 | May the Kadosh Baruch Hu, the Holy One, bless you and all those you love with a new year of good health, peace, fulfillment and the love of family, friends and community. L'shanah tovah tikateivu לשנה טובה תכתבו Rabbi Amy Levin |
Break Us Down and Make Us Whole
The mystics attributed great significance to the order of the shofar blasts.
Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (who lived in Prague and Jerusalem in the 17th century), notes that each group of sounds begins with a teki'ah, a whole note, proceeds to shevarim, a "broken" note, divided into three parts, or even to teru'ah, an entirely fragmented sound, at least seven very brief sounds. But each broken note is followed by a whole note, another teki'ah.
This, he says, is the message of Rosh Hashanah: "I started off whole, I became broken, even splintered into fragments, but I shall become whole again! I shall become whole again!"
Rabbi Arthur Green, These Are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life
Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (who lived in Prague and Jerusalem in the 17th century), notes that each group of sounds begins with a teki'ah, a whole note, proceeds to shevarim, a "broken" note, divided into three parts, or even to teru'ah, an entirely fragmented sound, at least seven very brief sounds. But each broken note is followed by a whole note, another teki'ah.
This, he says, is the message of Rosh Hashanah: "I started off whole, I became broken, even splintered into fragments, but I shall become whole again! I shall become whole again!"
Rabbi Arthur Green, These Are the Words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life
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