Here in Jerusalem, you know the month of Elul has arrived without ever turning the page on your calendar.
It’s in your bones.
A perceptible shift in the weather, just the slightest breeze, and you can practically smell Elul in the air. Then there is the cacophony of the shofar sounds piercing the air.
Meandering the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem on an intimate “Slichot” tour, in the spirit of the penitential poems and prayers that are commenced here on the first of Elul, the stories of times-gone-by and the invocation of holy personalities dwelling in the ancient city of Jerusalem, you feel transported, when suddenly the reverie is interrupted.
From below, from the Wailing Wall, the shofar sounds float up.
Tekiah. Sh’varim. T’ruah.
The horn’s cry that sounds like it will never end. Then the short, staccato broken wails of pain.
But perhaps this time, more hopeful than shattered?
It’s nearly 800 days into the war. Nearly 800 days, hostages in captivity.
Traditionally, the shofar is meant to awaken us slumbering
souls. To awaken us from our routine. From the barriers we have knowingly or unknowingly built between us and the Divine.
To awaken us from any diverging turns in our path that need repair.
Earlier in the day, I recited Psalm 27 for the first time, to be continued for the next 51 days — another feature that colors Elul.
But this year, I pause.
Awaken us from our slumber? These days, what does that mean? Never mind the pain, grief and sorrow of the bereaved soldier and hostage families, who are sentenced to sustained traumatic wakefulness. Never mind the tortuous days that pass without day nor night for the families of soldiers serving, praying, hoping, their loved ones will return. Never mind the excruciating abeyance the hostage families endure day in and day out. Clearly, the torment of sleeplessness is the sentence of all these families.
On a national level too, for nearly two years there has been a certain kind of sleeplessness, while simultaneously grasping, clinging to a veneer of normality.
Routine. Obligation, Responsibility. News. Tears. Sleeplessness.
And the cycle begins anew.
It’s not always linear like this. It’s at times messy and disorganized and disordered.
And yet.
This intensified connectedness, to each other, to G-dliness, to the fate of the Jewish People, has added a vehemence, a tenderness, a gusto, a survival kind of mania, if you will, that has awakened, with more than the usual deepened the meaning of what it means to be a part of the Jewish people,of Am Yisrael.
Yet, sleeplessness surrounds us. A kind of bluriness between right and wrong. Between good and evil. Between falsehood and truth.
Indeed, the blast of the shofar is needed more than ever, to awaken us to the reality of the turn the world has sadly taken.
To wake up to the reality, for example, that “journalists” in Gaza are not necessarily journalists at all, but terrorists in press vests.
Al Jazeera? Can someone please explain to me what exactly this news organization is? Is it a modern Trojan Horse posing as a news organization? And what about so many other narratives circulating these days, presented as fact, when in fact, they are pure fiction? Narratives replete with distortions, deceptions, inaccuracies.
I don’t mean debating the prosecution of the war, or weeping at how the hostages and their families’ trauma has wrenchingly been usurped and politicized.
I refer to out-and-out campaigns of overt lies that culminate and manifest in the validation of terrorism.
So many seem to be falling for it.
It almost feels like we need a repudiation.
If only we can blast an ensemble of shofars to collapse these convoluted lies like the long ago walls of Jericho, collapsed from the encircling shofar blasts that triggered their fall.
I detest using religious language and symbolism in context of political current events. To me, first and foremost, the shofar blast is what it has always been: an awakening on my personal path, toward reflection, rethinking — hopefully, repairing. The shofar sounds that summon an inner search.
But truth itself, and the justice of the destiny of Israel, is not mere politics. It is a foundational component of the Jewish people. Our national heart, soul and survival are braided within it, and depends on it.
Tekia. Sh’varim. T’ruah.
Let the powerful and emotionally intimate and broken cries of the shofar wash over us all, in hopes of somehow leading to transformation.
Personal. National. Spiritual.
Tekia Gedola.
© IJN 2025
