Every morning during the Hebrew month of Elul leading up to the Jewish High Holidays, except on Shabbat, the shofar is blown. The daily blasts serve as a spiritual alarm clock to awaken the soul in preparation for the new year.
The loud blast of the shofar during Rosh Hashanah services is a sound, considered to be a mitzvah, that many observant Jews are familiar with. For Jay Horowitz, a Montgomery County resident who has been blowing shofar for Rosh Hashanah services at his synagogue for roughly 25 years, the sound is more personal.
“My mother was involved in a lot of Jewish organizations, and she was at a conference, and someone was selling a bunch of Jewish gift things — they were selling shofars — and she thought of me because she knew I’m musical,” said Horowitz. “I think she thought it would be on display in our house. She didn’t really expect me to play it, but when I got it, I tried it out, and I was able to get a good sound from it. So, I started doing it, and then a few months later, I volunteered to do it at our shul.”
Typically made from a ram’s horn or the horn of a kosher animal, shofars come in all different shapes and sizes and make all different sounds, but during Rosh Hashanah, the shofar is blown three different ways to bring in the new year.
“There’s three or four notes,” Horowitz explained. “When I say notes, I don’t mean the musical notes like C or D. There’s tekiah, which is one blast, then there’s the teruah, which is like nine or more staccato blasts, then there’s shevarim, which is three shorter blasts, and then there’s the tekiah gedolah, which is one long blast.”
Having grown up playing different musical instruments, Horowitz describes how he prefers to end his shofar blast like the ending of a rock song.
“Since I play music, I kind of have strong feelings about songs,” said Horowitz. “A lot of rock songs fade out, and I think it’s kind of lazy; I think it bothers me. And I think the really good songs and the good bands come to an end, like a dramatic end.”
Horowitz said he tries to end his shofar blasts at Rosh Hashanah services with a crescendo, something he learned growing up from his cousin, who also blew shofar.
“With a shofar, some people just blow until they run out of air, and it fades out. I think it sounds more dramatic and pleasing if you build up to a crescendo and end with a blast,” Horowitz added. “I like to save some [energy] so it’ll end with a flourish.”
Horowitz said, for him, blowing the shofar every year is like riding a bike. When he was still new to blowing the shofar, he would practice for a few weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah services, but after 25 years, he said he only practices a day or two before, and then he is ready to go.
Blowing a shofar can be very different from playing a modern wind or brass instrument.
“It’s an unpredictable instrument,” said Horowitz. “Like a trumpet is built, or a saxophone, it’s made with precision. It’s made under exact specifications, but this thing is from a wild animal, and it can sound very different every time.”
Since the shofar isn’t a typical instrument, it can’t be tuned and, unlike other wind or brass instruments, it can smell.
“We have a music room, and I keep it there, so when I’m down there, I’ll just pick it up. I don’t really do it much [upstairs] because it smells,” added Horowitz. “It smells like a wild animal, which is what it’s from.”
Horowitz said he’s never had any training for blowing the shofar other than practicing a few times with his cousin, but his experience with saxophone training, and other wind or brass instruments he has played in the past, taught him about honing his embouchure, a French term referring to the positioning of one’s lips, mouth and teeth when playing a wind or brass instrument.
“I’m not really a spiritual person, but I think that it does have a sound that [is] spiritual,” Horowitz said. “I think that’s what it’s supposed to be like, awaken something in you when you hear that sound. If anything, it might just be the memory of being in shul and hearing it from [the shofar blowing] when you were a kid.”
