We’ve come to the end of one year about to enter another and as we embark on the holy days of  Rosh HaShanah we anticipate the power of the central mitzvah of the day: we prepare for it study its halachos anticipate its strength in awakening our slumbering souls.

The mitzvah of course is tekias shofar. But there is something quite unusual about this mitzvah: when the Torah speaks of Rosh HaShanah in Sefer Vayikra and in Sefer Devarim it doesn’t actually tell us to blow the shofar or even what a shofar is. The pasuk in Vayikra (23:24) speaks of a “day of rest a remembrance of a [shofar] blast a holy convocation.” What is meant by “remembrance of a shofar blast”? Elsewhere in the Torah Rosh HaShanah is spoken of as “yom teruah a day of [shofar] blasting.” There the word “shofar” isn’t even mentioned and the Torah doesn’t specify what the mitzvah consists of. Why would the Torah hold back this essential information?

Furthermore when we look at the surrounding verses which describe the observance of other festival days we see a stark difference:

Regarding Shabbos we are told plainly “Six days you shall do work and on the seventh day… you shall do no work of labor.”

Regarding Pesach the mitzvah is clearly stated: “Seven days you shall eat matzos.”

Regarding Yom Kippur the Torah specifies “You shall afflict your souls.”

And when the Torah describes Succos it doesn’t conceal its commandment that “You shall live in succos seven days” additionally telling us about the mitzvah of arbah minim.

Yet regarding Rosh HaShanah the Torah is exceedingly sparing with its words talking it seems in mere hints. It mentions a “day of blasting” without telling us what to do how and with what to “blast”. How in fact do we know that “blasting” even refers to blowing a shofar?

Chazal direct us to another mitzvah in the Torah the mitzvah of Yovel the jubilee year. There the shofar is mentioned twice in one pasuk. And by means of gezeirah shavah one of the traditional ways by which our Sages derived underlying meanings from the Torah we find a parallel between Rosh HaShanah and the Yovel.

Yovel is a mitzvah intended to be carried out in Eretz Yisrael every fiftieth year after seven shemittah cycles; the Yovel status applied to the entire year. In that year “You shall proclaim freedom in the land for all its inhabitants… and you shall return each man to his estate and each man to his family you shall return” (Vayikra 25:8-13).

This was a year of absolute equality and its concept of restoring economic balance appealed to the architects both Jewish and non-Jewish of many social policies throughout the ages. In fact the socio-economic ramifications for Yovel was the topic of an international convention in the 1970s. 

In Biblical times when the Yovel year arrived all economic relationships that were formed because of financial pressures – any monetary arrangements causing social inequality -- were released. People whose monetary difficulties had forced them into slavery could now stand tall again as free men. Fields that had been sold were restored to their original owners. Huge conglomerated estates were broken up into their original divisions by tribe and family thus preventing feudalism and control by monopolies. A situation in which the bulk of the nation’s property was in the hands of the few was not allowed to exist long-term. The national economy was readjusted every fifty years giving equal conditions and equal opportunity to all. Everyone “went back to start ” with fresh hope in their hearts and a clean slate in their accounts.

When the signal was given with a blast of the shofar this quiet profound revolution took place as the pasuk says: “You shall cause the wailing shofar to pass in the seventh month on the tenth of the month; on the Day of Atonement you shall cause the shofar to pass throughout your land.”

The shofar was sounded its wail heard far and wide and all shackles on the land and its inhabitants fell away. What a beautiful moment!

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The Torah with its mysterious reticence in the verses that speak of Rosh HaShanah is compelling us to turn our gaze toward the Yovel. Look there on Rosh HaShanah the Torah is saying and there you will find your mitzvah of the day. Just as there in the mitzvah of Yovel teruah is defined as a blast of the shofar so too is its meaning here.

The mitzvah of Yovel applies once in fifty years and at that time there is one shofar blast by the kohen on Yom Kippur to proclaim that the Yovel is now in effect. The mitzvah of blowing the shofar on Rosh HaShanah comes every year and all of Am Yisrael is required to hear it. It’s so central to the day that there are many precious Jews who take it on themselves to go with a shofar to hospitals and even prisons on Rosh HaShanah so that every Jew no matter where he is confined should also have the merit of the mitzvah.

So with the mitzvah of Rosh HaShanah’s shofar being so basic wouldn’t it have been more fitting to derive the mitzvah of blowing the shofar in the Yovel year from the mitzvah of shofar on Rosh HaShanah instead of the reverse? Isn’t the context of Rosh HaShanah the natural place for the word “shofar” to appear in the Torah?

But in fact this is mystery is actually the point.

The Torah intentionally refrains from specifying what it means in the pesukim of Rosh HaShanah.

It doesn’t merely want us to cross-reference and draw a parallel from Yovel to Rosh HaShanah; it wants us to bring the meaning of that shofar blast on Yom Kippur of the Yovel year to our annual tekios on Rosh HaShanah. The shofar of the Yovel is the herald of liberty and redemption and on Rosh HaShanah its echo is sounded.

When you hear the shofar’s sound on Rosh HaShanah share the experience of the Hebrew slaves who were freed from their servitude at that wonderful moment when the shofar proclaimed the Yovel. Together with them feel the glorious delight of returning home. Imagine what it was like in our people’s distant past when the whole nation and its land shook off the shackles of inequity and returned to its pristine state as a land of hope for all its inhabitants. Imagine that every Israelite experienced the exhilarating liberation of the Yovel at least once in his lifetime and that experience cast its influence on Rosh HaShanah when the shofar sounded every single year proclaiming personal redemption for every individual.

So when you hear the shofar on the first days of this new year let that feeling fill you. Hear its call of freedom. Now is the moment of liberation from the instincts that control you from the shackles of sin from the grip of the yetzer that guides most of your behavior against your inner will – the will that desires purity and longs for truth and perfection. And the more fully you experience that exhilarating sense of freedom the better you will understand that it’s worth the effort to become a ben chorin a real free man — free not only of the domination of others but free in the depths of your own heart. Then perhaps when you hear the shofar blasts you will draw from them the strength to say to yourself: “This is it! This year I will break the shackles of servitude to false beliefs about life and I will find my true self. The message of Yovel echoed every Rosh HaShanah is one of new hope for the future. Go back to start!

A kesivah v’chasimah tovah to the whole nation ofIsrael.

Food for Thought

Just as the oil is hidden within the olive

So teshuvah is hidden within the aveirah

(Rebbe Dov Ber of Mezritch)