September 14, 2026|ג' תשרי ה' אלפים תשפ"ז When Shabbat Becomes the Shofar: The Call to Renewal on Rosh Hashanah
Print ArticleI know what some of you are thinking: Today is a little bit of a downer.
Tomorrow is Rosh Hashanah with shofar. Tomorrow is the big day. We look forward to those blasts all year long.
But today? No shofar.
It almost feels like we’re getting the preview without the main event.
Not because the shofar isn’t available or the ba’al tokea is sick, but because Chazal instituted that we do not blow the shofar on Shabbat, out of concern that the ba’al tokea might carry it into the public domain. The Yerushalmi presents an even more fundamental understanding, deriving the prohibition from the Torah itself. In the Beit HaMikdash, however, the shofar was still blown.
I understand the halachic mechanism.
But something about it still feels strange.
Because we’re talking about the central mitzvah of Rosh Hashanah.
The Torah calls the day:
Yom teruah, a day of teruah.
Our tefillah revolves around:
Malchiyot, zichronot and shofarot.
The shofar is the defining sound of the day.
And yet, when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, the shofar can disappear from the entire day.
It’s almost like celebrating Pesach without matzah, Sukkot without a sukkah, or perhaps even worse, Shavuot without cheesecake.
And it gets even more remarkable.
Two thousand years ago, before the universal practice of observing two days of Rosh Hashanah, there were years when, in some places, a person observed only one day.
Imagine waiting an entire year for Rosh Hashanah. You finally arrive at that one day, the one day when you expect to hear the shofar, and Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat.
No shofar.
Not, “Don’t worry, you’ll hear it tomorrow.”
There was no tomorrow.
You waited an entire year, and the defining mitzvah of the day simply wasn’t performed.
So yes, I understand the decree.
But as a matter of religious experience, it still begs the question:
How can we have a Rosh Hashanah without a shofar?
What is it about Shabbat that allows us to dispense with the sound that seems to define the day?
To answer that, perhaps we first need to ask: What is Rosh Hashanah itself trying to accomplish?
The very first Mishnah in Masechet Rosh Hashanah begins:
Arba’ah rashei shanim hem.
There are four Rosh Hashanahs.
The first of Nisan is a Rosh Hashanah for kings and festivals. The first of Elul is a Rosh Hashanah for ma’aser behemah. The first of Tishrei is a Rosh Hashanah for the year, shemittah, and yovel. And there is even a Rosh Hashanah for the trees, Tu Bishvat.
Four beginnings. Four dates.
And yet when we say Rosh Hashanah, we don't mean any of the others.
We mean today.
So what makes this day the Rosh Hashanah?
What makes today a beginning?
Rav Shlomo Goren addresses this question through the Gemara’s teaching that Adam HaRishon was created in Tishrei, on Rosh Hashanah.
But Adam HaRishon was created once.
So why does that make every Rosh Hashanah a new beginning?
Rav Goren explains that Rosh Hashanah is not simply the anniversary of Adam’s creation.
It is the day of the renewal of man.
Every Rosh Hashanah offers the possibility of:
Adam chadash
A new person.
The word he emphasizes is:
Hitchadshut, renewal.
And the Yerushalmi expresses this beautifully. When we enter judgment before Hashem on Rosh Hashanah and emerge in peace:
Ma’aleh ani aleichem k’ilu nivrai’tehem briyah chadasha.
Hashem considers it as though we were created anew.
So Rosh Hashanah isn't simply the beginning of another year.
It is an invitation to become new.
But here's the challenge:
How do we become new when nothing has necessarily changed?
We understand renewal most naturally when life gives us a transition.
This summer, Yael and I became empty nesters.
We sent our youngest child, Daniel, to Israel to begin his year at Yeshivat Hakotel.
It was exciting. It was beautiful.
But it also forced me to recognize:
A chapter of our life was ending.
For years, our lives were organized around milestones: the first day of school, a bar mitzvah, graduation, a child leaving for Israel.
And then suddenly, your youngest child leaves home.
And you realize:
The family has entered a new stage.
That’s what transitions do. They make us stop. They force us to look backward:
Where have I been?
And forward:
Where am I going?
What do I want this next chapter to look like?
Transitions create a natural moment of hitchadshut.
But why should we have to wait for life to give us one?
Why should I have to wait for my child to leave home, for retirement, or for some other dramatic event before I stop and ask:
Where is my life going?
And perhaps that is exactly what Rosh Hashanah is.
A transition that Hashem gives us even when nothing externally has changed.
Once a year, Hashem says:
Stop.
It’s Rosh Hashanah.
Look back.
Look forward.
Begin again.
That is why the Ba’al Shem Tov offers a beautiful insight into the pasuk:
Tik’u bachodesh shofar ba’kesseh l’yom chagenu.
“Blow the shofar on the new moon, at the appointed time of our festival.”
The Ba’al Shem Tov plays with the word ba-chodesh. It doesn't only mean “on the new moon.” It can also suggest be-chodesh, enter into a state of chadash, of newness.
Don't come into Rosh Hashanah as a chok kavua, as someone fixed, entrenched in the same patterns.
Come into Rosh Hashanah believing:
I can be new.
And suddenly, the different names of Rosh Hashanah begin to fit together.
Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment.
We stop and honestly confront where we are.
Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance.
We look backward.
What did I do this year?
Who did I become?
What changed?
What didn’t?
And then:
Yom Teruah, the Day of the Shofar.
The shofar breaks through the ordinary rhythm of life.
Don’t just continue.
Wake up.
Pay attention.
Stop. Reflect. Wake up.
And then ask:
Where am I going?
Because this reflection is not meant simply to make us feel bad about the past.
It is meant to help us choose our future.
And that may explain the Rambam’s formulation about the beinoni.
The Gemara says:
Shelosha sefarim niftachin b’Rosh Hashanah.
Three books are opened on Rosh Hashanah.
The tzaddikim, the righteous people, are immediately inscribed in the Book of Life. The reshaim, the wicked people, are immediately inscribed in the Book of Death. And the beinonim, those in the middle, are suspended until Yom Kippur.
The Gemara says:
Zachu, nichtavin l’chayim.
If they merit, they are written for life.
It sounds as though the beinoni simply needs one more mitzvah to tip the scale.
But the Rambam describes it differently:
Im asah teshuva, nechtam l’chayim.
If he does teshuvah, he is sealed for life.
Why?
Rav Yitzchak Hutner explains that tzaddik, rasha, and beinoni aren't merely descriptions of the number of mitzvot and aveirot on our balance sheet.
They describe the direction of a person's life.
The tzaddik has chosen a direction.
The rasha has chosen a direction.
But the beinoni is still moving back and forth.
He does good. He does wrong.
He is inspired. He loses his inspiration.
He hasn't yet decided:
This is where my life is going.
And that’s why one more mitzvah isn't enough.
A mitzvah can change the calculation.
Teshuvah changes the direction.
And that is the deeper meaning of hitchadshut.
Rosh Hashanah isn't asking us merely to add another mitzvah to last year's balance sheet.
It is asking us to stop and ask:
Is this the direction I want my life to continue in?
And now we can return to our opening question.
Why, when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, don't we blow the shofar?
The Shem MiShmuel gives an extraordinary answer:
Kol mah she’oseh ha-shofar, hu asui v’omed al ydei kedushat Shabbat mai’aileha.
Everything the shofar accomplishes is already accomplished through the holiness of Shabbat.
What does the shofar do?
It stops us.
It interrupts the routine.
It wakes us up.
It creates a moment of hitchadshut.
But what does Shabbat do?
It stops us.
Every week, for 24 hours, we step out of the endless cycle of doing.
We stop producing.
We stop building.
We stop running.
And we remember:
I am standing before Hashem.
So perhaps when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, something remarkable is happening.
We still need Rosh Hashanah. We need that annual interruption.
But Shabbat itself is already giving us the transition the shofar would create.
For one day, Shabbat becomes the shofar.
And the Rambam takes this idea even further.
He doesn't limit this consciousness to Rosh Hashanah, or even to Shabbat.
He writes:
Tzarich kol adam she’yireh atzmo kol ha-shanah kulah k’ilu chetzyo zakai v’chetzyo chayav… asah mitzvah achat harei hichriya et atzmo v’et kol ha’olam kulo l’kaf zechut v’garam lo v’lahem teshuah v’hatzalah.
A person should see himself, and the entire world, as exactly balanced.
One sin can tip the scale toward guilt.
One mitzvah can tip it toward merit.
Why?
Because the Rambam wants us to live with a consciousness of possibility.
What I do next matters.
And notice his words:
כל השנה כולה, the entire year.
Rosh Hashanah teaches us that a year can be new.
Shabbat teaches us that a week can be new.
And the Rambam teaches us that a moment can be new.
We don't have to wait for a child to leave home.
We don't have to wait for retirement.
We don't have to wait for Rosh Hashanah.
Every moment can be an opportunity to change direction.
So perhaps when we say:
Zachrenu l’chayim,
we're not asking Hashem merely:
Give me another year.
We're asking:
Give me the courage to make that year new.
Give me the courage to change direction.
To become more present.
To become more connected.
To become more of the person, You created me to be.
Hitchadshut.
And perhaps that is also what we are asking for in all of our tefillot this Rosh Hashanah.
May Hashem hear not only the words we say, but the deepest wishes of our hearts.
May He bless us with health and refuah, with parnasa and bracha, with shidduchim, shalom bayis, nachas from our children, and with the fulfillment of the personal prayers that each of us carries quietly within us.
And may He hear the tefillot of Klal Yisrael — especially the tefillot of our brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisrael. May He bring safety and peace, healing to those who are suffering, strength to those who are carrying unbearable burdens, and yeshuah to those who are waiting.
May the sincerity of our teshuvah give power to our tefillah.
May our turning toward Hashem open the door for Hashem to turn toward us.
And may this be the year in which we don't simply receive another chapter.
May we have the courage to write it differently.
So that when we stand here again next Rosh Hashanah, we won't simply say:
Another year has passed.
We'll be able to say:
Another year changed me.
Another year brought me closer to You.
Another year helped me become the person You created me to be.
May we all be written and sealed for a year of life, health, blessing, peace, and the fulfillment of all our heartfelt prayers.