Sounding Shofar During Morning Services During
Elul
Arthur L. Finkle
The Code of Jewish
Law (Shulhan Arukh, I28:8) instructs that the shofar shall be sounded in the period between rosh hodesh (new month) Elul until after Yom
Kippur. The religious rationale was that Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the
second tablets, dwelt there for 40 days, and descended on the tenth of Tishre, when the atonement
was completed. The musical rationale is that the forty-day period provided the
necessary practice to develop the appropriate embouchure.
The
religious rationale come from the Midrash (Pirkei d'R' Eliezer
45; R. Eliezer
ben Hyrcanus (80-118 C.E.), a disciple of Rabbi Yochanan
ben Zakai and teacher of Rabbi Akiva):
[During
the Jews' first year in the desert,] they received the [Ten] Commandments on
the sixth of the month [of Sivan], [and then] Moshe forty days on the mountain
studying, [and then] on the seventeenth of [the month of] Tammuz he came down
and broke the Tablets. [Forty days later] on Rosh Chodesh Elul, HaKadosh Baruch
Hu said to him "Come up to Me on the mountain" (Devarim 10:1), and an
[announcement through blowing] shofar was spread throughout the camp, [saying]
that "Moshe has gone up on the mountain!" - so that they would not be
[led] astray after strange worship [once] again, and [the honor of] HaKadosh
Baruch Hu was uplifted through that shofar [blowing], as it says (Tehillim
47:6) "G-d rises up at [the blowing of] the shofar." Accordingly, the
Sages instituted that shofar be blown each and every year on Rosh Chodesh Elul
[the authorities' text - unlike ours which says "Tishrei" (from here
on are the words of the Tur and the Rosh - possibly their text to the Midrash
itself)] and [throughout] the entire month, in order to urge Israel that they
do teshuvah [i.e. "return to Hashem" (repent)], as it says (Amos
3:6), "If a shofar shall be blown in a city [can it be that the
inhabitants will not be shaken?]," and in order to confuse the Satan [i.e.
angel of Heavenly prosecution].
In rabbinic
commentaries, the Rosh (Rabbeinu Asher ben Yechiel, Germany and Spain, 1250 -
1327, ruling at the end of tractate Rosh HaShanah) concludes: "[Indeed,]
it is the Ashkenazi minhag (custom) to blow [shofar] throughout the month of
Elul, morning and evening, after the prayer [services]."
Commenting on this custom, The Tur (Rabbeinu Yaakov ben Asher, Spain, 1280 - 1345) is in Orach Chayim 581. The Rema, Yosef Karo (Spain, Portugal and Turkey - 1488-1575) brings a variation - blowing only after the morning service (Shacharis). The Mishnah Berurah, an update of religious laws in the Code of Jewish Law, dated approximately 1900) confirms the accepted custom. See www.learnhalacha.com/ElulShofar.pdf
The musical rationale is what any instrumentalist would do preparatory to
a performance. See Arthur L. Finkle, The
Easy Guide to Shofar Sounding, LA: Torah Aura, 2003
