Tikvah
Subscribe
Editor's Pick

September 26, 2019

To One Great Hasidic Thinker, the Shofar Was a Tool to Loosen the Divine from Its Corporeal Shackles

“Happy is the people who knows the blast.”

Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Efraim of Sudilkov (ca. 1740-1800) was a grandson and disciple of the founder of Ḥasidism, Israel Baal Shem Tov, and an innovative thinker in his own right. Published in 1810, his collected sermons would become, in Eitan Fishbane’s words, “one of the most popular and influential works of ḥasidic thought.” In a sermon for the Sabbath preceding Rosh Hashanah, the rabbi explicates Psalms 89:16, the verse recited in the synagogue immediately after the holiday’s central ritual, the blowing of the shofar: “Happy is the people who know the blast, Lord; they will walk in the light of Your countenance”—the word rendered here as “blast” (t’ruah) being the standard term for the trumpeting of the shofar. Fishbane explains the theology animating the homily:

Subscribe to Continue Reading

Get the best Jewish ideas and conversations. Subscribe to Tikvah Ideas All Access for $12/month

Login or Subscribe
Save