Shabbat Shuvah-Parshat Haazinu Deuteronomy 32:1-52

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - Rosh Hashanah ushers in a ten day period known as the Days of Repentance. The major question we must ask ourselves is precisely how to repent. Many of us are aware of our weaknesses and character flaws. Is there a specific methodology, is there a deeper understanding of self, which can help us in the very human but very crucial task of self correction and self improvement?

Rosh Hashanah is also called, “the day of the Truah”, the word Truah relating to the sounds of the Shofar. Perhaps a deeper understanding of the particular commandment of this festival, the commandment of sounding the Shofar, will shed important light on the road to repentance.

Perhaps the very first question which presents itself concerning the shofar is one very unique aspect to this particular commandment. Usually, our commandments demand an active performance on the part of the individual: we are enjoined to eat the matzah, to read the megillah. Strangely enough, we are not commanded to blow the shofar; we are rather commanded - and so the very words of the blessing express- “to hear the shofar, to listen to its sound.” Why is this particular commandment expressed in passive rather than active terms?

My revered teacher, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in his work entitled “Days of Remembrance, makes reference to what appears to be a rather obscure talmudic discussion, but which in reality will help us immeasurably to understand the shofar and its meaning. The sages of the Talmud (BT Rosh Hashanah 29A) teach, “everyone is obligated in the blowing of the shofar including Priests, Levites and Israelites, proselytes and freed slaves….But one who is half slave and half free cannot perform the commandment for others, even for those who like him are half slave and half free. Rav Nahman insists that he cannot even blow the shofar for himself.” Interestingly enough, Maimonides and all of the decisors I am familiar with agree with Rav Nahman’s position-despite the fact that in the case of the reading of the megillah one who is half slave and half free is considered fit to read the megillah for himself. Why should the shofar be different from the megillah, both with respect to its blessing as well as with respect to the ability of one half slave and half free to perform the commandment for himself?

The answer can be found in a fascinating statement by Maimonides in which the great 12th century philosopher- legalist presents the significance of the sounding of the shofar: “Even though the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is commanded by the biblical text, this particular act expresses an important symbol, which is ‘Awake, you sleepers, from your sleep and you slumberers from your slumber’ ”Maimonides is saying that the shofar is an alarm clock; it is a town crier, a rabbinical chastiser. But when the individual blows for himself, which in ordinary circumstances he is certainly able to do, whom is he awakening? If there is no one else in the room with him, for whom is he blowing?

I would argue that the individual is blowing for himself; he is attempting to arouse an aspect of his very own personality that is part and parcel of every one of us. The bible teaches, "and the Lord said 'let us make the human being in our image and after our likeness" The question plaguing all of the commentaries is, who is the "us" in that verse? To whom is G-d speaking? The Ramban gives what I believe is that best interpretation. After all, he says, the Almighty has just created on this 6th day the animals and beasts. G-d is speaking to those very brute creatures, who are limited in time and strength and who require nutrition, rest, sexual reproduction and excretion of waste. “Let us make the human being in our joint image”, says G-d to these beasts. The human being will have 2 aspects, the animal as well as the divine. On the one hand the human being will be limited, unable to rise above himself, unable to change or perfect himself; on the other hand, he will contain a spark of the divine which will give him precisely that ability to sanctify and ennoble the physical aspects of his being and - in effect- to recreate himself as a partner of the Divine.

Sin emanates from the animal aspect of the human personality unrefined and undeveloped by the divine soul. If the human being is passive and left to his own resources, he will be guided by instinct alone and will of necessity fall prey to all of his weaker desires. Only if the human being activates his divine soul and works on repairing himself and the world around him will he succeed in expressing that unique divine image which makes him different from all other creations. Then he will succeed in the ultimate vision of Rosh Hashanah, “perfecting the world in the Kingship of the Divine”.

The commandment of the shofar is that we listen to the shofar, that our passive animal personality become activated and aroused by our creative image of G-d. The divine soul within each of us must serve as an alarm clock to the more animalistic drives which propel us if we are indeed to repent. Hence the blessing is directed towards the animal part of the human being which must listen; and only if this aspect is aroused does repentance become possible.

Hence an individual who is half free and half slave may be able to read the megillah for himself; after all, only his free half is obligated to read and hear the megillah anyway. With the shofar however it is a very different story. Unless the human being succeeds in freeing his animal self which is enslaved to instinct does he stand a chance of repentance. An individual who remains half free and half slave cannot even blow the shofar for himself.

A story for children which is really a metaphor for adults, is the Lion King, which truly expresses the message I have just set down. Simba is a young lion prince who feels guilty for not having more actively saved his father from death. His uncle Skar is perfectly satisfied to watch Simba sink into passive despair, accepting the bad influences of a pig and a worm and entering into a state of ‘koonematata’ or apathetic inactivity. The female lioness Nala and the elder monkey- sage teach him that every individual has a destiny given by the Divine. Everyone must confront his feelings of guilt, find the road to the recreation of oneself and the development of one’s destiny; only then can Simba emerge as the leader he is supposed to be. This is the message of the shofar and this is the message of repentance.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova.