So much of our spiritual life is about remembering to remember, trying to really wake up and live our precious lives.
It is so easy to be lulled into sleepiness: the sleepiness of busyness, of mindless technology, of the closed heart and the superficial.
We know those things are hevel, meaningless, but we keep falling asleep anyway.
Nachman points out that “hevel” also means “quickly evaporating breath”.
On Rosh Hashanah the shofar plays a miraculous role: it transforms this meaningless, quickly forgettable breath into that primal cry that inspires trembling and being riveted wide awake.
The shofar then is actually the medium of transformation, the renewal of creativity and possibility.
May the shofar blast on Rosh Hashanah reawaken the possibility of transformation for all of us.
And may our practice make us into living shofarot, human alchemists who can change spiritual sleepiness into vibrant attention.
And with a new burst of creative possibility, perhaps the New Year might yet bring peace and lasting blessings to all the world.
Ken yehi ratzon.
May it be so.
