Many years ago, before there were any fire engines or fire alarms — a time when most houses were made of wood — when a house caught on fire, in most cases it would result in total destruction. Many a time, an entire town could go up in flames and smoke. In one such town, they came up with a clever fire prevention system: They built a tall watchtower, where a watchman kept a lookout all the time. As soon as he saw smoke or fire, he would sound an alarm. The townspeople would stop what they were doing and form a human chain between the fire and the nearest well, so they could pass each other pails of water with which to extinguish the fire.
One day, a child from a small village came to this town for the first time. He checked himself into a local inn. Suddenly he heard the sound of a bugle making continued noise. He asked the innkeeper what it meant. “Whenever we have a fire,” the innkeeper explained to the child, “we sound the bugle, and the fire is quickly extinguished.”
“How wonderful!” thought the village child. “What a great idea! I will bring it to my home village!”
With great excitement, the village child returned home with a bugle.
“Listen, good people,” he exclaimed his fellow villagers. “We no longer need to be afraid of fire. Just watch me, and see how quickly I will put out a fire!”
Saying this, he ran to the nearest hut and set fire to its straw roof. The fire began to spread very quickly.
“Don’t be alarmed!” cried the child. “Now watch me.”
The child whipped out his bugle and began blowing with all his might, interrupting it only to catch his breath, and to say, “Wait, this will put out the fire in no time!” But the fire did not seem to care much for the music, and merely hopped from one roof to another, until the entire village was in flames.
The villagers now began to berate the child: “You fool, did you think that the mere blowing of the bugle will put the fire out? It is only the call of an alarm, to wake those sleeping up, or to break them away from their business and work, and send them to the well to draw water and put out the fire!”
Consider this: The sounding of the Shofar horn, on the Jewish new year, the day of Rosh Hashana, (this year Sunday evening, Oct. 2 through Tuesday night, Oct. 4) is the ritual that is performed at the peak of the service.
Like the bugle in our story, the purpose of the shofar is but the sound of an “alarm.” It has a message for us. It is a call to the most inner core of our beings, crying to us: “Wake up!”
It is a sound that resonates with the first cry of a child, begging us to think about our ways and to return to our truth. A calling to us to put out the “fires: in our lives that threaten to destroy our true meaning and purpose, and to commit ourselves to a year of reconnecting with more Mitzvot — i.e., good deeds.
Indeed, immediately after the shofar is sounded, we focus our words and thoughts and proclaim: “Happy are the people who understand the meaning of the sound of the shofar; they walk in Your light.”
As we prepare for Rosh Hashana, we pray that the deep calling to our inner light will penetrate beyond each individual to a pervasive consciousness.
You are welcome to join us at Chabad to hear the sound of the Shofar. For more information regarding the High Holidays please visit us at jewishmalibu.com.