Our core spiritual practice throughout Elul, the final month of the Jewish year, is attending to the call of the shofar. As we anticipate the upcoming holidays, the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, and the American presidential election, our tradition offers a powerful tool for supporting ourselves and responding wisely to this unsettling time: the shofar, an instrument that helps us realign our inner lives with the underlying rhythm of Being.
We might think of the shofar as a spiritual tuning fork, inviting us to notice its vibrations resonating with the oscillations of our soul, with the kol demamah dakah, the “still small voice” of wisdom implanted within each of us. The Talmud says that one fulfills the mitzvah of attending to the shofar only im kivein libo, only if one direct’s one’s heart, if one listens with kavannah/intention [Babylonian Talmud Rosh Hashanah 27b]. In attending to the call of the shofar, our intention is to allow its vibrations blasts penetrate our brains, permeate our bodies, and touch =the deepest level of human knowing, beyond intellect and feeling
In our Shofar Project 5784 this month, we will support each other in the practice of attuning to the call of the shofar, grounding our practice in each successive week of Elul in one of four key themes of the shofar:
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- Awakening the Heart: we will attune to the shofar as a loving tap on our hearts, inviting us to awaken and see the world and our lives with greater clarity and wisdom.
- Attuning to the Pain of the World: we will attune to the shofar as a lament expressing the inexpressible grief so many of us feel.
- Returning to Compassion: we will attune to the shofar as an invitation to practice compassion for ourselves and others.
- Transforming into an Instrument of Justice: we will attune to the shofar as a call to manifest hope in the face of despair, resilience in the pursuit of justice and peace.
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We can lay the foundation for our Elul practice right now with a simple practice:
Simply pause and be still for a moment.
Breath and bring attention to sensation in the body.
Ground your feet on the planet.
Notice the inner kol demamah dakah, the still small voice of the soul, ever-present in
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- the inner, silent vibrations in our bodies,
- the pulsations of the blood and the breath,
- the ebb and flow of emotions,
- the firing of the synapses in the brain, and
- the flow of thoughts in the fountain of the mind.
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Our bodies, emotions, and thoughts manifest our spirit or soul – our own personal spiritual instrument, waiting to be enlivened and tuned up for the New Year. As we move into Elul, join us as we support each other in growing more aware of how the vibrations of the shofar meld with those of our own soul, awakening us, opening us, softening us – and, we pray, transforming us.
