To this day, I can visualize my father standing before our havurah (informal prayer) community on Rosh Hashanah, holding his small, white-and-beige marbled shofar against his pursed lips, waiting for my brother to call out the traditional sequence of notes. It felt to me that my father and brother were uniquely attuned to each other, to the yearnings of the community, and to the spiritual power of this embodied sacred act.

As much as I love to sing, chant, and discuss the liturgy and biblical readings of the High Holy Days, the elemental sounds of the shofar somehow reverberate through me differently, mysteriously calling forth thoughts and emotions that are otherwise very difficult to access. Part of this is related to these family memories and other personal associations, but it is also rooted in the ancient origins of this simple, organic object that has been utilized by countless Jewish practitioners throughout the ages.

As luck (or providence) would have it, in the late spring of 2022, I began reading Sand Talk by the Australian Aboriginal writer Tyson Yunkaporta just as I was beginning my annual preparations for the High Holy Days. I was immediately intrigued by Yukaporta’s practice of carving objects as part of an intentional embodied approach to sharing the wisdom of his people and of non-human kin—past and present. Seeing Yunkaporta’s drawings of his woodwork and learning about his distillation of Australian Aboriginal wisdom holistically led me to think anew about the shofar.

I was particularly interested in Yankaporta’s description of his braided methodology—what he calls umpan—as it is “our word for cutting, carving, and making—it is also the word now used for writing.” As he further states, “my method for writing incorporates images and story attached to place and relationships, expressed first through cultural and social activity.” [1] This is precisely what I find so powerful about the shofar: because it is an ancient, indigenous, instrument that Jews have carried with them in their wonderings throughout the world—mostly due to forced movement—it has been invested with a variety of meanings— “image and story attached to place and relationship”— that echo through it today. Put differently, the shofar is a unique Jewish spiritual touchstone that has the power to connect one to different layers of meaning from different places and stages of our religious and cultural development—from the ancient Near East to contemporary North America.

Inspired by Yankaporta’s bold and insightful presentation of some of the gems from his tradition, I began to renew my relationship to the shofar, sounding it each morning during the month of Elul (the last month of the Jewish calendar year)—which I had not done consistently for some time—and exploring various commentaries, sermons, stories, music, and visual art related to it.

During this time of exploration, I came upon a fascinating text about the shofar ritual and intergenerational dynamics by the 18th- century Hasidic master, Rabbi Moshe Hayim Efraim of Sudilkov (d. 1800), author of the influential homiletical work the Degel Mahaneh Efraim. [2] Appended to the large compendium of sermons on the Torah portions and holidays is a short dream diary the mystical preacher kept for several years.

In the very last entry, the Rebbe (“Master”) records a dream he had in early December of 1784 involving his late and revered grandfather, Israel ben Eliezer, the Ba’al Shem Tov (d. 1760), the paradigmatic holy man in Eastern European Hasidism. Rabbi Moshe Hayim opens his diary entry as follows:

I beheld in a dream my master and elder, my grandfather, ascending the synagogue platform. He took a shofar in hand and proceeded to sound the traditional sequence of notes. Before each set of sounds, however, he called out the notes himself.

The Sudilkover continues by stating that as he watches the Ba’al Shem Tov, he is puzzled about his own role in this drama:

I stood confused as to what I should do, since he was calling out the sounds and blowing the shofar himself!

Just then, his grandfather summons him to the platform, albeit in an unexpected way:

He called out “ya’amod” (“arise”) as is done when calling a person to the Torah. I went up to the platform, stood next to the wide end of the shofar, and recited a blessing, as one does when approaching the Torah scroll.

Although our preacher does not specify what blessing he recited— did he recite the traditional shofar blessing?— based on the ensuing details in the diary entry, this ritualized exchange with his grandfather was transformational:

Lo and behold, I found myself standing inside the shofar, as a sound came forth from it.

The call and response between the Ba’al Shem Tov—who was renowned for his mystical and magical abilities—and Rabbi Moshe Hayim moved the latter from being a bewildered outsider to the very center of the shofar experience. So much so that he was now nestled inside the horn itself, feeling the force of the blast with every fiber of his being as it rushed through the instrument.

This intriguing moment in the dream calls to mind the scene of the prophet Jonah in the belly of the “great sea creature” (chapter 2) that is traditionally read on Yom Kippur. It is in the hollow of the mighty fish that God’s reluctant messenger cries out to the Divine, and from which Jonah goes forth to the “great city of Nineveh” (chapter 3) to proclaim the need for communal teshuvah/repentance.

Without saying anything more about his extraordinary voyage in and out of the shofar, the Sudilkover continues his narration as follows:

After this, I took the shofar in hand and went to my home, where I sounded it myself.

Empowered by this extraordinary experience inside the horn, Rabbi Moshe Hayim takes hold of the shofar, leaves the synagogue, and goes to his own home to sound it.

There is no mention of the Ba’al Shem Tov granting him permission to do so, or of him even bidding farewell to the Sudilkover. It is, as if, with a wink and a smile, Zeide [3] recedes, knowing that his grandson is now prepared to carry out this sacred ritual independently, having truly immersed himself in this ancient and mysterious practice.

Surely Rabbi Moshe Hayim studied and sought to apply various mystical teachings about the power of the shofar long before this dream experience. Now, however, he seems to embody these insights more fully. His experience inside the ram’s horn now seems to reside within him.

At this point in the dream diary, the preacher—using Kabbalistic terminology—offers a brief interpretation of the preceding events. He states confidently that his shofar performance has opened the heavens and drawn forth divine blessing upon him and on others.

Importantly, the Sudilkover includes two more brief snippets from dreams he had the following morning and the next night.

As night turned to day, I dreamed again: This time, I saw myself wearing a kittel, a festive white robe embroidered with rows of silver and gold—it was a truly “regal garment” (see Esther 8:15).

It seems that our preacher has journeyed in this dreamscape through the Ten Days of Repentance. [4] He first sounds the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, and now dons the special white robe or kittel worn on Yom Kippur (and on a few other special occasions).

The depiction of the robe as being both white (a sign of purity) and decorated with silver and gold seems to indicate that Rabbi Moshe Hayim has undergone an additional transformation (similar to the figure of Mordecai in chapter 8 of the Scroll of Esther). While we do not know who else sees our preacher in his finery, clearly he sees himself as a ben Melekh, “a child of the King,” a person of spiritual nobility. [5]

The use of the term “royal” (malkhut) to describe the kittel also suggests that the Sudilkover feels the indwelling presence of the Divine—called Shekhinah or Malkhut in Kabbalistic tradition—surrounding, filling, and emanating from him (like inside the shofar).

Given the flow of the dream sequence, this brief scene seems to confirm the Sudilkover’s emergence as an independent and inspired spiritual actor, following in the footsteps of his grandfather and a host of other visionaries going back to biblical times. [6]

In one last act of time travel, the rabbi states that the same Friday night, he had a third dream in which he was celebrating Shemini Atzeret, the last day of the fall holiday season. Fittingly, his grandfather reappears in this scene:

Not only did I see myself rejoicing greatly, but so too was my master and elder, my grandfather.

The Ba’al Shem Tov and the Sudilkover, now both full initiates into the mysteries of the shofar practice, celebrate this sacred occasion together.

Rabbi Moshe Hayim then adds a second interpretive note, reiterating that his visions all point to a “sweetening” (ham’takah, a mystical term) of heavenly decrees during this season of divine judgment, of renewed blessing for his people, and a future time global salvation.

With that, the Hasidic master ends his final dream entry— and closes his entire book of teachings— having taken us on a journey from waking to dream consciousness and from December 1784 back through the course of the fall Jewish holidays. 

In keeping with various Jewish mystical teachings, he seems to have extended the period of teshuvah—return, repair, and renewal—to Shemini Atzeret or even to the edge of Hanukkah (which, in 1784, was celebrated just one week after the sequence of dreams) by revisiting his role in the sacred rites of this season.

***

In exploring this evocative narrative, I found myself reflecting on a foundational element of Yankaporta’s book, which he calls “story-mind.” As he states, 

Narrative is the most powerful mechanism for memory. While isolated facts go only to short-term memory, or to midterm memory with repetition (as with study for exams), story goes immediately to long-term memory. [7] 

This is part of what I believe makes the Sudilkover’s dream diary so powerful. In recounting his imaginal journey through the fall holiday season, he tells a compact and compelling story about his relationship to his legendary grandfather, his own evolving role as a Hasidic master, and the relationship between the Jewish people and the Divine—all through the aperture of the shofar, so to speak. The Sudlikover also invites us to view ourselves as part of a grand narrative of transformation in which we have the potential to renew our personal, communal, and cosmic relationships by intentionally and imaginatively investing in the sacred practices of our ancestral traditions. 

Following on this notion of “story-mind,” Yankaporta adds the following statement:

There is more to narrative than simply telling our stories … There has to be an exchange of stories if you want to be awake and grown. [8]

This is wise council for anyone interested in genuine encounter, and feels particularly relevant given the deeply polarized situation in which we find ourselves today— domestically and globally. Further, the early Hasidic masters, like many other pre-modern Jewish intellectuals, could not easily engage in an open and respectful exchange of religious ideas and stories with their non-Jewish counterparts. Tragically, the history of religious life is littered with religious intolerance. This includes various chauvinistic Jewish teachings, which were often born out of direct experiences or communal memories of oppression and degradation at the hands of Christian and Muslim actors. [9] As Yankaporta states, the “foundational flaw” of “I am greater than you” has poisoned far too many religious and cultural encounters throughout the world. [10]

It is for this reason that I find the following shofar story by the pioneering neo-Hasidic leader Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi (d. 2014) precious. [11] It took place in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in the late 1970s:

[A] few years ago … I participated in a symposium on mysticism, with spokesmen for several other traditions. Among us was a medicine man from the Blood Indian Reservation, Brother Rufus Goodstriker. We were all put up at a modern plastic motel, a place which didn’t seem to hold much promise for a group of mystics. But the setting was glorious: to the east the Canadian prairies stretched for miles, and to the west the Canadian Rockies soared into the sky.

Ever the impish spiritual explorer, Reb Zalman decided that he was going to seek out an outdoor space to pray the morning service, so he headed to the motel roof! He took his tallit (prayer shawl), tefillin (prayer boxes and straps worn on the arm and head), and shofar (as it was the month of Elul) in hand and ascended to the roof by elevator. There he managed to open the emergency exit door without sounding the alarm. As he reports, “The roof was a forest of air conditioners, vent pipes, and chimneys, but I found myself a corner facing the east [towards Jerusalem] and began to get into my prayers.” As the sun rose and the rabbi took in the beautiful scenery, he became absorbed in the morning service.

After several minutes, Reb Zalman heard the creak of the emergency door opening again; it was none other than Brother Rufus. 

He, too, had a small bundle under his arm. We acknowledged each other’s presence with wordless nods. He also took up a position facing east and began to perform his morning ritual. First, he took out a prayer blanket which reminded me of my… [prayer shawl]. Then he lit a small charcoal fire, offered some incense, and made a burnt offering of a pinch of meal or flour. Facing the east with his arms raised in the air, he swayed back and forth, chanting in a language I did not understand. But I did not have to understand the language to know that he was calling to God… At the moment of sunrise, he placed a small whistle to his lips and blew a sharp note in every direction.

When both men finished their morning rituals, Brother Rufus approached his rabbinic counterpart and asked gently, “May I please see your instruments?” As he examined each of the objects, the medicine man nodded approvingly. “I saw respect on his face,” Reb Zalman remembered. Eventually, he got to the shofar:

“Ram’s horn,” he commented. “We use a whistle made from an eagle bone. May I blow it?” He blew a few loud notes through the ram’s horn, handed it back, and simply said, “Of course, it’s much better than cow.” [12] For a moment I thought, “Better for what?” But Brother Rufus was a medicine man. He knew that you blow animal bones to blow the demons away, to clear the air, to connect with God, to bring about change, to say to the sleeping soul, “Hey, there, wake up! Pay attention!”

In closing the story, Reb Zalman adds one final thought:

At every step of his examination of my sacred prayer tools, Brother Rufus asked the right questions. He was in tune with the technology of religious artifacts, and he understood them. He, coming from a very different world, approached my religious instruments as if they were not so different from his own… [13]

In this neo-Hasidic story, Reb Zalman consciously advocates for what he called a “post-triumphalist” position, or what I would call an ethos of “textured pluralism” (based on the work of Dr. Mary Boys, Dr. Diana Eck, and others) in which spiritual practitioners from different traditions explore their similarities and differences with respect and curiosity, and with a genuine desire to learn in the process. Neither man felt the need to prove to the other the superiority of his beliefs or practices. As Reb Zalman states, he and Brother Rufus came from “very different” worlds, but also recognized that they were both involved in related—not the same—holy endeavors. Otherwise, these two men would not have found themselves standing on the rooftop of a “plastic motel” at sunrise, bowing, bending, chanting, and using hollowed animal bones to make sacred sounds—and then exchanging notes on “the technology of religious artifacts”!

In a manner similar to what Yankaporta describes as innovation through “the demotic” (excavation of popular language for layers of meaning), both the Sudilkover and Reb Zalman offer us a fresh perspective on a series of established and time-honored rituals, thus simultaneously connecting us to the past and inviting us into the future—as is the role of the shaman across various traditions. And, of course, this creative exegetical method aligns seamlessly with the watchword of the High Holy Day season: teshuvah, “re/turn.” For the goal of this liminal (autumn) season is to honestly assess our behavior over the last year and to recommit ourselves to growth and improvement in the new year. 

We turn back, we turn in, we turn out, and we turn forward.  

Endnotes:

Sections of this reflection were previously published as Or N, Rose, “Taking Hold of the Shofar: Dreams of Past and Future,” 70 Faces of Torah Blog, Hebrew College, 9/20/22, https://hebrewcollege.edu/blog/taking-hold-of-the-shofar-dreams-of-past-future/. 

[1] Tyson Yankaporta, Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (New York, NY: HarperOne, 2020), pp. 14-15.

[2] “The Banner of the Camp of Efraim” [Numbers 2:18], published posthumously by his son in 1810. See Rachel Elior (English translation by Jeffrey Green), “Mosheh Ḥayim Efrayim of Sudilkov,” The YIVO Encylopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, https://encyclopedia.yivo.org/article/1230. 

[3] “Grandfather” or “Elder” in Yiddish.

[4] Aseret Yemei Teshuvah – Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur.

[5] See, for example, Exodus 4:22, Deuteronomy 32:6, Hosea 1:10.

[6] Interestingly, the Sudlikover did forge his own leadership, one quite different from his renowned elder and teacher. While the Ba’al Shem Tov served as a folk healer, prayer leader, and an oral teacher who engaged in various public affairs, the Degel evolved into a more retiring scholarly teacher and preacher, who is remembered largely for his book.

[7] Yankaporta, Sand Talk, 11-12.

[8] Ibid., Sand Talk, PDF Enhancement, 12.

[9] On this issue, see my essay, “Hasidism and the Religious Other: A Textual Exploration and Theological Response,” in A New Hasidism: Branches, ed. Arthur Green and Ariel Evan Mayse (Jewish Publication Society, 2019), 105-128.

[10] Yankaporta, Sand Talk, 31. 

[11] Reb (a less formal title) Zalman, as he is affectionately known, was born in Poland, raised in Austria, before fleeing Nazis as a teenager, and settling with his parents and siblings in Brooklyn, New York. There, he trained as a HaBaD-Lubavitch rabbi and began his career as an Orthodox rabbi. During his long and winding rabbinic career, he evolved into perhaps the most influential heterodox Jewish spiritual teacher of the last several decades, combining elements of Eastern European piety and North American counterculture to create, with several close students, the Jewish Renewal Movement.

[12] Interestingly enough, Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 3:2 similarly teaches that “all shofarot are kosher except for [ones made from the horn] of a cow.”

[13] Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi: Essential Teachings, pp. 186-188.