The month of Elul is the month of preparation for the High Holidays. You might ask, why do we need a month of preparation? What is so complicated about eating four sumptuous meals and fasting on Yom Kippur? One answer is that the High Holidays are akin to a home furnace. For the house to be a comfortable and functional 70 degrees, we first have to get the furnace up to, and above, 212.
So it is with the High Holidays. For us to feel warmly and effectively connected to G-d all through the year we have to have a very warm High Holidays. This means knowing and following in detail the rules and reasons of the holidays, being on our best behavior having weeded out as much as possible any negative personality traits and designating time on introspection about our relationship with G-d, thinking about what He wants from me and what I would like from Him. To fulfill this tall order, G-d has given us Elul as a month of preparation.
One of the customs of Elul is to blow a shofar every day (except the last day of the Jewish month). Most people know about hearing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Why do we blow it for a month before?
Let me share one of my favorite analogies.
In the days when most homes were built from wood, and before fire departments with their trucks, a fire was a terrible calamity. Because you could lose an entire village in minutes, as soon as a fire would break out, everyone would drop everything and make sure it was extinguished.
The watchman in the watchtower would immediately alert the residents to organize human chains passing buckets of water, hand to hand, from the river to the house.
Once, a young man from a distant village was visiting and unexpectedly heard trumpet blasts. His host explained that if a fire would break out, the trumpets are blown and the fire is immediately extinguished.
The young man really liked this intelligent proposition and decided to present it to the people of his village. On his return he immediately gathered everyone and announced, “From now on there is nothing to worry about if there is a fire. Watch me and see how fast the fire goes out.” Without further ado, he sets one of the thatched roofs alight and very soon a fire was raging. The young man started blowing on the trumpet with all his strength, but the fire wasn’t listening at all. It spread from roof to roof until the whole village was ablaze.
“You idiot!” the town people cried. “Don’t you understand that the trumpet doesn’t put out the fire! It is only an alarm to wake up all those who are sleeping and to alert them to extinguish the fire.”
[Analogy about the shofar from Elul Tishrei published by Reshet Chabad.]
So it is with all the people who are content to just hear the shofar and do not work on themselves and think about the coming Days of Judgement. They are like the silly young man. Remember, the purpose of the shofar is to wake up the people from sleep, search into our actions and do teshuva [meaning “return”] – return to appropriate behavior.
Like army reveille, the purpose of the daily shofar blowing is to wake us from our complacency and give us the opportunity to live up to our highest potential.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev was once standing by the window of his home. A non-Jewish shoe repairman passed by and asked him, “Don’t you have something that requires fixing?” Rabbi Levi Yitzchak sat on the floor, cried bitter tears and said, “Oy for me and even more, oy for my soul. The Day of Judgement is soon upon us and I still have not fixed myself.”
[Adapted from Eturei Torah volume 7]
May you be signed and sealed for a good and sweet new year.
Shalom and blessings,
Shaul Leiter