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From: rhendel@mcs.drexel.edu (Russell Hendel)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 22:41:38 -0400
Subject: A Honey Sweet Symbolism of Shofar For the New Year

Akiva Miller asks >>Why does the blessing on SHOFAR mention, not the
	SHOFAR, but instead the TRUAH.>>

I will answer this with a recap of Rabbi Hirsch's nifty symbolism on Shofar.

(Incidentally, I would advocate for this list that a regular feature
from time to time should be short 'gems' in explanations or
understanding that are obscure. It would add to the flavor of the group
and contrast well with some of the more 'polarized'
discussions. Actually I believe this already takes place)

Rav Hirsch begins his analysis of Shofar with the procedure for breaking camp
mentioned in Num 10. This has 3 components:
	* An announcement that we are breaking camp and going to move
	* Actual "packing" to move
	* Final call that packing is over and the start of the move
Rav Hirsch now suggests in a simple manner (consistent with the text) that
	* A long blast (Tekiah) is an attention getter<--->like an
announcement
	* A collection of short blasts (Teruah) denotes
activity<--->packing for moving
	* A final long blast (Tekiah) then focuses attention for the move
In passing, the use of wailing (Shvarim) vs Teruah focuses on the
EMOTIONAL aspect of the moving---it saddens us that we are leaving our
old home.

To summarize
	Tekiah-Teruah-Tekiah = Attention--Pack---Lets go
and is symbolic of moving to a new home.

In typical Hirschian pithiness Rav Hirsch now deftly makes the following
equations:
	Moving to a new home (spatial movement)
	=
	Moving to a new year (temporal movement)
	=
	Moving to a '(re)newed soul'(spiritual movement)
In other words the triplet
	Tekiah-Teruah-Tekiah = Attention=Pack your things-Lets go
applies equally whether we move to a new home, to a new year or renew
our souls.
This is the symbolic explanation of shofar.

To answer Akiva's question --why Teruah vs Shofar--we now see that the
hard part of Shofar is not focusing our attention---knowing we have to
do Teshuva--rather the hard part is--'packing'---taking an account of
our previous actions and making corrective action plans to change. It is
therefore no wonder that the emphasis in` the blessing is on
Teruah=packing and change vs the shofar itself.  As for the mention of
QooL--the "voice" of the shofar---this would correspond to the Shvarim
=Wailing aspect of packing, since "QooL" in Tenach often denotes "tone"
and "mood".

Wishing everybody a Gmar Chativah Tovah with Good Torah for the coming
year

Russell Jay Hendel; Ph.d.;ASA; rhendel @ mcs drexel edu