The Development of the Shofar Blowing - Rabbi Isser Springer shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to the “Lemaan Yishme’u” podcast from Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:10 Speaker 2 Shalom, and a good, sweet year—a year of Geulah and salvation, with Hashem’s help. In this class, we’ll learn about shofar blowing, which is closely connected to the Geulah: “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded, and those who were lost will come,” and so on. So the shofar symbolizes the Geulah. In this class, we won’t focus on the practical halachos—how to blow, what to do after the fact, what intention to have, how to make the blessing, and so on—but on the halachic history. As you know, according to Chabad custom, we sound a hundred and thirty shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah. Apart from all the blasts we sound on mivtzoim, baruch Hashem, we sound a hundred and thirty as part of the prayers. In this class, we’ll look at how this developed: How many blasts were sounded at first? How many were added, and why? In what order were these additions made? So let’s begin. First, the Torah says “teruah” in connection with Rosh Hashanah. It says so twice, once in Parshas Emor and once in Parshas Pinchas. The fact that it appears twice doesn’t yet mean we have to sound a teruah more than once. It appears twice. There is another place where the Torah says “teruah,” in connection with Yom Kippur of the Jubilee year. The Torah says, “You shall sound the shofar of teruah in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month. On Yom Kippur, you shall sound the shofar throughout your land.” So from this verse we already learn that there is a shofar—that the teruah is sounded with a shofar. Chazal learned something else from this verse: besides the teruah sounded with the shofar, it says “you shall sound” before the word “teruah”—“You shall sound the shofar of teruah”—and afterward it says, “On Yom Kippur, you shall sound the shofar throughout your land.” Before the teruah there is an expression of sounding, and after the teruah there is another expression of sounding. What does that mean? Chazal tell us: You have to sound a teruah, which is like crying. We learn that from the Targum’s word “yevava,” a wail. We’ll see later that it’s also connected to Sisera’s mother, where it says, “Through the window Sisera’s mother looked out and wailed, through

02:57 Speaker 2 the lattice.” She cried: Why isn’t Sisera coming? Her heart was gripped with fear that he had probably died, that he would not return. So they learned that there must be a teruah, and before and after the teruah there must be a plain, unbroken sound—a tekiah. Not a complicated blast, not a blast that sounds like crying. Chazal also learned, through a comparison between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of the Jubilee year, that there must be three teruos each time. This is a case where they derive details from what the Torah says and also learn that we must add to it—that one time is not enough. One teruah is not enough; there must be three. In any case, that is what Chazal learned, and we won’t go into the details. It follows, then, that Chazal understand the Torah to mean that on Rosh Hashanah we must sound nine blasts. Nine blasts. Why nine? There are three teruos, and before and after each teruah there is a plain tekiah, without variations. That makes nine. This is Torah law: nine blasts on Rosh Hashanah. According to Torah law, when do we sound them? Whenever it suits each person. Just like prayer. There is a mitzvah from the Torah to serve Hashem through prayer. According to Torah law, when do we pray? Whenever a person feels the need, whenever he can—each person is left to decide. The same was true, strictly speaking, of shofar blowing, and that is how it was at first: each person would go and hear the shofar whenever he wanted. We can imagine that some people did it at six in the morning and others at six in the evening. Some saw the sun beginning to set in the west and remembered that they still hadn’t heard the shofar. Each person did it in his own time, until the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash era. At the beginning of that era, a set order was established, as with prayer. We mentioned prayer earlier: at the beginning of the Second Beis Hamikdash era, the fixed text of prayer was established,

05:10 Speaker 2 and when they established that text, they also established a framework for shofar blowing. The Men of the Great Assembly established that on every festival we say seven blessings in the Amidah: the first three blessings as on a weekday, the last three as on a weekday, and a middle blessing devoted to the theme of the day. For Rosh Hashanah, they said: There is one occasion in the entire year when we say nine blessings in the Amidah. On the rest of the year, there are seventeen on an ordinary weekday, or seven in Musaf and the festival prayers. The only prayer with nine blessings is on Rosh Hashanah. The Men of the Great Assembly instituted Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros. And the three sets of shofar blasts—we saw earlier that there are three teruos, each preceded and followed by a tekiah—are sounded one set for Malchuyos, one for Zichronos, and one for Shofaros. In which prayer did Chazal institute Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros? They instituted them in Shacharis. Today we’re so used to their being in Musaf that it’s hard to believe, but when you think about it, it makes much more sense. In the first prayer of the day, Shacharis, you say Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros and sound the shofar. Those who are eager perform mitzvos early. And that is what actually happened. The Men of the Great Assembly instituted shofar blowing in Shacharis, together with Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros. But over the years, the shofar blowing moved to Musaf. Why? Because there was a decree against blowing the shofar, and because of that decree, we... By the way, I didn’t mention earlier that we’ll focus on one of the opinions, one straightforward view, because on many of these points there are disagreements among the Rishonim. We’ll explain it according to one opinion. Because of the decree that arose in connection with the shofar blowing, the blasts were moved to Musaf. How does sounding them in Musaf help? How does it solve the problem of a decree against blowing? Either because by Musaf it was

07:23 Speaker 2 already a hotter time of day, and the guards had gone home. It wasn’t pleasant to stand outside patrolling the Jewish streets in the heat, so they had gone home. Or because there was no longer concern that the non-Jews would take it as a declaration of rebellion: they had already seen the prayers and the Torah reading, and then came the shofar blowing. It was clear by then that the Jews were praying. If the shofar were blown earlier, during Shacharis, they might think, as they had before, that it was a rebellion. And if it was a rebellion, they would come to suppress it with great force. In any case, that was the decree, and it moved the shofar blowing to Musaf. When exactly was this decree? There are several opinions. Was it under the Greeks or the Romans? Was it during the Second Beis Hamikdash era or after the destruction? In any case, there was a decree, and it brought us to Musaf. Up to this point, we still have nine blasts—the same nine blasts the Jewish people sounded in the wilderness. Those same nine blasts were sounded during Musaf after the decree. The blasts themselves had not yet changed. What had changed was when they were sounded. At first, each person did it whenever it suited him. Then it was done during Shacharis on Rosh Hashanah, and afterward during Musaf on Rosh Hashanah. By the way, all of this was during the repetition of the Amidah. We’re not yet talking about the silent Amidah. These were the early periods of the nine shofar blasts. And then a change came: the decree was rescinded. If the decree was rescinded, we know that today there is no decree. Today we can blow the shofar during Shacharis. So why don’t we, if that was the original enactment? Our Rishonim offer several explanations: Why don’t we blow during Shacharis today? Why don’t we say Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros during Shacharis, and make do with seven blessings in Musaf, with only the middle blessing devoted to the theme of the day? Our Rishonim say

09:23 Speaker 2 The Rishonim give several explanations. One is that by Musaf, we know attendance is better. At Shacharis, not everyone has managed to pull themselves away from their pillow yet. By Musaf, the crowd is larger, so “in a multitude of people is the King’s glory”—that is why they sound the shofar specifically at Musaf. Another possibility is that we should have more mitzvos to our credit when we reach the shofar blowing. The shofar blowing is the central event, and we want it to come after the Torah reading and after we have finished Shacharis, so that we have more mitzvos to our credit. Some give a simple technical explanation: an enactment cannot be repealed. Something instituted by a beis din cannot be repealed by another beis din unless the latter is greater in wisdom and in number. Whether or not the original reason still applies, the enactment remains. In any case, despite the change—the decree is no longer in effect—we still sound the shofar at Musaf. That concludes our discussion of the changes that took place while the practice was still to sound nine blasts on Rosh Hashanah. In the days of the Amoraim, Rabbi Abahu, who was a student of Rabbi Yochanan, introduced a change: instead of nine sounds, thirty were instituted. Tashrat, tashrat, tashrat; three sets of tashat; and three sets of tarat. Why did they suddenly change from nine sounds, as required by Torah law, to thirty? Because Rabbi Abahu saw that each shul sounded the teruah differently. Some made the teruah in the pattern we call shevarim-teruah: several somewhat longer sounds followed by short sounds—tu, tu, tu, tu, tu. Others made only the somewhat longer sounds, which we call shevarim, or only the sounds we call teruah. There were several customs. Rabbi Abahu said: The Jewish people have become uncertain about the correct way. They have become uncertain about what the Torah instituted, what it commanded us to do. There are Jewish communities, Rabbi Abahu said, that are not fulfilling the mitzvah properly, but we have no way

11:31 Speaker 2 to determine the correct way to fulfill the mitzvah of shofar blowing. We have no recordings of Moshe Rabbeinu, no videos of Yehoshua bin Nun. We don’t. So Rabbi Abahu instituted that, because of the doubt, every shul should sound all three possibilities. Once every shul sounds the teruah in all three ways, everyone has certainly fulfilled the mitzvah. That is the main, straightforward explanation for why Rabbi Abahu instituted thirty sounds and had the teruah sounded in three ways: shevarim-teruah together, shevarim alone, or teruah alone, for a total of thirty sounds. Rav Hai Gaon gives another explanation. It was said of Rav Hai Gaon that he was the last of the Geonim in time—the last of the era of the Geonim, the heads of the yeshivos in Babylonia—but the first among them in stature. Rav Hai Gaon was an extraordinary figure, an extraordinary leader of the Jewish people and an extraordinary Torah scholar. Rav Hai Gaon writes that we need to understand it a little differently. There was no doubt about the correct sound. Rabbi Abahu’s position was: they are all correct. The Torah said “teruah.” The Torah said to produce a sound of weeping. Which sound of weeping? Whichever you want. That is not the point. Which sound of weeping? The main thing is that it sound like weeping. Therefore, says Rav Hai, Rabbi Abahu held that everyone fulfills their obligation. What they do in the Tunisian shul down the street, what they do in the Polish shul up the street, and what they do in the Yemenite shul out back—it is all good, all good, as long as it sounds like weeping. But, says Rabbi—says Rav Hai, Rabbi Abahu did not want the Torah to appear like two different Torahs. People might think there are two Torahs. People might think that, according to one group, the other does not fulfill its obligation, and vice versa. So Rabbi Abahu came and said: Everyone should sound all the forms. Each one fulfills the obligation; there is no problem. But still, it is better that it not look like two Torahs, and therefore thirty sounds must be blown. In

13:32 Speaker 2 that case, this is the first stage of the expansion. Thirty sounds. We are making our way toward 130, but we are not there yet—not even a quarter of the way. Now there was another addition, at roughly the same time according to most opinions. Around Rabbi Abahu’s time, another thirty sounds were added before Musaf, known in halachah as the tekios d’meyushav, the blasts sounded while seated. In practice, we stand for them in reverent awe, but strictly speaking, one may sit for them. Tekios d’meyushav. There is a discussion about why these blasts were added. After all, our Sages instituted the blasts as part of the prayers, placing them in Musaf. Why add more sounds before Musaf? For that, we need to look at what the Gemara says. The Gemara asks: Why do they sound the shofar while seated and then sound it again while standing? To confuse the Satan. To confuse the Satan. The Rishonim disagree about which blasts are meant to confuse the Satan and which are the principal blasts—the actual blasts through which we primarily fulfill the mitzvah. Some say: It is obvious. The blasts our Sages instituted are the ones incorporated into the prayers. They decided to add blasts beforehand to confuse the Satan. The blasts before Musaf are the ones that confuse the Satan. Another opinion says: No. The blasts before Musaf are the ones through which we primarily fulfill the mitzvah. The blasts during the prayers, sounded with Malchuyos, Zichronos and Shofaros, are the ones meant to confuse the Satan. Why? Until now, we understood that our Sages instituted the blasts during the prayers. Why are we now saying that those blasts are only an addition meant to confuse the Satan? The answer is: At first, our Sages knew which blasts to sound; they knew what the true teruah was. Since they knew what the true teruah

15:58 Speaker 2 was, they instituted that it should be sounded alongside the blessings. But now a situation has arisen in which we do not know what the true teruah is. If we do not know what it is, we can no longer carry out our Sages’ enactment that the teruah be sounded alongside the blessings. And if we cannot carry out that enactment, it is better to sound all the blasts in one sequence before Musaf. Why, then, do we nevertheless sound the shofar during Musaf? That is what the Gemara means when it says those blasts are meant to confuse the Satan. Which blasts is it referring to? The second set, the blasts during the prayers. That raises the question: What does it mean to confuse the Satan? How do you confuse the Satan? We know how to toss a salad, but how do you toss the Satan? What do you do? Several explanations have been given. Some say that doing a mitzvah with extra care makes the Satan confused and undermines his confidence. We add more shofar blasts. The Satan comes to accuse—that is what he does. He comes to make a case against us. What is his argument? That the Jews are not serious. But when he sees them doing mitzvos with extra care, right there and then, he has a hard time making his case. He loses some confidence, swallows his words, stammers a little. That is what it means to confuse the Satan, according to one opinion. Others give an explanation we would very much like to connect with. They say the Satan knows that one day there will be a great shofar, and when that great shofar sounds, “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth.” Moshiach will slaughter the Satan. He hears the shofar, and then hears it a second time, and his doubts begin to grow: Could this be the shofar of Moshiach? The shofar will sound on its own: “And on that day, a great shofar will be sounded.” Maybe Moshiach is sounding the shofar right now, and in another second he will come running toward the Satan with a knife in his hand. The Satan begins to lose

18:00 Speaker 2 the balance, and this is called confounding Satan, because Satan fears the days of Moshiach. Some explain it differently: this is not referring to the accusing Satan at all, but to the Satan within us—not the angel who stands above and says that the Jewish people commit many transgressions, but the Satan who leads us to sin. Once the shofar is sounded and we go beyond the basic requirement, he has less motivation, less confidence, to come and lead us astray. He knows we are not so inclined to do things that are against Hashem’s will. There is also a sicha of the Rebbe on this subject, in volume 24, a Rosh Hashanah sicha about confounding Satan and how he can be confounded anew each year. But we will continue in this order. You can study the sicha, of course—it is recommended—but it is outside the scope of our class. So far we have reached sixty blasts: thirty because of the uncertainty, and another thirty to confound Satan. There are two opinions about what exactly confounds him—the blasts during Mussaf or those before it—but either way, we have reached sixty. We are approaching the halfway point, but we need to keep going and reach 130 blasts. How do we get to 130? Over the years, the custom spread to sound the shofar during the silent Amidah as well. Until now we have been discussing the chazzan’s repetition, the prayer said aloud, during which the Sages instituted shofar blasts corresponding to Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofros. The practice of sounding the shofar during the silent Amidah was also adopted. Some of the early halachic authorities note that it has a source in the Jerusalem Talmud. Why do we sound it during the silent Amidah too? Some say that this, too, is part of the Sages’ enactment, and that we fulfill it more completely by sounding the shofar during the silent Amidah as well. According to Kabbalah, there is an interesting point: it is specifically the blasts during the silent Amidah that counter the evil inclination toward forbidden relations. In any case, it was particularly through the kabbalists that the custom of sounding the shofar during the silent Amidah, and not only during the chazzan’s repetition, spread more and more. And so

20:04 Speaker 2 we have already reached ninety blasts. To the first thirty we had, another thirty were added to confound Satan, and another thirty whose purpose, according to Kabbalah, is to counter the evil inclination toward forbidden relations. Those thirty are sounded during the silent Amidah, according to all opinions. In his responsa, the Avnei Nezer—a Chassidic Rebbe who generally follows the Alter Rebbe’s approach very closely; the Rebbe said he was deeply engrossed in the Alter Rebbe’s words—nevertheless writes here that it is better not to sound the shofar during the silent Amidah. He cites his teachers, the Rebbe of Kotzk, who was also his father-in-law, and the Chiddushei HaRim of Ger. He says they told him that on Rosh Hashanah, while they were praying the silent Amidah, the chazzan would finish before them, and the shofar would be sounded while they were still in the middle of their prayers. The Avnei Nezer cited this as a reason to avoid sounding the shofar during the silent Amidah. The earlier work Knesses Hagedolah describes a custom in those days concerning how the chazzan would indicate that he had finished the blessing and the shofar blower could begin. Today the custom is for the chazzan or gabbai to signal this with a knock. In their day, though, the chazzan would indicate it by ending the blessing aloud—saying “Who hears the sound of His people Israel’s shofar blasts with mercy,” or “Who remembers the covenant”—and when he finished... Once, someone was in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei, the silent Amidah, and heard the chazzan finish aloud. He answered amen at a point where he was not permitted to answer amen, because he was in the silent Amidah. So that, too, is a reason not to sound the shofar during the silent Amidah. In any case, we do sound it during the silent Amidah, and that brings us to ninety blasts. We are getting close to the end. We have passed the halfway point; ninety is already fairly close to 130. How do we complete the count to 130? We have another ten blasts that are sounded

21:58 Speaker 2 during the Kaddish after Shemoneh Esrei, in the middle of Kaddish Tiskabel. Why do we need another ten blasts? What happened? What changed? The early halachic authorities write that one should sound a hundred blasts altogether, corresponding to the hundred cries uttered by Sisera’s mother. Earlier we mentioned Sisera’s mother weeping: “Through the window she looked out and wailed.” On a straightforward level, Sisera’s mother is the source for understanding that a teruah is a wail. Just as she wailed a hundred times—and the early authorities also discuss somewhat how we know that she wailed a hundred times, but in any case, that is what is written—we learn from those hundred cries that our shofar blasts, too, should number one hundred. We sound another ten blasts during Kaddish Tiskabel to bring the total to one hundred, and so we have completed one hundred blasts. Incidentally, many have asked: Fine, we learned the basic point from Sisera’s mother, that a teruah is a wail. But are we also going to learn the details—the number one hundred—from her? She was just one woman crying over something we should actually be happy about: the death of her son, the wicked Sisera. How does that make sense? Explanations have been given based on the inner dimension of Torah, and there are further discussions about it, but we will not go into that point in this short class. We have one hundred blasts, and now we need to reach the final stretch: the last thirty that bring the total to 130. The Alter Rebbe’s siddur stops at one hundred. The additional thirty are a Chabad custom recorded in Sefer Haminhagim. They do not appear in the Alter Rebbe’s siddur. Why do we sound another thirty blasts? Here there is a slight difference between what the Alter Rebbe says in Shulchan Aruch and what appears in the commonly used machzorim, the so-called complete machzor. In the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, section 596, if I am not mistaken, he lists three customs for what to sound after the prayers. One option is to sound a long tekiah

24:13 Speaker 2 to confound Satan. More confounding for Satan—if he has not been thoroughly confounded already, here is some more. That is one option: a long tekiah. A second option is another custom after the prayers: to complete the total of one hundred blasts. If some people do not sound the shofar during the silent Amidah, or do things differently in other ways—for example, if during Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofros they sound only tashrat, rather than our custom of tashrat, tashat, and tarat for each blessing—then the second option is to complete the total of one hundred blasts. A third option is to sound thirty blasts for whom? For anyone who perhaps did not fulfill the mitzvah when they needed to—someone who arrived late, was not paying attention, or whatever it may be. Sound thirty blasts for anyone who has not yet fulfilled the mitzvah. That is the third option. So what, apparently, is our practice? The Chabad custom is to sound thirty blasts after the prayers, and it seems that the reason is the custom the Alter Rebbe discusses: to enable anyone who has not yet fulfilled the mitzvah to do so. The complete machzor says that the thirty blasts are intended to confound Satan, and that is indeed the view of the Levush. One of the great halachic authorities who preceded the Alter Rebbe was known as the Levush—Rabbi Mordechai Yaffe, author of the Levushim—and he writes that there is a custom to sound thirty blasts after the prayers to confound Satan. The complete machzor records his view, but apparently that is not the Alter Rebbe’s view. According to the Alter Rebbe, the thirty blasts after the prayers are sounded not to confound Satan, but to enable those who have not yet fulfilled the mitzvah to do so. And with that, we have reached 130 blasts. We saw that we begin with the way the Sages interpreted what is written in the Torah: nine blasts. Because of the uncertainty, or to unify the customs so that it would not look like there are two Torahs, we reached thirty. Another thirty were added to confound Satan, bringing us to sixty.

26:06 Speaker 2 Blasts during the silent Amidah were also added, for the reasons we mentioned earlier, bringing us to ninety. Another ten during Kaddish Tiskabel complete the hundred, corresponding to the hundred cries uttered by Sisera’s mother. After the prayers, we add another thirty for anyone who has not yet fulfilled the mitzvah. That, essentially, is the background—the historical and halachic background—to the distinctive number of 130 shofar blasts that we sound on Rosh Hashanah. With Hashem’s help, may all the Jewish people have a good and sweet year. May Satan be confounded, and may the great shofar sound to gather those who are lost and dispersed, immediately, right now. A good and sweet year.