It’s not something one ponders often, but how difficult is it to blow the shofar in Denver, at one mile or 5280 feet above sea level? In its Rosh Hashana edition, published this week, IJN intern Sarah Wolberg spoke with veteran shofar blowers from the Metro area. One was Dr. Yitzchak Teitelbaum of EDOS, who has been blowing shofar since 1987.
His sound is described as haunting, steady, not punctuated by the sharp rises and falls in timber or decibels that are typical. Is that what Dr. Teitelbaum himself hears?
“What you hear and what I hear are not exactly the same thing,” he says. “I’m hearing bone conduction, and you’re hearing air conduction. It’s sort of like our own voices, which don’t sound the same to us as they sound when you hear a recording of them.
“Spiritually, I actually struggle a little with whether I’m worthy to be sounding the shofar. I think it’s a huge responsibility to facility the congregation observing this mitzvah that is central to Rosh Hashanah.
“I question whether I’m really worthy of being the person who does it.”
Dr. Teitelbaum prepares about two to three weeks before Rosh Hashanah, about 15 to 20 minutes a day.
He practices breathing and the timing of the sounds (that the tekiah be at least a long as what comes after it).
“I’m working on the lip,” he says. “What needs practice is the lip, so that it has the stamina to withstand 100 blasts. It takes a few days to get into it.”
After a 25 hour fast on Yom Kippur, how does he blow the shofar once again? “You use a little bit of saliva,” he says. “I use what little I have — and all I need is one tekiah. If I had to sound 100 blasts then, I assure you it couldn’t happen.”
