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The Rabbi Sacks Legacy - Understanding Prayer: The Deepest Call (4/10)

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Author: The Rabbi Sacks Legacy
Categories: Religion
Tags: religion
Views: 2 · Last viewed: 2026-10-15 19:00 UTC

Short Summary

Main recommendation: Hear and take part in the shofar sounding on Rosh Hashanah as a form of prayer that goes deeper than words, a call from the soul to God and God's call to us. The speaker presents the shofar as a reminder of the human soul's connection to the Divine, rooted in the story of creation.

Key Points

  • The shofar (ram's horn) on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is described as a prayer that goes beyond verbal language.
  • Its sound recalls major moments in Jewish history: the binding of Isaac, the revelation at Mount Sinai, the jubilee year proclaiming liberty, and the reunification of the Western Wall in the Six Day War.
  • The shofar's sounds carry different meanings: the tekiyah is a clarion announcing a great event like the arrival of a king or the Messianic Age, while the shevarim (sighs) and teruah (sobs) express a broken heart and remembrance of shame, guilt, and missed good.
  • The shofar is described as "the noise made by breath," linked to the Genesis line that God breathed the "nishmat chayyim," the breath of life, into man.
  • The speaker says that although humans are mere dust, mortal and vulnerable, the breath of God is within them.

Details Worth Noting

  • Concrete instructions: No specific step-by-step instructions, preparation, or actions to perform are given in the transcript. The only directive-like content is the call to hear the shofar as a form of prayer on Rosh Hashanah and to recall the moments it evokes.
  • The binding of Isaac is described as the moment when God told Abraham not to sacrifice his son and instead sent a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.
  • The Torah is cited as describing the sound of a ram's horn growing louder at Mount Sinai, the only time God revealed Himself to an entire people.
  • The speaker notes the shofar sometimes is sounded at Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka, when Jews return to shed tears and light candles in memory of the third of their people murdered by what he calls a demented civilisation that judged Jews not to have the right to be.
  • The speaker describes the shofar as "the sound of soul calling to soul across the abyss between us and infinity."

Bottom Line

The shofar is presented as a sound that transcends words, linking human vulnerability and the breath of God to a call between soul and Creator.