Zichronot; Sermon By Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Today on this Rosh Hashana I want to spend a few moments discussing the Shofar service. It is unique in its ideas and structure from all other parts of our High Holy Days.

The Shofar is the unique symbol of Rosh Hashanah. This holy day is also known as Yom Terurah- the day of the Sounding of horn. Our blasts of the ram’s horn are to both rouse us from our apathy and also according to the mystics lift us up and our prayers up to the Heavens.
According to Maimonides who wrote in Laws of Teshuvah: “Although the sounding of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is a Torah decree, there is an allusion in it as well. It says: ‘Awake, sleepers from your sleep! Arise, slumberers, from your slumber! Scrutinize your deeds and return to repentance and remember your Creator! Those forgetters of the truth in the vanities of time and those who stray all their year in vanity and emptiness which can neither help nor save. Look to your souls, better your ways and deeds. Let each one of you abandon your evil way and your thoughts which are not good." (Hilkhot Teshuvah, chapter 3)
The Shofar calls to us today and its notes try to move us to action. It is calling out to us to change. We are, according to tradition, to hear 100 notes of the Shofar. The Shofar service is structured to help us hear the urgency of each note and to specifically examine our lives in relationship to three unique arenas.
The Shofar service is divided into three sections---Malchuyot, Zichronot and Shofarot. The first section Malchuyot—is reminder of the majesty of God. Of course today - Rosh Hashanah - celebrates the beginning of creation – Yom Harat Olam. The Shofar is blown to remind and herald in the celebration of the birth of the universe and the Creator who said, “Let there be light.” The Shofar announces the glory of our world and the glory of God as creator. It announces God’s Coronation as the sovereign over all of creation. And by our affirmations on this New Year Day we re-affirm our connection to the sovereignty and rule of God over everything. Yad Elohim Bakol—God’s hand is everywhere! As the great teacher and Jewish writer, Will Herberg said, “All life, all existence, is governed by one ultimate principle and that principle is the will of the Living God.” On Rosh Hashanah we celebrate God’s role in our lives and our partnership in this covenantal relationship with the Holy One of Blessing. By affirming God’s sovereignty we place ourselves back into the covenant even if we have gone astray over the course of the last year!
The third section that calls us to action and repentance is Shofarot. The texts of this part of our Shofar service recall the many different occasions and celebrations when we as a people have heard the sound of the ram’s horn. At Sinai amid peals of thunder, the blast of Shofar lifted our people to a new relationship with God. Our covenant, our Torah was revealed against the blasts of the Shofar. We also read from the Torah on Rosh Hashanah the story of the binding of Isaac. The shofarot section reminds us of the ram that was caught in the thicket and became an offering in place of Abraham’s son, Isaac. Thus the sounding of the Shofar recalls the willingness of Abraham and Isaac to make ultimate sacrifices, the willingness to live our faith. But the Shofar also reminds us of God’s ultimate compassion at the very moment that stayed the hand of Abraham. Faith and Compassion are two of the strong notes the Shofar sings.
Rav Tzadok HaCohen who lived from 1823-1900 was a Chassidic Sage and thinker. He was one of leading Torah scholars in the 19th century and was the author of Pri Tzadik. He points out that the Shevarim and Teruahs, which are the broken sounds of the Shofar represent the crying out of a broken spirit. But the Shevarim and Teruah must always be sandwiched between two Tekiahs. The firm, unbroken, Tekiah sound represents simcha - joy. This, Rav Tzadok says, captures the theme of the day. We are filled with joy at the New Year because of the new beginnings and because this is a time of celebration and yet the year that past has often broken our spirit like the broken notes of shevarim and teruah. The sounds of the Shofar replicate both the joy and the sadness that is contained within us. On Rosh Hashanah we give voice to it all; the joy and the sadness, our fears for the year ahead and our hopes and dreams. We sound the Shofar and end with Tekiah Gedolah—the loud, long blast that helps us reach beyond our own breath to dream of a time of redemption for all the Jewish people.
The sounding of the Shofar also is heard at the New Moon, Rosh Chodesh. Each month we have a chance to renew ourselves and our relationships. This sound of celebration, this sound of joy calls out to us to renew and revive our very selves on this New Year. The blasts of the Shofar reinforce the centrality and worth of human life as we blow the Shofar as a call for freedom and liberation that announced the Jubilee year when all slaves were set free. Thus the Shofar blasts call to us to find a place of freedom while placing ourselves in relationship with God.
But today I want to zero in on the middle section, the second section of the Shofar Service. This is called Zichronot- or memories. The blasts of the Shofar also are to remind us of our past even as it pulls us to the future in this New Year. In the Zichronot section we recount in brief the history of our people and specifically the times God remembered us. We are reminded that God remembered Noah and saved him from destruction amid the waters of the flood. We are reminded that God remembered Sarah and Hannah and gave them the blessing of children in response to their cries. We are reminded that God heard us in Egypt and heard our painful cries, and brought us to liberation. Each of these precious memories of the story of our people are recounted and these blasts of the Shofar are designed to give us courage and hope that God will remember us and liberate and save us from that which imperils us. The blasts of the Shofar that we listen to today are to remind us that perhaps God will save us from our own selves, our own errors. And in each of the cases –God ensured a future, a future for the world through Noah and his offspring, a future for Sarah and Hannah through the birth of their children, a future for Israel by liberating us from slavery. The Shofar sounds and these remembrances, these precious memories of the Jewish story encourage us to believe in our future! Just as we remember God’s saving hand for our ancestors, the Shofar blasts call out to us but also to God to remember us!
What precious memories does the Shofar notes stir in you? What remembrance comes to mind with the tekiah, teruah, tekiah that will sound from this morning?
The Zohar, the mystic book of Kabbalah teaches the following: It says, “And God remembered the covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. Truly this remembrance is the foundation and root of the whole Torah and the basis of all the commandments and of the real faith of Israel. (Soncino Zohar, Shemot 2:38a)”
We must listen to the sound of the shofar to remind God that this covenant, our brit, given at Sinai and given before that to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the same with us. God’s remembrance of this covenant is at the core of our own faith. God’s remembrance, God’s precious memories of beloved Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah extend God’s loving embrace to us.
We sound the Shofar to help God remember the faith of Israel. We sound the Shofar to help God remember our good deeds over our bad ones and lift up our prayers to the heavens above. As Rabbi Yehuda said in the name of Rabbi Akiva, “The Holy One Blessed Be said, “Recite before Me on Rosh Hashanah: Sovereignty, memories and shofarot, Memories so that a favorable memory of you will arise for Me (BT, RH 16a).”
Today we sound the Shofar to bring good memories of each one of us to God. We sound the Shofar so that the zichronot-remembrances, the precious memories of our people’s past will evoke favorable memories in us and in God. We sound the Shofar this morning to evoke favorable memories of our own story and remind ourselves of our own human dignity and worth despite the transgressions we have committed.
The Bal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism understood that memories and the ability to remember the past is the key to the future. The Bal Shem Tov said, “Redemption lies in remembering.” Our memories, recollections and remembrance on this Rosh Hashanah morning is the key to our redemption at a future time. Indeed these words are so important, so vital to our future as a people that they are even inscribe on the entrance to Israel’s House of Memorial to the victims of the Holocaust at Yad VaShem in Jerusalem. Redemption lies in remembering.
So it is with us on Rosh Hashana. Our redemption, our freedom, our connection with our past is what will bring us to wholeness and peace in the future. We pray that at this New Year, we will be able to be redeemed through our precious memories and we pray that God’s redeeming hand will lift us up by God’s remembrance of each one of us.

Ken Yehi Ratzon.
So may it be God’s will.