Triumph Trumpets
Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
We are all familiar with the sound of trumpets. Throughout the ages, they heralded the approach of kings and the call to battle. Hashem had special trumpets made for the Mishkan that would serve these purposes as well as other purposes. In the desert, their blasts would alert the camp to pack up and begin moving. Enumerating the uses of the chatzotrot/trumpets, Hashem says,“It shall be for you an eternal decree for your generations,... when you go to war against an enemy” to “be recalled before Hashem, your God, and you shall be saved from your foes.” You shall also sound them “on a day of your gladness, and on your festivals, and on your new moons, you shall sound your trumpets over your elevation-offerings and over your feast peace-offerings; and they shall be a remembrance for you before your God, I am Hashem, your God.” Our Sages interpret the “days of gladness to include Shabbat when the special peace offerings of the day were brought, as were the special offerings of the festivals.
However, a question arises. While the festivals are referred to in the Torah as requiring celebration with simchah/gladness, there is no such explicit connection to Shabbat. How can we connect simchah to Shabbat? Further, Halekach Vehalebuv raises a question on the Rambam. The Rambam, in his enumeration of the 613 mitzvoth, counts sounding the trumpets in war and sounding the trumpets on festivals as one mitzvah, yet he counts as separate mitzvoth the prohibitions of different kinds of work on yom tov, and as separate mitzvoth blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and blowing the shofar [although also on Rosh Hashanah] to signify the onset of the yovel/jubilee year. Why are only these two areas connected as one mitzvah?
The key, suggests Rabbi Scheinerman in Ohel Moshe, lies in remembrance. The shofar blast is an alarm, a call to awareness. In times of war, when we fear physical danger, the trumpet sound reminds us that it is Hashem Who decides the victor, not the power of armies and numbers of tanks. Similarly, when one brings an offering to Hashem, he must rid his mind of all extraneous concerns and focus only on Hashem if he is to receive the full benefit of his offering.
In times of calamity, we are instructed to cry out to Hashem. The shofar is a call to warn the public of the danger so all will cry out and do teshuvah, writes Rabbi Leff in Outlook and Insight. With this call, we testify that calamities are not chance occurrences, but a means Hashem uses to bring us back to Him. If we refuse to see the connection, if we mark everything up to chance, we are cruel and are increasing the disaster. Both the good and the challenges are meant to recall and fortify our relationship to Hakodosh Boruch Hu.
Still, how does Shabbat fall into the official category of a day of simchah/gladness? The Slonimer Rebbe in Netivot Shalom refers to Shir Hashirim, the poetic depiction of the relationship between Bnei Yisroel and Hakodosh Boruch Hu. The verse in Shir Hashirim equates Yom chatunato/the day of his/His wedding to yom sinchat libo/the day of the gladness of his/His heart. When the Mishkan was erected, we created a tangible connection between Hashem and our people. The Mishkan symbolized the chuppah/marriage canopy and ceremony. But after the chuppah comes the yichud, the time of intimacy, the time the bride and groom focus only on each other rather than on the outside world. This special time when we isolate ourselves from the distractions of the outside world is Shabbat, the day of simchah. In the introductory prayer for Shabbat, at the end of Lecha Dodi, we sing Boee Kallah/Come Bride two times, once to welcome Shabbat, and once to welcome the Shechinah/God’s presence.
In further support of the theme of joy on Shabbat is the prohibition of open displays of grief, even during the week one is observing shiva for a member of his immediate family. Further, since Shabbat is mekor habrachah/the source of blessings, we customarily introduce our joyous occasion on the preceding Shabbat with an aufruf or Shabbat kallah before a wedding and a shalom zachor before a bris.
In Techeilet Ohr Rabbi Bernstein presents a beautiful thought. As Hashem created each element of creation, each sang its own song of praise to its Creator. Until Shabbat, each was an individual song. But on Shabbat, with creation complete, all the notes and songs joined together to harmonize in a beautiful, joyous symphony. Shabbat awakens the joy in creation, as all the individual parts were no longer separate, but would work together in synch as part of a beautiful, complete whole. The song testifies that Hashem is the Creator and King of the world.
In war, we also recognize Hashem as King. As we sounded the trumpets in wartime, so did we also blow the trumpets to accompany all the offerings in the Temple, even the daily sacrifices. However, since the daily trumpeting was not unusual, they are not mentioned in this passage. Here, only the extraordinary soundings are mentioned. With the loss of our Beit Hamikdosh, we have substituted prayers for the daily and festival sacrifices. So what takes the place of the trumpet blasts for the Festivals? Rabbi Minzberg in Ben Melech notes the insertion of Yaaleh Veyovo in each of the Festival Prayers. The key word in Yaaleh Veyovo, repeated six times as variations of zichron and twice more as its homonym pikdon is remembrance, echoing the recall and remembrance of our verses about the trumpets. Therefore we also sound the trumpet/shofar on Rosh Hashanah, the day referred to as Yom Hazikaron/The Day of Remembrance. And we also Sound the trumpet on Rosh Chodesh, the mini Rosh Hashanah. At the beginning of every time cycle, and especially at the jubilee year, we have to remember that Hashem is in the world, and it is our obligation to renew our relationship with Him. And therefore we also blow the trumpet/shofar to again coronate Hashem as the King.
Our verses are telling us that we sounded the shofar both in challenging times as in war, and in joyous times, as the holidays. However,do these two times really contradict each other? In Tehillim 101 King David declares, “Of chesed/kindness and mishpat/justice do I sing to You, Hashem, do I sing praise.” In both instances we are to sing to Hashem, writes Halekach Vehalebuv. Hashem leads us in both instances. Both challenges and joy are meant to awaken us to Hashem’s presence in the world and in our lives. We sing shirah by making appropriate changes. And the instrument to awaken us to this song is the chatzotzrot/ritual trumpets. In fact, continues Halekach Vehalebuv citing the Maggid, the word chatzotzrot is itself the message. It is a compound word, chatzi tzurah/half a form. We are reminded that we are here on earth in a physical form, but our body is only half of who we are. The other half that completes us as living souls comes from Hashem, and wants to connect to that better half. Therefore, even challenges that propel us to cry out to him are also sources of song.
From a different perspective, Rabbi Chaim Bick explains that even what we perceive as “bad” has good within it, that every mishpat includes chesed within it or is a necessary precursor that will bring about future blessings. The more we can see the hidden chesed, the more good we draw down. For example, how much chesed do we see being generated in these trying times of Covid19?
Shabbat and Rosh Chodesh are times of both chesed and mishpat. How? In that symphony of the first Shabbat, writes Rabbi Friedland, the Sifsei Chaim, the good and the perceived bad all sang together to create the tov meod/very good of the completed creation. This was the perfect world that Hashem had envisioned, a reflection of olam habo/future world of our existence. Every Shabbat we get a glimpse, a small “taste” of that world. In that world, we will recognize how all the good and the “bad” fit so perfectly together. That’s why our Shabbat morning prayer includes everything, “All will thank You, all will praise You, all will declare: Nothing is as holy as Hashem...” Even the “negative” are part of this beautiful tapestry. And that is what we declare every day, that Hashem, the God of chesed, and Elokeinu, our God of mishpat/justice are in fact Hashem Echod/One and the same God of chesed.
Lighting Shabbat candles does not create anything new, writes Rabbi Pincus. Rabbi Pincus uses an analogy. When we search for a book in daylight, we can easily find it, but in the dark, we fumble for it without seeing it. Similarly, Shabbat is the light that lets us see what was always there, although we could not see it in the dark of the weekdays.
Rabbi Bernstein notes something interesting in the Tehillim recited for Shabbat day. He notes that there is no mention of Shabbat in the chapter. It does, however, mention both good and evil, and declares that each has its designated place in the world. That is what Shabbat is about, about understanding the harmony in all of creation, an understanding reserved for the World to Come. On Shabbat, we should re-evaluate our challenges and try to glimpse the bigger picture. Similarly, Rosh Chodesh is a day of renewal and of seeing the connection between chesed and truth.
While on Shabbat we testify that Hashem created the world, we must not lose sight of the fact that Hashem, as a daily act of chesed, recreates the world every single day. We can find His chesed hidden in the world He created. Every month the new moon, emerging from the darkness, reassures us and gives us hope that the light will come, writes Rabbi Mattisyahu Solomon. But it is in the dark nights before the new moon emerges that we strengthen our faith in the coming light, adds Rabbi Kluger in My Sole Desire.
It is in this context that Hashem gave women their special holiday of Rosh Chodesh, for women personified the faith through dark times, continues Rabbi Kluger. When the men in the desert lost faith in Moshe’s return from atop Sinai, they turned to fear and created a substitute for Moshe, the golden calf. In contrast, the women did not lose faith in Hashem, believing that whatever Hashem does is for the good. They refused to contribute to forming a god/messenger substitute. Being the bulwark of faith for husband and family and elevating them spiritually continues to be the realm of the woman of valor.
Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz tells a fascinating story of the power of the moon. Once Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz met a holocaust survivor who had spent five years in the camps. Rabbi Shmulevitz asked him how he managed to survive. The man recounted how the Nazis took everything from them. They took not only every physical belonging, they eve took away their power of prayer, for they maintained such unclean conditions in the camps in which Jews are not permitted to pray. What kept them going, the survivor continued, was the arrival of the new moon each month. The murmur would go through the camp that it was time for Kiddush levanah/Blessing the new moon. They would greet each other with a furtive handshake and recite the blessing: “Blessed are You Hashem,… He said to the moon that it should renew itself… for those who are destined to renew themselves like it...” In the darkness of that Gehinom, that tiny sliver of light renewed and kept their faith alive.
When we go through tragedies and challenges, writes Halekach Vehalebuv, we must hold on to that amunatche baleilot/faith in the night. We must continue to have faith that these dark times will also pass, and to use the challenge as a wake up call.
Rambam links the two times together as one mitzvah of sounding the shofar because we can find Hashem in both times. We must strive to reconcile the Hashem with Elokheinu, for together He is Hashem Echod/One and indivisible. This is what listening to the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is about, to coronate Hashem over the entire macro universe and over the micro world of self, that in all times, through all challenges, He is One, writes Rabbi Schwab. We declare it as the ending Torah verse in the Mussaf section on shofrot, the theme permeates the section of Malchuyot/Kingship, and we declare it seven times, ever more forcefully, at the close of Yom Kippur with,”Hashem Hu HaElokhim/Hashem [God of chesed] is the very same Elokhim[God of judgment]. May we always recognize His light upon us.