In the past few weeks, I’ve brought Lavi to morning minyan with me a few times. And as we are in the season of repentance, leading up to Rosh Hashanah, we blow shofar every morning at the end of services. Lavi is often sleeping at this point in the morning, but the shofar hasn’t woken him up and he has slept right through the tekiah, shevarim, and teruah of the morning. Ironically, the shofar is meant to wake us up! ( I don’t want him to wake up from his nap and I’m sure there’s some metaphor here.) Maimonides heard this message in the shofar's notes: "Wake up you sleepers from your sleep and you slumberers from your slumber. Search your deeds and return in penitence."
The intention of shofar is to shake us, to awaken us to the world around us and ourselves and what we can change. Lavi’s insistence on sleeping right through has led me to think about what I do want to shake him. What are the things in this world that I want to push him into action, to trouble him, to care deeply about?
There is certainly no shortage of issues I’d like him to care about, but today in particular I’m thinking about our environment and the way we act in relation to climate change. Today, all over the country, many students are walking out of their classrooms to protest our response to rapid climate change. They are, so to speak, blowing the climate shofar. They’re standing up to adults in their lives demanding that we ensure a better planet for their future. I hope that we respond to them in ways that validate their concern and that demonstrates a commitment to using our power and influence to mitigate the damage done to our planet.
The shofar blasts will come and go, and this holiday season will be over in just a number of weeks, but what are the other blasts we’ll continue to hear as wake-up calls? How can we find the awareness to listen when we are called, and to find the motivation to change? May the blasts of the shofar prime us for listening. May the blasts force us to become aware of the sounds calling for change, crying out for a better world.
