A Shofar Meditation in Three Parts

The shofar is a cry inside each of us that needs to be let out.


It is a cry of overwhelm and sometimes despair. O God, this life you gave us, it feels impossible to live, impossible to get done what needs to get done, impossible to really do it well and right, impossible to please everyone. We try so hard to succeed, to function, to thrive and survive, but in the end, something is amiss; we are incompetent, deficient, not enough. It is all too hard. O God, You are in charge. You are king. In the end, there is only surrender to You. We have tried, but not fully succeeded. We cry out to You to hold us in our imperfection, to hear us and see us and bear with us, to help us know that it is You who rules the world. We have not fully succeeded, but it’s ok; we are not in charge. (Malkhuyot)

It is a cry of loneliness. We are busy with people; we talk and interact and love and give and receive all day. But there is still loneliness. Deep in our hearts, there is still loneliness. It remembers something, this loneliness; it remembers a distant time of perfect union, and it yearns with all its might for return to its source. Usually we forget. But sometimes, when we sit near a river and see the flow of the water, we remember; we remember the feeling of being a drop of water in a mighty flow, a part of something alive and moving and eternal; we remember and we long for the connection, for the sense of belonging and peace and completeness. We cry out to You, O God, to remember us, too, to return to us, too, to heal our loneliness through an awareness of Your constant Presence, to help us know that it is with You that we belong. (Zichronot)

It is also a cry of hope. In the end of the day, we do not succeed; much is left undone and our yearning for connection is never completely satisfied. And yet, we feel better for having cried. The cry itself is an expression of hope. In You we have hope; we have cried and You have heard us, and even if our problems remain, we feel different; we are lighter in Your light. We feel the possibility amidst the impossible, the perfect within the imperfect, and most of all, we feel Your deep abiding Presence. Redemption is possible, and so life itself is possible; we have faith that we can live in Your light. (Shofarot)

אשרי העם יודעי תרועה, ה' באור פניך יהלכון

Fortunate is the people who know how to cry; O God, in the light of Your face will they walk.