. What? Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. I just want to say this first.

09:09 Speaker 1 Just a moment; let’s see first. Let’s see how they follow Rashi. So they follow Tosafos’ approach. No, they didn’t take Rashi into account. They didn’t take Rashi into account. Wait, hold on, give me a moment. They have three beats: “tur-tur-tur.” “Tur-tur-tur” would be shevarim. It would be a teruah. “Tur-tur-tur” is both three beats and separated into parts. “Tur-tur.” Huh? How long is it? “Tur”? So, so, so that’s...

09:44 Speaker 8 No, the point is that there are three. The intention is that you should hear the three distinctly. So its length is—

09:49 Speaker 1 The length of two.

09:50 Speaker 8 No, no, according to the Rema.

09:52 Speaker 1 According to whom?

09:52 Speaker 8 The Rema. It has to be three in length.

09:56 Speaker 1 Yes.

09:56 Speaker 8 Not merely that its length reaches three. No, not that they blow three beats.

10:00 Speaker 1 Wait, wait. How would he blow it? Tell me, explain it to me.

10:02 Speaker 8 If he blows “tur-tur-tur.”

10:04 Speaker 1 Yes.

10:05 Speaker 8 Then each shever would be “tur.” That isn’t a shever.

10:08 Speaker 1 What?

10:08 Speaker 8 Each one would be three.

10:10 Speaker 1 All right, that’s what they write.

10:11 Speaker 8 In the same amount of time as the three.

10:12 Speaker 1 Wait, hold on. All right, all right, all right. So it’s as though—here, Rabbi [unclear][?] writes: Why did they make “tu-tu-tu” and not “tu-ru”? Because with “tu” you can’t tell. You can’t distinguish whether you have three here when...

10:31 Speaker 8 Also.

10:31 Speaker 1 Wait, I’ll get to it. I want to explain that there’s something very, very deep here. Just a moment.

10:38 Speaker 8 What you have to remember is a shever about the length of three tromitin. What?

10:45 Speaker 1 When you look closely at the Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, where he cites Rashi, it seems almost explicit. He writes: “One must be careful that, in the sequence of tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah, no single shever should be prolonged to the duration of three tromitin.” He doesn’t write “for three tromitin”; he writes “to the duration of three tromitin.” Later, when he brings the Riva’s view, he writes simply “tromitin”: three tromitin, two tromitin, nine tromitin. But for Rashi he writes “the duration of three tromitin.” In other words, the tekiah isn’t itself tromitin, and neither is the shever. It’s just that one mustn’t prolong it to the duration of three tromitin.

11:20 Speaker 8 A measure of time.

11:22 Speaker 1 Yes.

11:24 Speaker 8 Right.

11:24 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. Why? Because the tekiah is the same continuous tekiah—tu—so it isn’t a measure of three tromitin. Later, when he brings the Riva’s view, you’ll see that he doesn’t say “the duration of”; he says three tromitin, two tromitin, nine tromitin. That means the tekiah has to be long enough for nine tromitin, not merely the duration of nine tromitin, because there we have the...

11:47 Speaker 8 He mentions that there has to be a count of nine.

11:49 Speaker 1 What?

11:50 Speaker 8 So mention it itself, so that...

11:52 Speaker 1 No, no, not a measure of time.

11:55 Speaker 8 No, when you mention it, you don’t say “a measure.” Just mention it.

11:57 Speaker 1 Mentioning it is what it means to say “the duration of three tromitin.” With Rashi, he says “the duration of three tromitin,” because the...

12:04 Speaker 8 Nine.

12:05 Speaker 1 Nine tromitin. He writes “tromitin” as a measure, as a measure.

12:08 Speaker 8 Not “mention”—I don’t remember.

12:09 Speaker 1 Yes, “the measure of nine tromitin,” not “a measure of tromitin.” Not “the duration of nine tromitin.”

12:15 Speaker 8 A teruah’s tekiah is nine, but still, that doesn’t settle it.

12:19 Speaker 1 A length of time, a length of time, not... Yes, yes. Look into that carefully. Moving on, it says... I just want to demonstrate this. I want to demonstrate it. There’s another dispute later between Rashi and Rabbi Nasan concerning tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah: whether the shevarim and teruah must be sounded in two breaths or in one breath. The Alter Rebbe says that even according to the opinion that they should be sounded in one breath, one must pause between the shevarim and the teruah. One should make a slight pause—not take a breath, but pause slightly. Not long enough to take a breath.

13:16 Speaker 8 All right, long enough to take a breath.

13:19 Speaker 1 Yes. What? No, that’s taking a breath.

13:26 Speaker 8 “He should pause slightly between them.”

13:27 Speaker 1 “He should pause slightly between them.” No, later on he says “two breaths.” Here he says “pause slightly between them.” It would seem reasonable to say, as you’re saying, that this need to pause between them applies when the shevarim sound like tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu tu. Right? Because when you finish the last tu tu and start tu tu tu tu tu, the last tu of the shever sounds like the beginning of the teruah. That’s why he says you have to pause between them. If you don’t pause, the end of the shever sounds like the start of the teruah. But if you blow tu tu tu tu, then seemingly it implies that you have to...

14:25 Speaker 8 With “nebach,” there’s a pause.

14:26 Speaker 1 Huh? “Nebach” is a different sound.

14:28 Speaker 8 It’s a different sound.

14:28 Speaker 1 It’s a different sound; it isn’t the same sound. Why would you need to pause? So, from the way the discussion develops, it seems that this is the basic dispute between Rashi and Tosafos: is a shever “tu,” or is a shever “tu tu”? According to Tosafos, it’s “tu tu”—a broken sound containing three pulses. The sound breaks in the middle: tu tu tu. Perhaps we’ll go more deeply into this. We’ll see how much we can understand. When we consider the sounds of the shofar—and, as we said earlier, the shofar has “tu” and “o”—that’s how all the... You have do, re, mi, fa, sol, right? Similarly, the shofar has two components, two sounds, “tu” and “o.” From “tu” and “o” come all three forms of shofar blast: tekiah, shevarim, and teruah. From “tu” and “o,” from “o” and “tu,” “tu” and “tu,” and “o,” “o,” and “tu.” There are also profound Kabbalistic ideas in this, but on a simple level, as we hear the sounds, it’s tu-o, tu-o, tu. I’ve checked this with people who understand music. When you say tu tu tu tu, when you make a “tu,” the “o” and the “tu” are a continuation of the sound: tu tu tu. When you make “o-tu, o-tu,” you move your tongue in the middle. Those are two sounds. “Tu-tu” is a continuation each time. “O-tu”—anyone can hear for himself that “o-tu” is two sounds. They’re two different kinds of sounds: there’s “o,” and there’s “tu.” In other words, if you make the “o” after the “tu,” then it’s “tu”; it continues the sound. If you make “o-tu”... This helps us understand the tekiah. Let’s start with the tekiah: tu. That means it begins

16:53 Speaker 1 with “tu” and continues with “o,” but it’s a continuation of one sound. However long you make it—whether you blow it for nine pulses or eighteen pulses—it’s the same sound, the same sound: tu. You hear? It’s tu tu tu tu tu. Now, when you make “tu,” what I mean is this: a shever—or rather, shofar blasts in general—are built from two components, “tu” and “o.” So I think, in my humble opinion, I would explain it this way: the Alter Rebbe says that according to Rashi, a shever is intermediate. It isn’t only intermediate in the sense that here there are three pulses, there one sound, and here two. It’s also intermediate in its very nature. In other words, a tekiah is made of “tu” and “o,” while a teruah is made of “tu.” There is an intermediate sound that has both “tu” and “o,” and that’s the shever. The teruah is “tu.” The shever has “tu” and “o,” so it’s in the middle. In a tekiah, the “tu” and “o” are long. In a teruah, it’s just “tu” alone. The shever is made from those same two components, but briefly.

18:47 Speaker 9 “Tu” and “o.”

18:49 Speaker 1 What?

18:51 Speaker 9 “Tu” and “o.”

18:51 Speaker 1 Then it’s a long “tu.” A long “tu” is a tekiah, right? True, but the shever—the point of saying that the shever is intermediate is that it has both components, from the tekiah and from the teruah.

19:09 Speaker 9 From the tekiah too.

19:12 Speaker 1 What?

19:13 Speaker 9 It also changes its nature from that of a tekiah by becoming shorter.

19:15 Speaker 1 What do you mean?

19:16 Speaker 9 The shevarim come from the tekiah.

19:18 Speaker 1 It isn’t only a matter of length.

19:19 Speaker 9 Only length.

19:20 Speaker 1 But why? It isn’t different, yet it also has something from the teruah. It has something from both the tekiah and the teruah.

19:29 Speaker 9 And what does it have from the tekiah? I mean, what does it have from the teruah that it doesn’t have from the...

19:33 Speaker 1 In other words, you know, to put it differently, if we set aside [unclear] as the Mishnah discusses the blasts... Right? From the tekiah. And if the teruah is “tu,” then the shever isn’t intermediate if you say the tekiah also has it. The tekiah has “tu,” and the shever has “o”; the teruah has “tu.” But the shever has both of those components.

20:04 Speaker 9 What does the shever have from the tekiah and from the teruah?

20:06 Speaker 1 What?

20:06 Speaker 9 It’s intermediate between them. What does the shever have? What does it have?

20:09 Speaker 1 From the teruah.

20:10 Speaker 9 What does it have from the tekiah, and what from the teruah?

20:11 Speaker 1 Okay, I didn’t understand.

20:12 Speaker 9 Does the shever also contain a teruah?

20:14 Speaker 1 What?

20:14 Speaker 9 Does the shever also contain a teruah?

20:16 Speaker 1 The shever, the shever...

20:17 Speaker 9 It contains a teruah within it too.

20:19 Speaker 1 The sound of a teruah.

20:19 Speaker 9 Good. And doesn’t the tekiah contain something of the teruah?

20:22 Speaker 1 It does.

20:22 Speaker 9 Well, then what’s the difference? In terms of its essential nature, it has the...

20:25 Speaker 1 I’m not talking about its essential nature. I’m saying the opposite: it’s intermediate, it’s in the middle. It has something of both, something of both. A shever has both components, just as...

20:38 Speaker 9 That’s the teruah.

20:38 Speaker 1 Right, right, but if... We’ll come to Tosafos in a moment. Wait, give me a moment. Let’s look at it according to Tosafos. According to what you’re saying... According to what I’m saying, it would have to be three pulses, right? So, according to the view that requires three pulses—what does Tosafos say “yelulei yalil” means? Three pulses: tu tu tu. Three, right? That’s called a teruah. That’s called a teruah, right? Now, what does a tekiah have? “Tu” and “o.” A tekiah has “tu” and “o.” So what will you make of the shever? Is there nothing in the shever that resembles both of them together? Nothing in it that resembles both? Because the teruah is tu tu tu—three “tu” sounds. And what is the tekiah? “Tu” and “o.” So what is the shever now?

21:50 Speaker 9 Tu tu.

21:51 Speaker 1 Tu tu. So, once again, that resembles the teruah, not the tekiah at all. The tekiah starts with “tu” and “o,” and the shever... Now, when you say the tekiah as they do according to the Ashkenazi custom, tu tu—but then it isn’t like that. You don’t... How do they do it? That tu tu tu doesn’t sound alike at all.

22:17 Speaker 10 All right.

22:18 Speaker 1 That isn’t called intermediate. It’s a new, different sound. First you say “tu-o,” you say “tu-ho,” and then “tu-tu.” But when you say that this is “tu” and that is “tu”—that the “o” continues the “tu,” right?—and the only difference is that one is long and the other short, then the shever turns out to be intermediate between the tekiah and the teruah.

22:45 Speaker 10 The same components.

22:46 Speaker 1 It has the nature of both.

22:48 Speaker 10 It has “tu,” so that’s the beginning of...

22:50 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly.

22:52 Speaker 10 Both of them.

22:58 Speaker 1 So—so according to this, it comes out—wait, I’ll say more about the “tu” at the end. According to this, we can understand why a shever is called intermediate: it contains both sounds, both types of sound. The only difference is the length. Here you make it long, and here you make it short, but it also takes its “tu” from the teruah.

23:30 Speaker 10 Three sounds.

23:32 Speaker 1 What?

23:33 Speaker 10 Two sounds or three sounds?

23:33 Speaker 1 No, no, I’m talking about two, about two sounds.

23:38 Speaker 10 The “tu” at the end.

23:40 Speaker 1 What?

23:40 Speaker 10 The “tu” at the end.

23:43 Speaker 1 No, I’m saying that according to Rashi, where it’s “tu,” it’s intermediate. According to Tosafos—as we said, the custom of “tu-tu” follows Tosafos—it isn’t intermediate; it’s a different form of sound.

23:58 Speaker 10 How? I just saw [unclear] between one “tu” and the next.

24:02 Speaker 1 What?

24:03 Speaker 10 To separate it with the “tu.”

24:06 Speaker 1 What, what?

24:07 Speaker 10 Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu-tu. No, no, if it’s deliberate, that’s one long tekiah.

24:15 Speaker 1 That’s what I’m saying.

24:16 Speaker 10 Between “tu” and “ru.”

24:18 Speaker 1 Fine, “tu.” You don’t—it’s “tu, tu, tu.” Exactly.

24:22 Speaker 10 No, you can’t put something between the “tu” sounds.

24:24 Speaker 1 You can, you can, you can. In any event, the Litvaks write that this is how it should be done. Just “ru.” Is that clear so far? Yes. In any event, it comes out that we have “tu.” And I think it goes even further. There’s a deeper point here. According to Rashi, what does “shever” mean? What is it broken from? There’s something profound here in the disagreement between Rashi and Tosafos, as the Alter Rebbe understands it. It isn’t stated explicitly, as we’ve explained so far. According to Rashi, a shever means a broken tekiah. The tekiah is broken, because what are you doing? You make only three: “tu, tu, tu.” You’ve divided the tekiah into three separate pieces. You’ve divided it into three parts, like a banana cut into three pieces. First you made “tu”; then you say “tu, tu, tu”—you’ve divided the tekiah into three parts. According to Tosafos, that isn’t what it means. What connection does “tu-tu” have to a tekiah? The sound itself is broken—a broken sound. Because according to Tosafos, every yelalah consists of three sounds; the yelalah itself is three sounds. So here, too, the shever has the form of a yelalah, only it’s longer. But it’s the length of something broken. When you go “tu-tu-tu,” you’ve broken the whole thing.

26:18 Speaker 10 In other words, it’s even more broken.

26:19 Speaker 1 Right, because that’s the nature of groans: they’re longer than wails, but both have the same quality—a broken sound. “Tu-tu-tu” is a broken sound. “Tu-tu-tu” is a broken sound. But according to Rashi, it’s “tu, tu, tu.”

26:39 Speaker 10 Of the shever.

26:42 Speaker 1 What?

26:42 Speaker 10 The shever is from the tekiah.

26:42 Speaker 1 The shever is from the tekiah. So according to this, it really comes out as we said earlier. According to the Riva, a shever has no connection at all to a tekiah. It’s broken in itself. In the shevarim, in the teruah, the sound has to be broken. According to Rashi, as we said earlier, that’s what “intermediate” means. I want to demonstrate this even further. A shever is connected to the tekiah, and it’s also connected to the teruah. As we said about its sounds, it has a “tu” resembling the teruah and an “u” from the tekiah. Likewise, the shever itself is a broken tekiah. If that’s right, perhaps we can understand something very interesting here. In section 4, the Alter Rebbe writes that the custom is not to add to the shevarim. In other words, we sound only three shevarim. If someone wants to sound four, the custom is not to do that. With a teruah or a tekiah, he can sound as many as he wants. [unclear] But with the shevarim, he shouldn’t do that. And where does he bring this in section 4? In his presentation of Rashi’s approach. Seemingly, he should have brought it later, after sections 5 and 6, once he’d presented both opinions, and then said that the custom is not to add another sound to the shevarim. Instead, he brings it under Rashi’s approach. Why? Based on what we’ve explained, we can seemingly understand it. With a teruah, once you’ve completed the nine sounds, you can make more sounds. Here, the whole point is to break the tekiah into three. A fourth part is no longer part of the tekiah. It has no connection to the tekiah at all. It isn’t—

28:48 Speaker 1 The principle with a teruah is this: if there’s a mitzvah for the esrog to be the size of a walnut, then if it’s the size of two walnuts, it’s still the required size. With a teruah, if you add to the nine sounds, it’s still a teruah. But with shevarim, you’ve broken the tekiah into three. That means breaking the tekiah into three, not four. Chazal established that form for the tekiah: to break it into three pieces, not four. The fourth is extra.

29:25 Speaker 11 That’s specifically according to Rashi.

29:26 Speaker 1 So it’s specifically according to Rashi. That’s why he brings it under Rashi. And through all this I want to show that, in practice, these two customs arise from the nature of the tekiah: for Rashi its form is “tu,” and for Tosafos it’s “tu-tu.” Now let’s go further. What? I know. Now let’s think about this. If we’ve come this far, a Jew might ask: Why? If, as we explained, “tu” follows Rashi and “tu-tu” follows Tosafos, let me do both. I’ll sound “tu-tu.” When I sound “tu, tu, tu,” I’ve fulfilled Rashi’s view. Why should it matter if I add another “tu”?

30:44 Speaker 12 Huh?

30:45 Speaker 1 Huh? After all, we said why “tu”—

30:48 Speaker 12 Then it won’t count.

30:48 Speaker 1 Huh?

30:49 Speaker 12 Then it won’t count.

30:50 Speaker 1 Because it won’t count? So why should it matter if you add another “tu”?

30:52 Speaker 12 According to Rashi.

30:54 Speaker 1 No! Rashi. I’m a Jew who wants to satisfy both opinions.

30:58 Speaker 12 You lose out according to Rashi.

31:00 Speaker 1 Why?

31:00 Speaker 12 Because that isn’t—it isn’t called a tekiah.

31:02 Speaker 1 It isn’t called a tekiah. If someone comes and says, “I want to sound ‘tu-tu’: I’ll make ‘tu’ and then add another ‘tu,’” then even according to the Litvaks, those count as separate sounds. You’re right, because it’s an interruption.

31:16 Speaker 12 Add another seven.

31:18 Speaker 1 Adding another seven is even worse. Here you’re interrupting within the shever itself.

31:23 Speaker 12 That makes eight.

31:24 Speaker 1 It makes eight.

31:24 Speaker 12 It makes eight, not a tekiah.

31:26 Speaker 1 Not a tekiah. So according to this—listen—you can’t do both together. Either sound “tu” or sound “tu-tu.” What? I can’t hear you.

31:41 Speaker 12 I put a pause in “tu-tu.” How does he make the shevarim? He also pauses at the end of the tekiah. Why does it have to be that way?

31:53 Speaker 1 He had no choice, if that worked.

31:56 Speaker 12 Those are pauses.

31:57 Speaker 1 What?

31:59 Speaker 12 Those are pauses.

31:59 Speaker 1 What pauses? It resembles a teruah, resembles a teruah.

32:04 Speaker 12 Are you talking about Tosafos?

32:06 Speaker 1 Yes.

32:07 Speaker 12 Someone who did the whole thing—then he can simply do it all.

32:09 Speaker 1 I don’t know what that means. In any event—just a moment, just a moment, we’ll get to it. What are you saying? What is he saying? I think this is where our custom comes from: to sound neither “tu” nor “tu-tu,” but “u-tu.” When you sound “u-tu,” you have this: “u” is a tekiah. Two sounds, yes? There are two sounds here. Anything more than one sound already resembles a tekiah. “U-u.” Right?

32:53 Speaker 12 In the shevarim.

32:54 Speaker 1 What?

32:55 Speaker 12 Shevarim.

32:56 Speaker 1 In the shevarim. When you sound “u-u,” it already resembles a tekiah. It has the quality of a tekiah. You add “tu”—“u-tu”—and you have the “tu” of the shever, of the teruah. In reverse order. We said that “tu” is Rashi. Ah, “tu” is a shever that resembles Rashi’s view, because it contains “tu” and “u,” and it resembles Tosafos because Tosafos has “tu-tu.” But the same applies if I sound “u-u” and then “tu.” Let’s first look at the form of this shever. In this form, you have “u-u,” a long sound, and you also have “tu.” Who says—if we say it’s intermediate and must resemble both, that it must have both qualities and resemble the form and sound of each—then first you make the “u.” Now, when you say “tu-tu,” what happens?

34:02 Speaker 12 Wait, wait, thirty—

34:03 Speaker 1 Just a moment, just a moment, I’ll get to that. When you say “u-tu,” “tu-tu”—when you make “tu-tu,” you have a tekiah here, and at the end you have the quality of “tu.” So it’s intermediate: it resembles a tekiah and also resembles a shever. Now, when you sound “u-tu”—yes, yes—you fulfill the Rambam’s view, because you have “u-tu.” The “tu” is separate from the “u”; they’re two sounds. Just a moment—what? That’s each shever. That’s each shever. What’s your question? According to Rashi, I’ve already fulfilled my obligation with the “u”; I already have two sounds. “U,” yes?

34:55 Speaker 12 What does “u” mean? “U.”

34:58 Speaker 1 “U.” Those are two sounds.

34:59 Speaker 12 Now, with “u-tu.”

35:01 Speaker 1 “U-tu.” That’s not how you sound “u-tu.”

35:03 Speaker 12 “U-tu.”

35:04 Speaker 1 “U-tu.” “U-u-tu.” I sound “u-u-tu.”

35:07 Speaker 12 Do you remember the basic principle?

35:08 Speaker 1 Yes, yes. The whole calculation lies right here. Oo-too. We blow oo-too, oo-too, oo-too. Do you hear? Oo, oo-too. You already have three; you already have three sounds. And the whole calculation lies right here. When you blow, you blow oo-too, but on the one hand, that “oo” has already ceased to be a shever or a teruah, because it contains two sounds. Because it contains two sounds, it is already more like a tekiah: “oo” is two. But it also has to resemble a teruah. We have the “too” at the end.

35:47 Speaker 12 Two, we don’t fulfill the obligation with. No, not two “too” sounds.

35:51 Speaker 1 Two. You’re right. Right. Right. Just a moment, just a moment. But what? Here we can no longer say what we said earlier according to Rashi—what you yourself said—that if you blow too-too, you’ve already fulfilled your obligation. Yes, so you said the last “too” is an interruption. Yes. Here you can’t say that. Even according to Rashi, it isn’t an interruption. Why? Because you need it to make the sound resemble a shever, a teruah. Because when you blow “too,” according to Rashi I’ve already fulfilled the obligation. You have everything here. You have two sounds here, which takes it out of the category of a shever. You have a “too” that also makes it resemble both a teruah and a tekiah, but when you—yes, it would only be a problem. But here it won’t be a problem when the “too” is at the end, because according to Rashi you need the “too” for that.

36:40 Speaker 13 Things.

36:40 Speaker 1 Of course it can. Of course. Of course.

36:41 Speaker 13 Between the draft and the Mishnah, it’s only—

36:47 Speaker 1 Just a moment, just a moment, just a moment. Give me a moment. So when we blow oo-too, in practice, on the one hand we have three sounds here: oo-too. According to Tosafos, all of this doesn’t resemble a teruah, because it’s broken: oo-too. So according to Rashi, too, it has the “too” of the teruah. Yes, and also the “oo,” which is more like a tekiah. So it works for it to be this way. That’s how it is according to Rashi. We have “oo”—we’ll get to this in a moment; apparently it isn’t exactly so. “Oo” is valid; “oo” is valid. According to Rashi, we need sounds. We need the “too” to make it resemble a teruah. And automatically, we’ve fulfilled the obligation according to Tosafos as well, because it has three sounds.

37:46 Speaker 13 But that’s not what’s needed for a teruah. That’s what’s needed for the “too.”

37:49 Speaker 1 Who says? Who says? Who says? Who says? Tosafos says it. That’s exactly what I want to say. According to Tosafos—and no one disputes this—“too” and “oo” are a continuation of one sound. Now Tosafos says that too-too is a broken sound. Where is it broken? At the end, before the last “too.” That’s where it’s broken. Yes. You need the “too.” So you have that here, oo-too; you have a broken sound as well. What difference does it make if you—according to Tosafos, you make too, too. So where is the break? Before the last “too.” When you blow oo-too, again, the break is before the last “too.” That’s according to—yes. Too, too, too, too, too, like that. Just a moment, just a moment, just a moment, just a moment, just a moment. Right. You’re right. Just a moment, just a moment. Rashi. Huh? What? Why isn’t it a shever according to Rashi either? According to Rashi it’s fine, because “oo” is two sounds. “Oo” is—I fulfill the obligation with the “oo,” and the last “too” is not an interruption, because I need it to make the sound resemble a teruah. Why? I’m saying that the she—yes. But first of all, there are three “oo” sounds. So each “oo” is a shever. Just a moment, just a moment. Just a moment. In fact, according to Tosafos you can do it this way, but that’s not how it is. If we look carefully at the root of this matter, because in [unclear] he says this: [unclear]. “One should lengthen the tekiah of tashrat to at least the measure of eighteen terumitin; the tekiah of tashat and tarat to at least the measure of nine terumitin. And each shever”—look carefully—“one should lengthen slightly, to about three terumitin.” What does that mean? In the previous section you said that according to our Rebbe’s opinion, it needs to be lengthened three terumitin, three sounds. “One should lengthen it slightly, to about three teru—” Lengthen—

40:00 Speaker 1 “Slightly, to about three terumitin.” There’s something in that wording: not actually three terumitin. It’s something less than three. It’s hard for us to picture, but it’s less than—it’s three terumitin, but it isn’t actually three terumitin. It’s less than three terumitin. Clearly. Huh? Clearly. What? Why are you so eager for that? That I don’t yet know, but it’s clear to me. Maybe we’ll get to it. It’s clear to me. Rashi. Just a moment, yes, just a moment, just a moment. “About three terumitin.” In other words, it’s less than three terumitin. How can you make it about three terumitin and not three terumitin? Oo. Oo, oo. You don’t make oo-oo. Oo, oo. That transition from one “oo” to the next is a light transition, not a heavy one. So this is what we have: not three sounds, but approximately three sounds. Never mind. Just a moment, just a moment, just a moment, just a moment. So what comes out is that we really have approximately nine sounds, not nine sounds. Approximately nine sounds. Say, you know, eight, eight, eight [unclear]. Or seven and a half—take half off each sound. Yes. Approximately nine sounds, not actually nine sounds. So it follows that if we take oo-too this way, there aren’t three sounds here, but approximately three sounds. This also accommodates Rashi, who—but Rashi himself says three sounds, and—I still don’t know how he derived that from Rashi, who says three sounds. That is, the quarter—so according to Rashi it doesn’t work out that way, because there are two sounds here and the last “too.” There is wording in the Tzemach Tzedek’s Chiddushim Al HaShas. There it seems altogether that he follows [unclear]. I brought it with me because—

42:13 Speaker 1 The Tzemach Tzedek writes as follows: [unclear], “They did not require each shever to be lengthened to three sounds”—not to make each shever like three sounds. You don’t need fifteen. And against that, there is also Rashi’s explanation that it would cease to be a shever. According to Rashi it would. If it reaches that point, it ceases to be a shever, “and Rashi’s view is primary.”

42:36 Speaker 14 Rashi’s view?

42:37 Speaker 1 Yes, Rashi’s view. Here he writes, “We need not be concerned for that opinion.” That’s what the Alter Rebbe says. But the Tzemach Tzedek says, “Rashi’s view is primary.” So what am I thinking here? But that was the whole compromise we had. It’s the Tzemach Tzedek and the Alter Rebbe, all together.

43:01 Speaker 14 Does the Tzemach Tzedek’s Chiddushim say to be concerned for Rashi’s view?

43:03 Speaker 1 “Rashi’s view is primary.”

43:04 Speaker 14 “Rashi’s view is primary.”

43:05 Speaker 1 Yes.

43:06 Speaker 14 Rashi.

43:06 Speaker 1 What?

43:06 Speaker 14 According to Tosafos.

43:07 Speaker 1 According to, according to Tosafos. No, [unclear]. There’s no such thing as having to do it according to Tosafos. Generally, we try to do it in a way that works for everyone, since it’s a matter of doubt. Just, just, just, just, just. So what comes out is that in practice we blow it this way: we produce nine sounds, but not quite nine. Not quite nine. So it seems that the Alter Rebbe understood that even according to Tosafos, there have to be three sounds—but something between two and three is also good. It’s enough for it to be more than two. It doesn’t have to be exactly three sounds. Two isn’t good according to Tosafos, but two and a half is also good according to Tosafos.

43:46 Speaker 14 According to Rashi, that’s enough.

43:47 Speaker 1 According to Rashi, that’s enough.

43:47 Speaker 14 No more than three.

43:48 Speaker 1 What?

43:50 Speaker 14 According to Rashi, it’s no more than two.

43:51 Speaker 1 According to Rashi, it’s no more than two.

43:51 Speaker 14 It’s no fewer than two.

43:52 Speaker 1 Fewer than two.

43:54 Speaker 14 No, according to Rashi there’s no problem if it’s more than two.

43:56 Speaker 1 It doesn’t seem there’s a problem with it resembling a tekiah.

44:01 Speaker 14 No, here he cut it off.

44:02 Speaker 1 Precisely; since he cut it off, there’s no problem.

44:04 Speaker 14 He made an “oo.”

44:04 Speaker 1 Yes, there’s no problem. Yes. Here comes the great insight in this calculation. Why did the Rebbe add another sound?

44:19 Speaker 14 At the end of the whole sequence?

44:20 Speaker 1 Why? Why?

44:21 Speaker 14 At the end of the count?

44:22 Speaker 1 Yes. Why?

44:23 Speaker 14 After all, it’s at the end.

44:25 Speaker 1 Too-too-too-too-too.

44:27 Speaker 14 No, what—how are we now going to bring it down to too-too?

44:31 Speaker 1 Too-too-too-too-too-too. What’s the basis for this too-too? Because the Gemara does put it there afterward, in its conclusion. There are things there that contradict one another, so let’s read. Ah, in section 6, look—look closely at section 6, at the view of [unclear]. “And some say that the measure of a yevava is three terumitin, and the measure of a teruah is about three yevavos, which are nine terumitin; and the measure of a tekiah, being equal to the measure of a teruah, is nine terumitin; and the measure of a shever is also at least the measure of a teruah—nine terumitin—so that the three shevarim together are not less…” Oh: “so that the three shevarim together are not less than nine terumitin.” “So that the three shevarim together”—look carefully. The Alter Rebbe makes a calculation as though any child who has just learned it in first grade knows it. See how he explains it: “The measure of a shever must certainly be at least the measure of a teruah, so… also nine terumitin at the very least. If so, one must lengthen each shever to no less than three terumitin.” Why? “So that the three shevarim together are not less than nine terumitin.” Everyone understands that if, if, if, if each one isn’t three, the total won’t be nine. The nine is made up of three plus three plus three. But he repeats himself: not less than three, and not less than nine. If it’s less than three, it won’t reach nine.

46:00 Speaker 14 What about that?

46:02 Speaker 1 Everyone understands that. We said each one can be three, right? Three, with all three. Apparently there’s another calculation here. Besides not being less than three, it also has to be no less than nine. So if we make each one two and something, two and something, two and something, and then add one, that makes nine. We said that “o,” “o,” “o,” “o,” “o” comes to two and a half. So what does it come to? Two and a third, two and a third, and two and a third. Then another sound completes the nine. So that’s regarding the three—regarding the three sounds, the requirement that there be three sounds.

46:50 Speaker 3 Then I’ll read more than three.

46:51 Speaker 1 Ah, yes. Regarding the three—the requirement that there be three sounds—the halachic ruling clearly says that close to three counts as three. But regarding the nine, there actually have to be nine in total. How do you get close to three and still have nine? You add one more.

47:13 Speaker 3 Maybe if there’s something.

47:15 Speaker 1 Nine is three groups of three. How do we get to seventeen? Because there are two separate requirements. In section four, he says there must be both three and nine.

47:26 Speaker 3 But how does that calculation work?

47:27 Speaker 1 You know what? I’ll tell you: close to three counts as three. But when you do it three times, you don’t have nine; you have eight. No, no, not nine. You can say close to three counts as three. But you can’t say eight is nine.

47:45 Speaker 3 Like we said, because five hundred becomes two thousand.

47:48 Speaker 1 It can.

47:49 Speaker 3 But four and a half isn’t six.

47:52 Speaker 1 It isn’t six. So eight may not be nine.

47:54 Speaker 3 But there’s an explanation that distinguishes between the calculation and—

47:58 Speaker 1 Wait, so is it clear now?

47:59 Speaker 3 How do you calculate it to make nine?

48:04 Speaker 1 What?

48:04 Speaker 3 Each one comes with a sound. How important.

48:07 Speaker 1 The calculation is that we make each one a third less: two and two-thirds sounds.

48:16 Speaker 3 So how much is that out of nine and—

48:17 Speaker 1 Work it out.

48:20 Speaker 3 It’s more than eight.

48:20 Speaker 1 It’s more than eight. Yes, eight. You’re right. But then we add another sound at the end.

48:25 Speaker 3 No, with another sound it comes to eight.

48:27 Speaker 1 Not by my calculation. I didn’t study secular subjects, but even I understand that it isn’t eight.

48:34 Speaker 3 Two and two-thirds. Two-thirds.

48:39 Speaker 1 Two and two-thirds, two and two-thirds, two and two-thirds comes to eight, and one more makes nine.

48:45 Speaker 3 Ashkenazim.

48:46 Speaker 1 And that’s what the Sharga says too. So what does it mean? That two and two-thirds counts as three. That I understand. But for eight to be nine—that’s impossible. But he adds another sound, so together they make nine.

49:01 Speaker 3 Doesn’t that make four?

49:02 Speaker 1 Huh?

49:02 Speaker 3 Because to complete eight to nine, there’s just another fourth one, beyond the basic pattern he described.

49:07 Speaker 1 So how is it four?

49:08 Speaker 3 It isn’t four shevarim.

49:10 Speaker 1 Why?

49:11 Speaker 3 We already reached—

49:13 Speaker 1 No, what we said was that there have to be—

49:17 Speaker 3 That’s four.

49:17 Speaker 1 That’s... you’re right. There you add it in the middle of the shevarim; here you add it at the end.

49:23 Speaker 3 But that—

49:24 Speaker 1 It’s separate there.

49:25 Speaker 3 To leave it as it is—that doesn’t, that doesn’t—

49:27 Speaker 1 Yes, fine. In the shevarim there are nine sounds. There you can’t do it in the middle, because you’d be adding another shever. Here you add only one more.

49:35 Speaker 3 No, but that’s exactly what I said here too: three shevarim and four shevarim.

49:38 Speaker 1 What? Right, it isn’t a shever; it’s an individual sound. Each one is an individual sound.

49:45 Speaker 3 So that isn’t a proof from the previous question.

49:47 Speaker 1 Why?

49:49 Speaker 3 That’s not—so, the sequence. Why isn’t there an interruption here? Isn’t there explicitly an interruption between the shevarim and the tekiah?

49:54 Speaker 1 Why?

49:54 Speaker 3 It’s an interruption. That’s what all of this says. It’s explicitly not part of the shever.

49:56 Speaker 1 How? How? How?

49:58 Speaker 3 Part of each of the three? It explicitly says it’s an interruption between the shevarim and the tekiah.

50:02 Speaker 1 No, that’s what we explained to him. Because according to Rashi, it has to be between... It’s needed for... because there has to be—

50:09 Speaker 3 You need the teruah.

50:10 Speaker 1 The need for it.

50:11 Speaker 3 Why isn’t there an interruption between the shevarim and the tekiah? According to Rashi, it comes out as an interruption.

50:16 Speaker 1 No, that isn’t called an interruption, because it belongs to the shever, to the whole thing. No, that’s not right. It isn’t called an interruption because it’s needed for the shever.

50:27 Speaker 3 Not according to Rashi. According to Rashi, it isn’t—

50:29 Speaker 1 What do you mean, why is it needed? That doesn’t matter. Even if it’s needed for a single [unclear], it still isn’t called an interruption. There it’s worse: inside the shever is worse.

50:40 Speaker 3 The whole discussion from the siman was taken... instead of seventeen.

50:44 Speaker 1 Yes. So here’s how it comes out. On this basis, the whole matter is a precise calculation. “O-to”—I want to sum up—“o-to” is two and two-thirds, because the “o” is stressed; it’s a sound added to it. But it comes to two and two-thirds. Three times two and two-thirds is eight. Add one more sound, and it’s nine. So one fulfills the obligation according to both Rashi and the Ritva.

51:27 Speaker 3 That was amazing.

51:28 Speaker 1 On that basis—if this is correct—they bring up another very interesting point here. It’s also in the Tzelach; I need to check exactly what it says. I don’t remember it well enough by heart. I’ll go over it in the text. The Beis Yosef writes as follows: the Baal HaItur writes, what are shevarim? Three short, separate sounds. That is called shevarim: three separate sounds. If so, what’s the difference between shevarim and teruah? The Beis Yosef says that shevarim are sounds separated from one another, while a teruah consists of sounds in rapid succession, without a pause between them. What?

52:27 Speaker 4 Right.

52:27 Speaker 1 What does that—what does it mean? Let’s think. A teruah is what...? A teruah is sounds in rapid succession. Shevarim are sounds separated from one another. Apparently the Baal HaItur didn’t get into all these fine distinctions—whether it’s two sounds or three sounds, whether they’re rapid or close together. From what I’ve heard about the Chabad custom, some people sound the teruah “to-to-to-to-to,” like a machine gun. But specifically in the Chabad custom, it wasn’t like that. I once heard in shul that the Chabad custom was “to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to.” As though... huh? Huh?

53:15 Speaker 4 Very slowly.

53:15 Speaker 1 Huh?

53:16 Speaker 4 Very slowly.

53:17 Speaker 1 Very slowly. Very slowly. “To, to, to, to.” Huh?

53:21 Speaker 4 Really slowly.

53:22 Speaker 1 Very slowly. Very slowly. Yes.

53:24 Speaker 4 So it comes out that there are three teruah sounds in one shever. If you sound five, there are teruah sounds there too.

53:33 Speaker 1 Ah, you hear that? Did you hear what we were discussing earlier? That we take—

53:37 Speaker 4 That one shever contains five or seven teruah sounds.

53:41 Speaker 1 Yes.

53:41 Speaker 4 But that doesn’t mean you’re sounding three teruah sounds. It’s just that the teruah is sounded slowly.

53:46 Speaker 1 The teruah slowly. All right, just a moment. Our custom is as you said: to sound the teruah slowly, slowly. So if so, what’s the difference between a teruah and shevarim? It would seem to be the opposite. Now notice how he writes it. Look in section—ah, section two: “[unclear].” Why does he write “in rapid succession,” but not “immediately one after the other”? So the Tzemach Tzedek raises a difficulty with the Beis Yosef. The Beis Yosef cites Rabbi [unclear], who writes: “Know that shevarim does not mean breaking it all up and pausing.” In other words, shevarim doesn’t mean breaking everything up and pausing, “but rather a shever is like a person groaning from distress or heartache [unclear], and these are sounds in succession, yet with complete pauses.” Teruah sounds are in rapid succession, yet with complete pauses. In other words, it’s the opposite: with shevarim there need not be a pause from one to the next, from one shever to the next. Rather, it is like a person groaning from distress and heartache, as he says. The whole difference between a shever and a teruah is that a shever is somewhat longer—a groan—while a teruah is [unclear]. But there should be a pause between each shever? So how does he explain it here? Here he cites the Baal HaItur, who says they must be separated from one another—the shevarim—while the teruah sounds must be close together. And here he writes that—and raises a difficulty with it. So the Tzemach Tzedek concludes that within the three shevarim themselves there is no pause between one and the next. There is no pause in the shevarim. He isn’t talking about the teruah. In shevarim there is no pause from one to the next; the only difference between them and a teruah is that each sound is a little longer. What is he trying to establish from this? I don’t understand.

56:09 Speaker 1 The Tzemach Tzedek raised a difficulty: On the one hand, the Beis Yosef says they don’t have to be close together. On the other hand, it says they do have to be close together. The Ra’ah, the Tzemach Tzedek... There has to be some sort of... Only with the teruah, each sound is a little longer. The sound is a little longer. That’s the pause between one part of the teruah and the next. I think this is what it means. From what we’ve said, according to our custom, when you blow “too too too too too too too too too too too,” the end of one “too” and the beginning of the next are right next to each other. Yes. So after that you have to make a pause: “too too.” How is that different from a teruah? But when you blow “oo-too, oo-too,” there’s automatically a pause between the “too” sounds because of the “oo.” That’s the shever and the “too.” What? That’s the shever and the “too.” The difference between one shever and the next is the “oo.” The “oo” is both a sound and a pause. So we need to do it deliberately for everyone. Here there’s a difference between... We have the difference between... I mean, the difference between shevarim and a tekiah, between shevarim and a teruah. A teruah. We’ll do the teruah the way Rabbi Grossman said, slowly. If you do it slowly, how is it different from shevarim? Of course shevarim are different. Shevarim are “oo-too.” Between one “too” and the next, you have an “oo” in the middle. But if you do “too too too too too too too,” then you have to pause between one “too” and the next. That’s not what we do. No, I just wrote it there to explain it; I simply don’t have the text anymore. But the issue is understandable in principle. When there’s more of an “oo” between the two “too” sounds, that’s exactly it. No, they’re making a mistake; it’s a good point. Ah, two “too” sounds...

58:24 Speaker 1 The “too” sounds are right next to each other—the end of one shever and the beginning of the next. There’s no difference between them. But those were two. [unclear] actually explains it as two. Yes, that doesn’t matter.

58:44 Speaker 5 Now, about the matter of the shevarim in general.

58:46 Speaker 1 Huh?

58:51 Speaker 5 That you have to put in.

58:53 Speaker 1 So what follows from this? What follows is that, really, really, I think that according to this custom, it resolves many of the difficulties involved. It’s interesting: I haven’t found anywhere that explicitly says where these two customs came from. No one... Here. When you study the Rebbe’s Shaar carefully, you can begin to understand the...

59:42 Speaker 5 It also explains the “oo.”

59:45 Speaker 1 It wasn’t possible. At least, from the years I remember. The shofar blasts weren’t always... but they say that’s how it seemed. A little. It’s a pity. It’s a pity.

1:00:20 Speaker 5 I once heard that... This was in 5752–53. There was someone here... He later printed it in my name in [unclear]. He was here. You’re asking exactly how—where, how is it written, the notation for the sounds that... Rabbi Sofer was here then; he was already at the yeshivah. [unclear] He greeted me; they showed me [unclear]. There were many Jews who were close to the Rebbe. So he related that after dinner at the yeshivah—he later related that the Chasam Sofer had once gone to Vienna for medical treatment. He was at the conservatory. He had traveled to receive treatment and stayed at a hotel. At the hotel there was a world-famous musician who played a melody. The Chasam Sofer was deeply moved by his melody and liked it very much, so he wrote it down for himself. But the Chasam Sofer didn’t know musical notation, so he wrote down various symbols to help him remember the melody. That manuscript remained in their family. There was a grandson of the Chasam Sofer, and... Who could read it besides...? He... So he told the Rebbe about it. He told the Rebbe that he had this manuscript, and the Rebbe told him to send it to him. He sent it to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe transcribed the melody into musical notation for him. Huh? That’s what he related: that the Rebbe transcribed the melody into musical notation for him. That’s how it was. Meaning, they didn’t write musical notes; they wrote it down for us in... That’s it. Now we’ll have to teach the souls [unclear]. Huh? What, what? It’s all simple.

1:02:40 Speaker 6 Where does it say there’s a source for that “oo” sound?

1:02:43 Speaker 5 What?

1:02:43 Speaker 6 Where does it say in the first chapter that there’s a source for the “oo” sound?

1:02:53 Speaker 5 What? I didn’t understand.

1:02:59 Speaker 6 Where—where does it say that you should pause? All the shofar blasts, he... Isn’t there some problem with that?

1:03:08 Speaker 5 Ah, the Bigdei Yesha writes that it’s “too-tee,” that the teruah is “too-tee.” Yes, certainly. Someone told me a few days ago about his son, who was blowing the shofar on his own, and it was simply frightening. The sound had no form at all—this way and that way and that way and that way. Then there were people who would turn [unclear] and blow for themselves. So that year didn’t pass peacefully for me. Huh? Yes.

1:03:58 Speaker 6 In cases where people are in a hurry, can you give them, uh...

1:04:01 Speaker 5 Tashrat.

1:04:01 Speaker 6 What?

1:04:03 Speaker 5 Tashrat!

1:04:03 Speaker 6 Three sets of tashrat?

1:04:05 Speaker 5 Three sets of tashrat.

1:04:06 Speaker 6 Tashrat? Three sets of tashrat?

1:04:07 Speaker 5 Yes.

1:04:08 Speaker 6 Is that obligatory?

1:04:09 Speaker 5 Yes.

1:04:11 Speaker 6 Why isn’t that written?

1:04:13 Speaker 5 Because, in practice, the main thing is the... the... As is known, the Rebbe writes that the main thing is the...

1:04:17 Speaker 6 Can we check?

1:04:23 Speaker 5 It seems so. Okay, much success.

1:06:09 Speaker 6 Thank you.