‘The Day of Broken Sound’[1]
Leviticus 23:24 Say to the Children of Israel in the Seventh month on the first of the month it will be to you a Sabbath, a remembrance (zikaron) of the Broken Sound (trua), a Holy occurrence
Numbers 29:1 In the seventh month, on the first of the month, a Holy occurrence it will be to you, you will not do any creative activities, a Day (yom) of Broken sound (trua) it will be to you.
Day of Judgment, the New year- those are the more common appellations than the day of Broken Sound; yet, it is the latter which is the only name written down in the Torah itself. The other names were coined by the Rabbis and alluded to in the prophets. In fact, all of the ideas of Rosh Hashanah are from tradition because unlike the other holidays mentioned in the Torah, the task or thoughts of the day are not spelled out. No mention of Shofar or judgment is found in the Torah. So what did the Torah have in mind when it described what we know to be Rosh Hashanah as the day of Broken Sound? Why does that name encapsulate the day in the most precise fashion? And where did the Rabbis see the Shofar and Judgment hinted to in the Torah?
Brokenness brings to mind despair, destruction, and disillusion. But those allusions encapsulate only half the concept. We forget that in order for something to be broken it had to be whole first. Otherwise, it would not be called broken, rather a collection of disconnected pieces. For example, two people walk into a junkyard, a mechanic and a car salesman. For one, the view is a tragedy, all of these cars that used to be worth something, but are now all rusted and mangled. For the mechanic there may be initial shock at all the work ahead, but the main thing he sees is a world of opportunity. With all of the parts in one place, it is possible to rebuild cars with even better and more creative parts than before. He can’t help but warm up his welder to get ready and build. The car salesman sees pieces of car, while the mechanic sees the possibility of original wholeness.
Rosh Hashanah is the day to become mechanics and see that while at present the world is broken, it has the possibility of reconstruction and connection. It is easy to see the world as a junkyard from the perspective of the car salesman, and internalize that vision as normal. The world is not at peace and it would appear that this is the status quo. Rosh Hashanah is the time we put our head, ‘Rosh’, to the seemingly endless string of years that are more broken than whole, more war than peace, to say that his year will no longer be broken, and I will play a special role in rebuilding it.[2] That is where repentance comes in. We would not have a broken world had we been proper mechanics the year before, so this year we need to think about how we can improve ourselves in order to make the world whole again.
This idea is rooted in the Hebrew name, ‘yom trua’, תרוע. On the one hand the root , רע means evil and ‘to break’[3]. But on the other hand, רע also forms the word for Shepherd, רוע and companionship, תרוע, both ideas of connectedness and unity. The broken is also a sign of initial unity.
That is also the general idea behind judgment or din. It can be harsh and unforgiving, and yet it unites the world under commonality of purpose and gives life meaning. That is zicaron or memory. Through memory of action, in other words, that each action counts we get din. Therefore, when the verse says that it is a day of remembrance, the Rabbis understood that it meant a day of Judgment.
And it is from the Day, ‘yom’ of the verse that the Rabbis saw the idea of wholeness and shofar. During the day our eyes can see a picture of how everything is whole and connected, while at night everything is mixed up in darkness. So too, the continuous blast from the shofar transforms the broken blast into its completion. The word shofar means beautiful because it shows us how everything can come back together.
As we listen to the blast of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, the most idealistic self needs to awaken. Realize that the main goal of Rosh Hashanah is not to see our weakness and failings, but to realize our strengths and apply them to the world this year. That is why Rosh Hashanah does not come at the end of the year in terms of months, but in the seventh month. We have spent a summer building up our strength, and now we need to use it during the winter months in order to have a world of blossoms in the spring.
[1] Based on the Ramban Drasha for Rosh Hashanah as explained by Rabbi Gershenfeld
[2] At the root of the rebuilding process is making G-d our King and the King of the world. Unity is only possible with G-d at the helm and by us subjugating our vision to His.
[3] See the Recanti’s commentary to the Ramban
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