A thousand-year tradition bespeaks that
the shofar is blown very briefly in daily weekday morning services for the
entire month prior to Rosh Hashanah. The sound of the shofar is to
remind people that the High Holy Days are approaching and that one should start
thinking about repentance, spiritual repair of our souls and all that this holy
season is all about.
Obviously we do not blow the shofar on Shabbat —
even when it is Rosh Hashanah.
There is an additional tradition that, even
though we sound the shofar every weekday during this month, we do not do so on
the eve of Rosh Hashanah. There are several reasons for this custom. One is
that on Rosh Hashanah morning we recite the prayer thanking G-d for letting us
reach this season, the Shecheyanu blessing, and if we had blown the shofar
every single day, why is one thanking G-d for reaching this season to blow the
shofar since we did it the day before? So, the rabbis decided that there should
be at least a one-day gap to differentiate the preparation with the actual New
Year.
There are different traditions between the
Ashkenazic and Sephardic world as to how many notes and which notes of the
shofar are blown during this month. The Ashkenazic version is the shortest, it
is just four notes. The Chassidic and Sefardic world blow generally speaking 10
to 12 notes daily.
For many years when I taught the laws of shofar
and the laws of the month of Elul in my synagogue or elsewhere in the
community, I referenced the Code of Jewish Law discusses the tradition of
blowing the shofar during this time of year
We never blow the shofar at night. The only time
we even come close to that is at the end of Yom Kippur as the day is drawing to
a close and the fast is ending, and it is the last second of twilight when we blow
the one blast ending the fast.
Years ago one of my congregants who was saying
Kaddish had asked me for synagogues to attend during business travels. He was
going to be in New York where it is obviously easy to find a synagogue. Knowing
where his meetings would be, I sent him to the Spanish and Portuguese
synagogues. When he returned, he told me that he saw something strange. He then
explained that at the end of Ma’ariv service, the shofar sounded. So apparently
that tradition is being kept at least in the Spanish and Portuguese
communities.
There are so many areas of Jewish law where
local traditions and customs prevail. For example, unless one is vegan,
observant Jews eat meat or fish at every Shabbat or festival meal. The blowing
of the shofar during the month of Elul for the 29 days prior to Rosh Hashanah
certainly falls into this area, and a variety of customs prevail as to how and
where in the services the shofar sounds. However, every Traditional synagogue
around the world does blow the shofar daily during this period.
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