Lesson 53: Ha’azinu

From the book Mida Tova: Articles on the Principles of Halakhic Thinking by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

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Concepts

• A “blended” and a “juxtapositional” combination of days.
• The interweaving of rabbinic law with Torah law.
• A homiletic exposition on “the voice that emerges from silence.”

Summary

In this week’s essay we deal with sounding the shofar, especially on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. At first glance, the Sages present three different conceptions of why the sounding was prohibited: either it is rabbinic, or it is derived from exegesis, one version of which rests on the contradiction between two verses that discuss the sounding: “a day of blast” and “a memorial of blast.” The exposition determines that the first speaks of an ordinary Rosh HaShanah, while the second speaks of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat.

Although in practice we rule in accordance with the Babylonian Talmud, which views this law as a rabbinic decree lest one come to carry the shofar four cubits in the public domain, as we show, something of the Jerusalem Talmud’s exposition, which is rejected in the Babylonian Talmud, nevertheless remains even in the final practical ruling. This finds expression in our prayer, but also in the law itself.

We then move on to discuss what is learned from the verse “a memorial of blast,” beyond the silencing of the shofar’s sound. In that context we consider the obligation to remember what the shofar is meant to evoke, and to recite remembrances in the prayer service.

At the end of the essay we discuss the meaning of the composite day called “Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat,” and the meaning of that combination, and of halakhic combinations generally. We argue that the combination of two days is not “juxtapositional” but “blended”; that is, it fuses the two components into a new kind of day. This has legal implications beyond the understanding of the sugya concerning shofar-blowing on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, and we point to several of them.

In the course of our discussion we also drift, unusually for us, into a homiletic reflection in honor of the shofar. We argue that even on ordinary Rosh HaShanah days, when we do in fact blow the shofar, we are really listening to silence. The sound of the shofar is an abstraction from song and melody, until only the bare objecthood of sound remains, and nothing more. The thunderous silence of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is only a sharper listening to that same voice that emerges from the silence.

Sounding the Shofar on Rosh HaShanah That Falls on Shabbat

A Look at Halakhic (Jewish-legal) Composites

Introduction

This week we will devote our essay to the three coming days of rest: the two days of Rosh HaShanah, followed by Shabbat. We will therefore discuss a case that does not actually occur this year: Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. As is well known, on such a day the shofar is not sounded, and we will try to understand the meaning of that fact.

A. Rosh HaShanah That Falls on Shabbat: The Legal Basis

Introduction: The Commandment of Sounding the Shofar

The primary commandment of Rosh HaShanah is the sounding of the shofar. The Torah commands us regarding this in Parashat Pinhas, Numbers 29:1:

“In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, there shall be for you a sacred occasion; you shall do no laborious work; it shall be a day of blast for you.”

Immediately afterward, the Torah lists the offerings of the day. The Sages derive from the blast of the jubilee year that the blast mentioned in this verse is a shofar blast; see also Maimonides, Laws of Shofar 1:1.

Maimonides, in Sefer HaMitzvot, positive commandment 170, counts the sounding of the shofar as a positive commandment, and so too does Sefer HaChinukh, commandment 405:

“The 170th commandment is that He commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar on the first day of Tishrei, and that is His exalted statement concerning it: ‘It shall be for you a day of blast.’ The laws of this commandment have already been explained in Tractate Rosh HaShanah. Women are not obligated in it.”

And in Laws of Shofar 1:1 he writes:

“It is a positive commandment of the Torah to hear the sounding of the shofar on Rosh HaShanah, as it is said: ‘It shall be for you a day of blast.’ The shofar with which one sounds, both on Rosh HaShanah and in the jubilee, is the bent horn of a ram, and all shofarot are invalid except a ram’s horn. Although the Torah did not explicitly specify a shofar blast on Rosh HaShanah, it says regarding the jubilee, ‘You shall cause the shofar blast to pass through… you shall sound the shofar’; and by tradition they learned: just as the jubilee blast is with a shofar, so too the Rosh HaShanah blast is with a shofar.”

The Torah also mentions the shofar, somewhat in passing, in Parashat Emor, Leviticus 23:23-25:

“And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, there shall be for you a day of rest, a memorial of the blast, a sacred occasion. You shall do no laborious work, and you shall bring an offering by fire to the Lord.”

One should note, however, that here the Torah speaks of “a day of rest, a memorial of the blast,” not “a day of blast,” as in the earlier verse. Moreover, the second verse does not describe the name of the day but its purpose: a day of rest intended as a memorial of the blast; see further below. The first verse, by contrast, calls the very day itself “a day of blast,” and in addition commands that the day be for us a day of blast. This is our primary purpose on that day. That verse makes it quite clear that this is the most essential, perhaps even constitutive, element of Rosh HaShanah.

Rosh HaShanah That Falls on Shabbat: The Basic Problem

Against this background, what the Mishnah writes in Babylonian Talmud, Rosh HaShanah 29b, is particularly surprising:

“On a festival day of Rosh HaShanah that fell on Shabbat, they would sound the shofar in the Temple, but not in the provinces. After the Temple was destroyed, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai instituted that they should sound in every place where there is a court. Rabbi Elazar said: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai instituted this only in Yavneh. They said to him: Yavneh and every place where there is a court are the same. Jerusalem had yet another advantage over Yavneh: in every city that could see, hear, was near, and could come, they would sound; in Yavneh they would sound only in the court itself.”

On a Rosh HaShanah that fell on Shabbat, they would sound in the Temple but not in the provinces. After the destruction, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai ordained that they should sound before a court; there are many disputes among the medieval authorities about the exact details, but that is not our subject here. If so, on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat there is no sounding of the shofar, except in the Temple, or before a court. This is a surprising law, because as we have seen, the Torah itself presents the sounding as the essence of the day, since Rosh HaShanah is called after it, “a day of blast.” This is the commandment that gives the day its purpose and uniqueness. Yet when Rosh HaShanah falls on Shabbat, the shofar is not sounded. What remains of Rosh HaShanah without the sounding? How can it still remain Rosh HaShanah without the fulfillment of the principal law that defines it? Is this still really Rosh HaShanah, “a day of blast,” or are we dealing with some different occasion altogether?

The Source of the Law: The Exposition of the Sifra

The sources for this law appear in very different forms in different places. In Sifra, Behar, parashah 2, and likewise in Rashi on the Torah in the section on the jubilee, we find the following exposition:

“‘On the day’ and not at night. ‘On Yom Kippur’—even on Shabbat. ‘You shall cause the shofar to pass throughout all your land’ teaches that every individual is obligated. One might think that the blast of Rosh HaShanah also overrides Shabbat; therefore Scripture says: ‘throughout all your land. And you shall cause the shofar blast to pass in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, on Yom Kippur.’ Since it says ‘on Yom Kippur,’ do I not already know that Yom Kippur is on the tenth of the month? Why then does it say ‘on the tenth of the month’? To teach that on the tenth of the month it overrides Shabbat throughout all your land, but the blast of Rosh HaShanah does not override Shabbat throughout all your land, only in a court.”

First, we should note that the Sifra brings a Torah-level exposition teaching that one does not sound the shofar on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. That is, this is not merely a rabbinic matter, but an essential exemption. Of course, this sharpens the difficulty we raised above: why, when Rosh HaShanah falls on Shabbat, do we not engage in the very essence of the day? And in what sense, then, is it still Rosh HaShanah?

On the other hand, the language of the midrash makes it fairly clear that this is not an essential exemption from sounding. The midrash states that the obligation is displaced by something connected with Shabbat. If so, fundamentally there is such an obligation, but on Shabbat there is some constraint that prevents its realization. Additional support for this can be drawn from the fact that in a court they did sound the shofar, which shows that sounding belongs essentially to this day as well.

The problem, then, is: what prohibition could there be in blowing the shofar such that the obligation to sound is set aside before it? In practice, the decisors disagree even about whether there is any rabbinic prohibition involved. It is indeed forbidden to play music because of the decree lest one come to repair a musical instrument, but regarding the shofar some have written that this decree does not apply at all; otherwise we would have to prohibit blowing even on an ordinary Rosh HaShanah. It is therefore clear that the Sages did not decree against shofar-blowing as such, certainly not on Rosh HaShanah itself. So too writes the Magen Avraham, Orach Chayyim 588:4:

“We do not sound the shofar—even though sounding itself is only a rabbinic prohibition, and a Torah positive commandment ought to override a rabbinic prohibition, nevertheless they decreed lest one carry it four cubits in the public domain, as Maimonides writes. Maharam of Padua asked in his glosses: sounding itself is also subject to a rabbinic decree, lest one repair a musical instrument, so why not say that it is forbidden for that reason, and that the Sages maintained their enactment even where a positive commandment is involved? He answered that this decree was not enacted with respect to shofar-blowing, for if it had been, we would never sound the shofar at all, since the concern of repairing an instrument exists even on a festival, and it would follow that they had uprooted a Torah positive commandment. But the decree lest one carry applies only on Shabbat, and so they properly enacted it. See also the Bach and the Re’em, who struggled with this. However, according to what the Ran wrote in the fourth chapter of Sukkah and the first chapter of Megillah, that the reason the sounding is set aside because of this decree is that people were not expert in the fixing of the new moon, and so too it appears in the Gemara, the question returns to its place: let us say that the decree is lest one repair a musical instrument, as with all optional soundings. What is permitted on a festival is because in any case, if it is truly a festival they are performing a commandment, and if it is an ordinary weekday they are doing nothing at all; not so on Shabbat, where they transgress a rabbinic prohibition. And Tosafot at the beginning of the third chapter of Sukkah, in the passage ‘those who know,’ seems to imply that in fact with sounding the reason is this kind of Sabbath-rest prohibition. This requires further study.”

Indeed, in practice most decisors permit one simply to blow on an ordinary Rosh HaShanah, even after one has already fulfilled the obligation of hearing the shofar, whether for practice or even without any particular purpose.

If so, there does not seem to be a legal problem in blowing the shofar, certainly not a Torah-level one. So what is it that displaces the obligation to sound? On the other hand, even if there were such a problem, it is not clear why a verse would be needed to teach it. If the act already involved some transgression that prevents the sounding, the verse would be unnecessary. The mere fact that the act is forbidden should have sufficed.

The Source of the Law: The Exposition of the Jerusalem Talmud

The Jerusalem Talmud gives a different source for this law. Its language in Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh HaShanah 4:1, is as follows:

“Regarding the Mishnah: ‘On a festival day of Rosh HaShanah…’ Rabbi Abba bar Pappa said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: He and Resh Lakish were sitting and asking: We have learned, ‘A festival day of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat—in the Temple they would sound, but not in the provinces.’ If this is a matter of Torah law, then it should override Shabbat even in the outlying regions. If it is not a matter of Torah law, then it should not override even in the Temple. Kahana passed by. They said: This is a great man; let us ask him. They asked him, and he said to them: One verse says, ‘a day of blast,’ and another verse says, ‘a memorial of blast.’ How so? When it falls on a weekday, it is ‘a day of blast’; when it falls on Shabbat, it is ‘a memorial of blast’—we mention it, but we do not sound. Rabbi Ze’ura instructed his colleagues: Go in and listen to the voice of Rabbi Levi expound, for it is impossible that he presents his lesson without having learned it well. He went in and said before them: One verse says, ‘a day of blast,’ and another verse says, ‘a memorial of blast.’ How so? When it falls on a weekday, it is ‘a day of blast’; when it falls on Shabbat, it is ‘a memorial of blast’—we mention it, but we do not sound. If so, then even in the Temple it should not override. It was taught: ‘on the first of the month.’ If so, then even in a place where they know that it is the first of the month, it should override. Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai taught: ‘And you shall bring an offering’—in a place where offerings are brought.”

The Jerusalem Talmud is grappling directly with the very problems we raised above regarding the Sifra. On the one hand, shofar-blowing belongs even to a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, for in the Temple they did sound. If the act involves a prohibition and that prohibition is overridden, then they should also have sounded in the provinces. And if it is not overridden, then they should not have sounded even in the Temple.

In the end, the Jerusalem Talmud explains the matter by pointing to a contradiction between two verses: one says “a day of blast” and the other says “a memorial of blast.” It resolves the contradiction by saying that one verse speaks of an ordinary Rosh HaShanah, which is “a day of blast,” and the other speaks of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, which is “a memorial of blast.”

At the end of the passage there is a hint of a connection to doubts about the fixing of the month, that is, uncertainty about the correct date of Rosh HaShanah because of problems in transmitting information about the sanctification of the new moon. So too it appears from the Ran cited in the Magen Avraham above, that the decree is connected to such doubts. According to that, matters become clearer: in truth they did not nullify a Torah positive commandment, but only in a place where we are uncertain and there is no definite obligation. On the face of it, according to this, in a place where the date is known precisely one should sound even on Shabbat; but that is not our practice.

A Note on Cases of Doubt

Even if there is uncertainty about the fixing of the month, we should still have had to sound the shofar on account of the general rule that doubt in Torah law is treated stringently. After all, there is a Torah commandment to sound the shofar; we simply do not know which day is the correct one for doing so. If so, even because of doubt we should have fulfilled that obligation.

Admittedly, with respect to positive commandments, Rabbi Akiva Eiger and other decisors have already written that one does not necessarily apply the principle of stringency in cases of doubt. Their reasoning is that the rule of stringency in doubt is aimed at ensuring that we do not commit a transgression. But where a positive commandment is in doubt, even if we perform the act, it is not certain that we have thereby fulfilled the commandment. For example, in the context of the blue tekhelet thread for ritual fringes, where the problem arose in full force, as discussed extensively in the Radziner Rebbe’s Petil Tekhelet, if one attached doubtful tekhelet to the fringes, it is not clear that one fulfilled the commandment. If it is not the correct tekhelet, that act simply does not count as a commandment.

But of course that is not our case. Here, if there is in fact an obligation to sound on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, then obviously we have fulfilled it. And if there is no such obligation, then there is no problem at all, unlike the case of tekhelet, where there certainly is a commandment to place a tekhelet thread and the doubt concerns only whether this is the correct tekhelet or not. It is therefore reasonable that in our case everyone should agree that one must be stringent and sound the shofar.

Perhaps, however, the idea is that the act itself involves a prohibition, and ordinarily the positive commandment of shofar would have overridden that prohibition. But where there is doubt, we then have both a doubtful commandment and a doubtful prohibition, and it is not clear whether a doubtful positive commandment overrides a doubtful negative prohibition; see Shdei Chemed, entry ayin.

Still, all this does not seem to be the Jerusalem Talmud’s intention in its exposition, for it is discussing an ordinary Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, even in a place where offerings are brought, and it learns from the verse that it does not override Shabbat. Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai’s statement is apparently an independent teaching, and perhaps not an accepted one.

The Relation Between the Jerusalem Talmud and the Exposition of the Sifra

In any event, surprisingly enough, even in the Jerusalem Talmud’s exposition, which also constitutes a Torah-level source, it sounds as though shofar-blowing is forbidden because it does not override Shabbat, and not that from the outset there is simply no obligation upon us to sound. In other words, there is a prohibition against blowing, not merely an absence of obligation. Here too the question arises: what prohibition is there in shofar-blowing? Moreover, from the plain sense of the exposition it seems quite clear that when Rosh HaShanah falls on Shabbat there is no obligation at all to sound. On that day the obligation is only to remember the blast, though we still need to understand what exactly that means; see below. For some reason, the Sages understand this as a case of an obligation being set aside rather than as one in which the obligation simply does not apply, but that is strained in the language of the Jerusalem Talmud.

Perhaps one might say, though only with difficulty, that according to the Sifra and the Jerusalem Talmud, restrictions of Sabbath-rest have Torah force, as in Nahmanides on Emor, cited also by the Ritva on Rosh HaShanah 33a, and that therefore the commandment is displaced. According to that, the fact that they did sound in the Temple would fit well, since such Sabbath-rest restrictions do not apply in the Temple. On its plain meaning, however, the term in question does not refer to an ordinary rabbinic prohibition, but rather to some kind of public desecration. Perhaps shofar-blowing performed publicly constitutes such a Torah-level violation of Sabbath rest. In any case, this doctrine is not agreed upon. Moreover, even according to it, it is still unclear why a verse would be needed to command us not to violate the prohibition; see the discussion above regarding the Sifra. In addition, the language of the Jerusalem Talmud indicates that a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is a different kind of day, on which one does not sound but only remembers the blast. That is therefore not the most natural reading of the Jerusalem Talmud.

In the Jerusalem Talmud’s opening question, the possibility is raised that this is only a rabbinic law, but that possibility is rejected because if so there would be no justification for allowing it to displace a Torah law. This is another proof for our claim above that the Jerusalem Talmud is not fundamentally basing itself on uncertainty about the calendar. Its conclusion is that this is a Torah law, and its source is the exposition built on the contradiction between the verses. We will now see this very same possibility in the sugya of the Babylonian Talmud.

The Source of the Law: The Sugya of the Babylonian Talmud

The Gemara on the Mishnah in Rosh HaShanah 29b also discusses the exemption from sounding on Shabbat, and says as follows:

“Gemara: From where are these matters? Rabbi Levi bar Lahma said in the name of Rabbi Hama bar Hanina: One verse says, ‘a day of rest, a memorial of blast,’ and another verse says, ‘it shall be for you a day of blast.’ This is not difficult: here it speaks of a festival that falls on Shabbat, and here of a festival that falls on a weekday. Rava said: If this is by Torah law, how do we sound in the Temple? Moreover, this is not labor such that a verse would be needed to exclude it, for the school of Samuel taught: ‘You shall do no laborious work’—this excludes shofar-blowing and removing bread from the oven, because they are acts of skill and not labor. Rather, Rava said: By Torah law it is fully permitted, and it is the Rabbis who decreed concerning it, in accordance with Rabbah. For Rabbah said: Everyone is obligated in shofar-blowing, but not everyone is expert in shofar-blowing. Therefore they decreed lest one take it in hand and go to an expert to learn, and carry it four cubits in the public domain. And that is the reason for the lulav, and that is the reason for the megillah.”

The first source raised in the Gemara is the contradiction between the verses, exactly as in the Jerusalem Talmud. Immediately afterward, that explanation is rejected: if this is indeed a Torah law, then how do they sound in the Temple? It also asks, as we noted regarding the Jerusalem Talmud, what prohibition there is in the act of sounding. Indeed, the Jerusalem Talmud asked this too, though it is not entirely clear how it answered. In any case, there is clearly an assumption here that blowing on Shabbat involves a Torah-level prohibition, and not merely that there is no obligation to sound on Shabbat. If there were only an absence of obligation, what would have prevented the Gemara from saying that in the Temple itself there is an obligation to sound? If so, from the language of the Gemara, already at its initial stage, when it entertained the possibility that this law had a Torah source, it appears that the exposition teaches us a prohibition, not merely a cancellation of the obligation to sound. Beyond that, it is clear from here that this cannot be some generic Sabbath-rest restriction, for even if it were, the question from the Temple would not be difficult, since such restrictions do not apply there.

What, then, did the Jerusalem Talmud answer to these questions? It seems that this is precisely what it answered: there is no prohibition here, only the cancellation of an obligation.¹ On a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat there is simply no obligation to sound at all. It is clear that this is not because the obligation was displaced by a prohibition, because of the very difficulties just mentioned; and from that the Jerusalem Talmud proves that there is no obligation to sound in the first place. This also makes clear why in the Temple they did sound, since there there was such an obligation. Only if we were dealing with displacement would there be room for the question about distinguishing between the provinces and the Temple.

Later in the Jerusalem Talmud, however, there is a second formulation of the exposition, and there it seems that they still ask why in the Temple they did sound, and they bring a derivation from the words “on the first of the month.” It is possible that there is a dispute there as to whether the exposition teaches a prohibition that displaces the obligation to sound, or an absence of obligation to sound.

Summary of the Dispute Between the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds

As we have seen, even when the Babylonian Talmud initially adopts the Jerusalem Talmud’s exposition, it does not read it the way the Jerusalem Talmud does, at least not according to the first formulation there. According to the Jerusalem Talmud, in the conclusion this is a cancellation of the obligation; according to the Babylonian Talmud, it is a displacement caused by a prohibition. Of course, the question we raised above now returns with even greater force: what Torah prohibition, or perhaps even rabbinic prohibition, is there in blowing the shofar?

So far we have been speaking about the Babylonian Talmud’s initial assumption. But, as noted, the Babylonian Talmud itself raises this question, and precisely on that basis it rejects the exposition and offers a different explanation: the law that one does not sound in the provinces is a rabbinic law, because of the concern that one may go to an expert and carry the shofar four cubits in the public domain, just as we find with the lulav and the megillah.

Now it is certainly a matter of prohibition and not of absence of obligation, and this continues the Babylonian Talmud’s initial conception, which saw the matter as a displacement caused by prohibition. There is a rabbinic prohibition, lest one carry the shofar in the public domain, and by force of that prohibition the obligation to sound the shofar on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat was cancelled.

We have seen that the Magen Avraham and other later authorities noted that ordinary rabbinic prohibitions, such as the concern lest one repair a musical instrument, cannot serve as the basis for this law, for if that were the basis then we would not sound the shofar even on an ordinary Rosh HaShanah that falls on a weekday. If so, there is not even a clear rabbinic prohibition here, and even if there were, it is unclear why a verse would be needed to displace it.

Are the expositions brought above merely scriptural supports? That does not seem likely. The Gemara presents the rabbinic explanation as an alternative to the exposition; it does not say that the exposition is merely a support. For precisely this reason, in the Jerusalem Talmud the exposition remains, in the conclusion, a Torah law.

Conceptual-Legal Significance: Back to the Point of Departure

In the end, the Babylonian Talmud, which holds that this is a rabbinic exemption, must face the same difficulty that exists in the Jerusalem Talmud: how can the Sages, on the basis of a technical consideration, uproot the very essence of the day of Rosh HaShanah as a “day of blast”? Indeed, one might say that the Babylonian Talmud is in an even more difficult position. If the Torah itself says that there are two kinds of days, “a day of blast” and “a memorial of blast,” then on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat the essence of the day is different. But according to the Babylonian Talmud, even a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat carries an obligation to sound, and even such a day is a “day of blast.” So because of a technical concern, the entire essence of the day is emptied of its content? This is not some side law that was waived. On this view, nothing of Rosh HaShanah seems to remain at all.

By way of background, it is worth noting that other rabbinic prohibitions are at times set aside in order to enable shofar-blowing, such as clearing away a collapse in order to retrieve a shofar to blow, although the medieval authorities disagreed about this, and one can distinguish between a transgression at the moment of the sounding and preparing the shofar for the commandment. In the simple understanding, then, we do not allow a rabbinic prohibition to uproot the very core of the day. Admittedly, the decree of “lest one carry it” is different, because it involves concern that one may come to a Torah prohibition, namely carrying four cubits.²

Proposals on the Conceptual Plane

Some have wanted to say that not blowing because of Shabbat is itself the fulfillment of the commandment of the shofar; see Meshekh Chokhmah on Leviticus 23:24, and others. Others have said, see Eleh Hem Mo’adai, no. 15, that by virtue of keeping Shabbat we receive the benefit that comes from the sounding even without an actual sounding, through remembrance alone. All of these are conceptual planes of interpretation, each of which requires clarification in its own right. But what about the law itself? How was the obligation to sound cancelled, and what remains of the day itself in strictly legal terms? It seems that the answer must be rooted in the exposition. If so, in some sense the exposition remains in force even in the Babylonian Talmud.

B. “A Memorial of the Blast” in Practice

Introduction

As we have seen, it is implausible that a rabbinic decree would alter the whole essence of the day. If indeed on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat there remains an obligation to sound, and not only that, but such a day is in essence still a “day of blast,” then it is not reasonable that because of this concern we should empty the day of its central content. It would seem, therefore, that even the Babylonian Talmud holds that a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is not the same kind of day. Something in the day’s essence has changed, and the blast is not essential to it in the same way. If so, the category of “a memorial of blast” exists in the Babylonian Talmud as well. Its source can only be the exposition, even though that exposition was ostensibly rejected there. Something of it remains in force in the practical halakha.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud this is certainly a Torah law. But in fact, even though the practical ruling follows the Babylonian Talmud and this is formally only a rabbinic law, in practice we leave in place a memorial to the Jerusalem Talmud’s exposition and treat a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat as a day of “memorial of blast.” This, of course, requires explanation, and that is what we will address in the present chapter.

“A Memorial of the Blast” as a Stringency

As noted above, the verse “a memorial of blast” introduces not only a leniency but also a stringency. It not only exempts us from blowing on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, but obligates us to remember the blast. On its face, this appears to be a Torah law that obligates us on Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. Admittedly, the exposition that derived from this verse the exemption from sounding on such a day was rejected in the Babylonian Talmud, but this particular law does not depend on that exposition; it seems to emerge from the plain sense of the verse itself. There is therefore room to say that it remains in force in the practical halakha. Let us now see several sources that hint in that direction.

Kingship, Remembrances, and Shofar Passages

Rashi, on the verse “a memorial of blast” in Leviticus 23:24, writes:

“A memorial of blast—this means the remembrance verses and the shofar verses, so as to recall for you the binding of Isaac, for whom a ram was offered in his place.”

Rashi clearly implies that there is a Torah source for reciting the Kingship, Remembrances, and Shofar passages, and that it is learned from the verse “a memorial of blast.” From this it appears that this is an obligation on every Rosh HaShanah; but on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, where the commandment of sounding has been cancelled, only this obligation remains.

So too, in the above sugya on Rosh HaShanah 29b, in his comment on the words “a memorial of blast,” Rashi writes:

“A memorial of blast—and not an actual blast; rather, verses of blast are to be recited.”

He is explaining the Gemara’s first stage, where it assumed that the verse refers to a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, and from it learned that there is no obligation to sound. Rashi explains that at that point the verse is not interpreted as a command to sound, but in another way: there is an obligation to recite remembrances and so forth. At that stage, admittedly, they thought that this obligation existed only when one did not sound, since it was learned from the verse dealing with a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. But at least in the conclusion it seems that Rashi understands there to be such an obligation on every Rosh HaShanah, as above.

The source of this is the sugya in Rosh HaShanah 32a:

“Rabbi Akiva said to him: If one does not sound for the Kingship passages, why does one mention them? Why does one mention them? The Merciful One said: Mention them.”

“The Rabbis taught: … And from where do we know that one recites Kingship, Remembrances, and Shofar passages? Rabbi Eliezer says: As it is written, ‘A day of rest, a memorial of blast, a sacred occasion.’ ‘A day of rest’—this is the sanctity of the day. ‘Memorial’—these are the Remembrances. ‘Blast’—these are the Shofar passages. ‘A sacred occasion’—sanctify it through refraining from labor.”

“Rabbi Akiva said to him: Why should ‘a day of rest’ not mean cessation from labor, with which the verse opens? Rather: ‘A day of rest’—sanctify it through refraining from labor. ‘Memorial’—these are the Remembrances. ‘Blast’—these are the Shofar passages. ‘A sacred occasion’—this is the sanctity of the day.”

The Gemara states explicitly that the verse “a memorial of blast” teaches us the Remembrances.

Nahmanides, however, in his commentary to this verse, disagrees with Rashi and writes:

“‘A memorial of blast’—that is, verses of Remembrances and verses of Shofar passages, to recall for you the binding of Isaac, for whom a ram was offered in his place; so is the language of Rashi. The rabbi should also have brought the Kingship verses from the midrash, for it is impossible that Scripture should mention the Remembrances and the Shofar passages and not mention the Kingship verses. They already derived those from the verse, ‘And they shall be for you for a memorial before the Lord your God’ (Numbers 10:10). Since it is unnecessary for the verse to say, ‘I am the Lord your God,’ what does it teach by saying it? Rather, it establishes a general principle: wherever you recite Remembrances, you adjoin Kingship to them, as is stated in Torat Kohanim and in Tractate Rosh HaShanah. But all of this is merely a rabbinic scriptural support, and they explicitly said there that one goes to a place where they sound and does not go to a place where they merely recite the blessings. That is obvious: this one is a Torah obligation and that one is rabbinic. But ‘a memorial of blast,’ like ‘it shall be for you a day of blast,’ means that we are to sound on this day and it will be for us a memorial before God, as it says later: ‘You shall sound the trumpets, and they shall be for you as a memorial before your God.'”

Nahmanides writes that this is only a rabbinic obligation, and that the derivation in the Gemara is merely a scriptural support. The verse “a memorial of blast” teaches us the obligation of sounding itself, not an obligation to remember the blasts. If so, Nahmanides holds that, once the exposition has been rejected, the plain meaning of the verse does not require us to remember anything; rather, it simply repeats the commandment of shofar-blowing in a different idiom. The requirement to recite the Remembrances is rabbinic. Rashi, by contrast, holds that in the conclusion the verse commands us to remember, or to recite remembrances.

Nahmanides’ proof is from the sugya in Rosh HaShanah 34b, where the Gemara says that the obligation to recite these verses is rabbinic, and therefore it is preferable to go to a place where the shofar is sounded than to a place where the verses are recited.

The later authorities, however, already wrote in defense of Rashi; see Maharam ibn Habib, Yom Teruah, and Mitokh Shiurim by Rabbi Elyashiv on Rosh HaShanah 16a. They explain that Rashi holds that only on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is there a Torah obligation to recite remembrances in place of the sounding. The recitation of remembrances is meant to remember the sounding. The Gemara in 34b, by contrast, is speaking about an ordinary Rosh HaShanah, where the obligation to recite remembrances is indeed rabbinic. Hence, where it is possible to sound the shofar, sounding is preferable, and the obligation to recite verses is only rabbinic.³

Intentions During the Shofar-Blast

So far we have dealt with the obligation to recite remembrances, which is not exactly the same as an obligation to remember the sounding itself. Yet in the Gemara, Rosh HaShanah 28b, in the course of the discussion whether commandments require intention, we find that shofar-blowing may be exceptional:

“Rava said: This shows that one who blows the shofar as music fulfills the commandment. Is that not obvious? It is the same as the previous case. One might have said: there, the Merciful One said ‘eat matzah,’ and he did eat. But here it is written, ‘a memorial of blast,’ and this person is merely acting mechanically. Therefore it teaches us otherwise.”

The Gemara raises the possibility that shofar-blowing requires intention, and that this is indispensable even according to the view that commandments generally do not require intention. It derives this from the verse “a memorial of blast.” Clearly this is a different kind of intention from the one discussed in the sugya about whether commandments require intention. Here it is not a matter of intending to fulfill one’s obligation. It is more reasonable to understand it as an intention to remember what the blast is meant to evoke.⁴

Admittedly, this possibility is apparently rejected in the conclusion. But perhaps what is rejected is only the assumption that this intention is indispensable. The understanding of the plain sense of the verse—that it speaks of remembering the blast, and that this intention is required alongside the sounding—may still remain in place. According to this, one ought to direct one’s mind appropriately at the time of the shofar-blast, though in practice the absence of this intention does not invalidate the act.

In light of what we said above, one may add that in practice this intention may indeed be required. When there is an actual sounding, the intention that accompanies it is not indispensable, beyond the intention to fulfill one’s obligation. But on Shabbat, when there is no actual sounding, the obligation of that additional intention, “a memorial of blast,” remains in force, and perhaps even as a Torah requirement. This parallels Rashi’s view cited above.

Perhaps one may invoke here the words of the Zohar, volume 3, Vayikra 18b, which says:

“Therefore we find in the book of Rav Hamnuna the Elder, regarding the prayers of Rosh HaShanah, that he would say: Prayer and the sound of the shofar—that sound draws forth the meritorious element found in a person’s spirit and soul through that shofar, for that voice rises upward, and on that day the accusers stand above. And when that sound of the shofar rises, all of them are driven away before it and cannot stand. Happy is the portion of the righteous, who know how to direct their will before their Master and know how to set the world aright on this day through the sound of the shofar. Therefore it is written, ‘Happy is the people who know the blast’—who know, and not merely who blow. On this day the people must seek out a person complete in every respect, who knows the ways of the holy King and knows the honor of the King, so that he may present their prayer on this day and direct the sound of the shofar through all the worlds with intention of heart, with wisdom, with desire, with wholeness, so that judgment may be removed from the world through him.”

The Zohar is precise: Scripture says “who know the blast,” not “who blow the blast.” Even the purpose of the sounding is to arrive at knowledge, and that is what must be remembered. The essence of the shofar service is the intention that accompanies it, not the sounding itself. And according to our analysis, on Shabbat too one must direct one’s mind accordingly, for we are not dealing here merely with intentions that accompany the sounding, but with an independent commandment to remember the blast. When one sounds, one does so through the sounding, and that is not indispensable; when one does not sound, one does it separately.

And What Is the Practical Ruling?

We find in the Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayyim 582:7, the following:

“If it falls on a weekday, one says: ‘a day of blast, a sacred occasion.’ If it falls on Shabbat, one says: ‘a memorial of blast.'”

That is, we see that a remnant of this exposition survives in actual law. Indeed, a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is, in practice too, a “memorial of blast.” This law proves that even in practice we read the verse “a memorial of blast” as speaking of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, and not of every Rosh HaShanah, contrary to what might have emerged from the sugya in the Babylonian Talmud.

The Mishnah Berurah there, 582:19, writes:

“One says ‘a day of blast,’ etc.—even in the evening prayer or in Kiddush, although we do not sound at night, nevertheless the day is a day of blast because tomorrow they will certainly sound. The later authorities wrote that after the fact, if on a weekday one said ‘a memorial of blast’ and concluded the blessing, he does not repeat it, for the Torah itself says ‘a memorial of blast,’ even though by Torah law sounding is permitted on Shabbat. And likewise, on Shabbat, if one said ‘a day of blast,’ one also does not repeat it.”

That is, on a weekday it also makes sense to say “a memorial of blast,” and on Shabbat it also makes sense to say “blast.” At first glance this might mean that the exposition has been nullified, since we interpret “a memorial of blast” as applying to an ordinary Rosh HaShanah as well. But according to our approach this is perfectly clear, because, as explained above, on every Rosh HaShanah there is indeed an element of “a memorial of blast”; it is simply fulfilled through the act of sounding, and perhaps ideally it also requires a corresponding intention. But on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat we fulfill only that element, because the rabbinic decree prohibited us from sounding.

C. Synthesis: The Exposition and the Decree

Introduction

In this chapter we will try to broaden the hints we have seen so far and show that the Jerusalem Talmud’s exposition, which reads the verse “a memorial of blast” as referring to a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, remains in force even in practice. By means of this claim we will try to explain the course of the Babylonian sugya and answer the questions raised above about it.

The Pri Chadash

The source of the Mishnah Berurah‘s remarks is the Pri Chadash on Orach Chayyim 582, where he writes:

“(7) He says ‘a day of blast,’ etc.—Yet it is obvious to me that if one said ‘a memorial of blast,’ we do not require him to repeat, since the Torah says ‘a memorial of blast,’ even though by Torah law sounding is permitted on Shabbat, as stated at the beginning of the last chapter of Rosh HaShanah. The only matter that remains doubtful to me is if on Shabbat one said ‘a day of blast,’ whether we require him to repeat or not. It seems to me that since, according to everyone, wherever there is a permanent court with classical ordination in the Land of Israel they sound on Shabbat, it is called a ‘day of blast,’ and we do not require him to repeat. Alternatively, one may say that since in other years it is a day of blast, even though in this particular year it is not, that makes no difference.”

It is obvious to him that if on a weekday one said “a memorial of blast,” that is certainly acceptable. If the reverse occurred, however, he remains doubtful.

So we see that the exposition remains in the practical halakha at least with respect to the liturgical wording. In addition, we see that on Shabbat the matter of sounding does not really belong, but the converse is not true: even on a weekday the matter of “a memorial of blast” still belongs, as we explained through Rashi. That is, the element of “a memorial of blast” exists both on weekdays and on Shabbat, whereas the sounding belongs only on weekdays. Moreover, his words seem to imply that sounding does not really belong on Shabbat at all, and not merely that it was cancelled because of the decree. In other words, he still treats the Jerusalem Talmud’s exposition as the source for not sounding the shofar on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat.

Indeed, we find several other views among the commentators that attempt to connect the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and thereby to see the exposition as remaining in force even in the conclusion, and not only with respect to the wording.

First Direction: Korban HaEdah and Penei Moshe

The simplest way to connect the two approaches is, of course, to see the exposition as a mere scriptural support for the rabbinic law rooted in the concern lest one carry the shofar. That is not a true synthesis of the two positions. But once we recall the words of the Ritva on Rosh HaShanah 35a, who explains that a scriptural support is not merely an external or associative linkage to a verse, but an appeal to the spirit that emerges from it, the point takes on added force. Indeed, the two commentators on the Jerusalem Talmud there, Penei Moshe and Korban HaEdah, raise such a possibility.

There are, however, commentators who go in the opposite direction. We will now bring two of them: Shibolei HaLeket and Penei Yehoshua.

Second Direction: The Author of Shibolei HaLeket

The author of Shibolei HaLeket, no. 294, writes as follows:

“The law of the shofar: whether it overrides Shabbat, or whether one may clear away a heap on a festival for it, or carry it beyond the boundary, or take it down from a tree, or cut and prepare it.”

“On a festival day of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, in the Temple they would sound, but not in the provinces. After the Temple was destroyed, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai instituted that they should sound in every place where there is a court. But nowadays that enactment no longer applies, and throughout Israel the simple custom is not to sound on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. And in the Gemara we say: From where are these matters? Rabbi Levi bar Hama said in the name of Rabbi Hanina: One verse says, ‘a day of rest, a memorial of blast,’ and another says, ‘it shall be for you a day of blast.’ This is not difficult: here it speaks of a festival of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, and here when it falls on a weekday. In the conclusion we say: Rava said, by Torah law it is fully permitted, and the Rabbis decreed concerning it because of Rabbah, for Rabbah said: Everyone is obligated in shofar-blowing, but not everyone is expert in shofar-blowing; therefore they decreed lest one take it in hand and go to an expert and carry it four cubits in the public domain.”

“Some ask: Why do we need Rabbah’s decree? Are there not two verses, ‘a memorial of blast’ and ‘a day of blast,’ which we establish, one for Shabbat and one for weekdays? They explain: Rabbah himself interprets the verses—why did the Torah say ‘a memorial of blast’? Because of the decree lest one go to an expert to learn, and so forth.”

The author of Shibolei HaLeket takes it for granted that the exposition remains valid even in the conclusion. The reason is obvious: the Torah contains two verses which, on their plain meaning, speak of ordinary Rosh HaShanah and of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. This requires explanation, and if the exposition has been rejected in practice we must return and explain the verses themselves.

He therefore explains that Rabbah’s seemingly rabbinic reason is itself the basis of the Jerusalem Talmud’s Torah-level exposition. He does not say that the exposition is a mere support; on the contrary, the explanation that appears at first sight to be rabbinic is really the reason for the Torah law.

The later authorities have already noted that this contradicts the Gemara, for the Gemara rejected the exposition on the ground that it leaves unexplained why they sound in the Temple. But perhaps his intention was to say that this question does not really refute the exposition, since the straightforward meaning of the exposition is that there is no obligation to sound, not that the act is forbidden. If so, perhaps there is a hidden answer here: in the Temple they did sound because of the obligation to remember, whereas in the provinces they did not sound because of Rabbah’s concern.

That is, his claim is that the exposition, or really the contradiction between the two verses, lies at the foundation of the rabbinic decree. Otherwise, the Sages would not have cancelled a Torah commandment. As we noted, it is not reasonable that the Sages would empty the day of its central content because of a concern lest one carry the shofar. It was therefore obvious to him that, already by Torah law, the essence of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is different. The obligation to sound the shofar still remains, but its main point is remembrance, not the physical sounding itself—though when it is possible to sound, that too fulfills the obligation of remembrance. The Rabbis removed the obligation actually to sound, but of course they left in place the obligation to remember. That obligation is fulfilled through reciting the verses, or through an intentional act of remembrance of the blast. But all of this rests on a Torah law that on Shabbat Rosh HaShanah the primary obligation is remembrance, and the law of sounding lapses, unlike ordinary Rosh HaShanah.

If so, the change in the essence of the day, as compared to ordinary Rosh HaShanah, which emerges from the contradiction between the verses, is itself by Torah law. Only the cancellation of the sounding is rabbinic. The absence of obligation is biblical, but one could still have sounded and thereby fulfilled the obligation of remembrance. The prohibition is rabbinic, because the Torah obligation can also be fulfilled in silence.

This resolves our earlier question as to how the Sages could abolish the very core of the day on the basis of such a side issue. According to this, they did not abolish the essence of the day; on the contrary, they constituted it. The Torah defined a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat as a day of a different essence: “a memorial of blast” and not “a day of blast.” That definition remains valid in practice, for it is the plain meaning of the verses. Admittedly, the inference that there is therefore no obligation to sound the shofar was rejected. In the conclusion there remains an obligation to sound, perhaps by virtue of the requirement of “a memorial of blast,” and that obligation was nullified only rabbinically, because of the concern lest one carry the shofar four cubits in the public domain.

This possibility, however, seems somewhat problematic, because on this view it is not clear why the verse “a memorial of blast” should be applied specifically to a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, for by Torah law there is an obligation to sound on both kinds of days. How do we know at all that the essence of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is different, if the cancellation of the obligation to sound, or the displacement of that obligation, is only rabbinic? One could say, though only with difficulty, that the Sages had a received tradition that the nature of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is different, and that there the sounding is only a means of awakening remembrance. In other words, it was known independently that “a memorial of blast” was said of Shabbat, and not only because the shofar is not sounded on that day.

There is, however, another possibility. We may say that the Babylonian Talmud does indeed disagree with the Jerusalem Talmud, and that in its view both verses, “a memorial of blast” and “a day of blast,” speak of every Rosh HaShanah, whether on a weekday or on Shabbat. Even so, each of the two verses has a different content, and together both contents constitute the meaning of Rosh HaShanah. Hence the content of Rosh HaShanah is not only the sounding, but also the remembrance of the blast. Therefore, when the Sages cancelled the sounding on Shabbat, they did not completely empty the day of its content.

According to this suggestion, the distinction that appears in the practical law in the wording of the prayer does not indicate an essential difference between the days. On an ordinary Rosh HaShanah there are two contents, and on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, because of Rabbah’s decree, only one of them remains, and therefore this is expressed in the wording “a memorial of blast.” This is not because the content of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is intrinsically different, but because only one of the two elements present in every Rosh HaShanah remains operative there.

Third Direction: The Author of Penei Yehoshua

The author of Penei Yehoshua, on Rosh HaShanah 30a, in the discussion beginning “in Tosafot,” proposes another direction. His language is as follows:

“Tosafot ask: Still, according to the wording in Rosh HaShanah, here it teaches ‘each man in his house,’ and they answer, and so on. But in truth their answer is very forced, and it seems that they were compelled to interpret and force the matter in this way because of their own method above. According to what I wrote in explaining Rashi, however, there is no need for such strain. Rather, it fits well even on Rosh HaShanah, according to the plain sense of the baraita. Even so there is no difficulty for Rav Huna, because when Rav Huna said in the first formulation ‘before the court’ specifically, that was only before they had heard the shofar at all from the court. But what is taught here, that the Rosh HaShanah soundings in the provinces override Shabbat, each man in his house, refers to a case after they had already fulfilled their obligation and heard the blasts that were in the court; nevertheless they would return and blow, each man in his house, as the preferred form of the commandment or in order to discharge the members of their household. According to this, the decree lest one carry the shofar no longer applies, for they were blowing in their houses, and the phrase ‘in his house’ is perfectly precise, because in his house this decree does not apply.”

At first glance, according to what we said above, Rashi’s words fit his general approach. He held that on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat there is no obligation to sound, but only an obligation of “memorial of blast,” and that this is by Torah law. Therefore he cites the exposition of the Sifra as though it were the actual law. There is thus no difficulty for him from Nahmanides’ objection, as we explained in discussing Shibolei HaLeket. Nahmanides, too, is entirely consistent with his own view, namely that the essence of the day did not change at the Torah level and that everything operates only on the rabbinic plane.

The Penei Yehoshua himself, however, goes on to offer another explanation:

“According to what I explained in Rashi’s method, it fits very well. For when we concluded above that the prohibition against sounding on Shabbat is only a decree lest one carry the shofar, that was because the Mishnah implies that they sounded only in the Temple and not in Jerusalem, even though there they always knew that Rosh HaShanah had been fixed on its proper day, and nevertheless they did not sound. It follows that the reason must be lest one carry it. But with respect to the exposition in the baraita of Torat Kohanim, whose main derivation is from the phrase ‘throughout all your land,’ excluding Jerusalem, the exposition fits very well. That is the verse’s own intent: specifically on Yom Kippur, which falls on the tenth of the month and everyone knows that the day is Yom Kippur, they would sound everywhere. But on Rosh HaShanah, which falls on the new moon itself, they would sound only in the court. Although shofar-blowing is not a full-fledged labor so as to be excluded by the verse ‘laborious work,’ still it is called labor to some extent; that is why the Gemara brings the verse ‘laborious work.’ According to this, it is like a positive prohibition, and we find something similar with the rest of utensils according to Beit Shammai, and with the rest of one’s animal according to everyone, where there is only a plain Torah prohibition. Although such a prohibition does not involve excision or capital punishment, but only a simple prohibition, the positive commandment of shofar could override it. Nevertheless, it is forbidden to sound in the provinces, since they do not know the fixing of the month, and then one may come to blow on Shabbat in a case where there is a Torah prohibition without any commandment. This, in my opinion, is the correct and clear way to resolve Rashi’s method in our sugya, and his commentary is entirely aligned with his commentary on the Torah; the language of the verse and of the baraita support him.”

Let us note that he ties this to uncertainty in the fixing of the month. According to our analysis, that is unnecessary.

D. The Sound That Rises from Silence

Introduction

What is the meaning of this special day, a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat? We have seen that it has a meaning different from that of an ordinary Rosh HaShanah. We also saw another possibility: that the content of “a memorial of blast” characterizes all Rosh HaShanah days, on weekdays and on Shabbat alike. Even according to that suggestion, however, we must still ask: what is the meaning of this additional content? We will devote this unusual chapter to a homiletic reflection, something not ordinarily characteristic of our essays.

What Is “A Day of Memorial of the Blast”?

A memorial of blast is silence. On a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat there is a thunderous silence. The shofar is not heard, but in its place a silence settles over the congregation. Anyone who participates in the Rosh HaShanah prayer service, waits for the prayer leader, and after the silence hears him begin, “May the utterance of our lips be acceptable,” feels the roaring silence that precedes those words. The gap left by the absence of the shofar rings loudly in the ears. At that point we have the opportunity to fulfill “a memorial of blast.”

If so, the purpose of a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is to emphasize silence, and to turn it into a thunderous stillness. On an ordinary Rosh HaShanah this too exists, but it is much harder to experience. The shofar drowns out the silence and does not let us listen to it. Perhaps on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, if we were to sound on the basis of the duty of remembrance, as we suggested above, we would miss the possibility of listening to the silence. Therefore the Sages came, and because of the decree lest one carry the shofar, they silenced the blast and left us with silence. They did not violate the meaning of the day; on the contrary, they made it possible for us to feel it more sharply. In the Temple they would sound even on Shabbat, because apparently there it is easier to listen to the silence even when the shofar is heard in the background.

And on an Ordinary Rosh HaShanah? The Sound of the Shofar as Abstraction

Let us try to suggest how one can listen to the silence even in years when the shofar is actually heard, that is, when Rosh HaShanah falls on a weekday.

The sound that emerges from the shofar is certainly not speech, or song. A first abstraction removes the words from a song and leaves only melody. But the blast of the shofar, the simple sound, is not really melody either. If we continue and perform yet another abstraction, removing even form from the melody, we are left with a primal sound, without words and without melody. Only the bare thingness of sound, and nothing more. That is the sound of the shofar: a piece of monotonous sound, nothing more. As though there were a desire to express something, but nothing beyond that.

This calls to mind the verses describing God’s revelation to Elijah the prophet at Horeb. Elijah flees from Jezebel to Beersheba, and from there he goes another day into the wilderness, where the angel reveals himself to him. He gives him food, and by the strength of that food Elijah walks forty days and forty nights until he reaches the mountain of God at Horeb. There God reveals Himself to Elijah in a scene strikingly parallel to the revelation to Moses—there too there was a fast of forty days and nights, and there too it took place at Sinai—and it is described as follows in 1 Kings 19:

“He came there to the cave and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him: What are you doing here, Elijah? And he said: I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and slain Your prophets by the sword; and I, I alone am left, and they seek my life to take it. And He said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and mighty wind rent mountains and shattered rocks before the Lord; the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake; the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire; the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.”

After all Elijah’s energetic acts—killing and destroying, bringing down fire from heaven, fighting kings and princes and all the prophets of Baal—he arrives in the wilderness, a place of quiet, and there it becomes clear to him that “the Lord is not in the tumult.” God is present in the silence between the words and in the blank space between the lines.⁵ He appears in the voice that hides behind the words and the melodies. Once all the glitter and externals, all forms and all distinctive features, are stripped away, once one is left with the primal thing itself, one discovers God.

Rashi on that passage brings a tradition known to him:

“A still, small voice—a sound of those who praise quietly. But regarding the prophets of the nations it says, ‘I heard stillness and a voice’ in Job 4:16; there, the stillness was for praise. And I have heard: a sound that comes out of the silence, tintissement in French, though the sound itself is not actually heard.”

Rashi says that from within the silence one can hear a sound—not a sound in the full sense, but something that rises out of the silence, a kind of heavenly echo. This is a matter of negative description: what one discovers after removing everything prominent and everything familiar to us. What remains, after all the rest, is God. The abstract primordial layer shared by all existence once one strips away the specific features of the various beings. What remains, apparently formless, is precisely what all existence has in common. There God is found.

On Rosh HaShanah we are meant to live this abstraction. To crown God by means of Kingship, Remembrances, and Shofar passages does not mean replacing a flesh-and-blood king with a more exalted king. It is a transformation of the very concepts of kingship, and of our relationship to reality as a whole. Relating to the hidden and deeper dimensions is itself the coronation of God.

As we saw, the Torah presents two kinds of relation between Rosh HaShanah and the shofar: “a day of blast” and “a memorial of blast.” On a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat we do not sound at all. There the abstraction is deeper still. On such a day we remove even the primal sound that remains on ordinary Rosh HaShanah days, and we are left with absolute nothingness. Yet from that nothingness all being is created. All reality is nothing but being out of nothing—that is, rich and complex being emerging from that simple nothing.

The giving of the Torah at Horeb, the revelation to Elijah at Horeb, and the sounding of the shofar on Rosh HaShanah all teach us that before the great revelation there must be self-nullification and the removal of the material and external, the glittering and noisy. One requires a fast of forty days and forty nights, together with a journey into the wilderness and a solitary stay apart from human society; only there is revealed to us the foundation that underlies all the shouting and noise of ordinary life.

The wilderness reveals to us what reality itself usually hides from us. Afterward one can return to ordinary life, but not forget that within every song there is a melody, and within every melody there is a sound, and behind the sound there is silence, from which a heavenly voice also emerges. From time to time it is worthwhile to try to listen to it. Perhaps that is the very heavenly voice that goes forth every day from Mount Horeb, which only one who listens to silence can hear.

The Weekly Torah Portion: Ha’azinu

Our discussion here concerns Rosh HaShanah and the sounding of the shofar, but perhaps the ideas can also be connected to the weekly Torah portion. It too is concerned with listening, and it opens with the verse:

“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.”

This listening requires extracting a voice from silence. As we saw above: God is not in the tumult. The voice of God is not a voice in the ordinary sense that we know. It is a voice that rises from silence, and it takes attentive listening to hear it.

E. Halakhic Composites

Introduction

We now return to our essay and conclude it with a meta-halakhic discussion that emerges from what we have said thus far regarding halakhic composites.⁶ We have seen that for both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the combination of Shabbat with Rosh HaShanah creates a day of a third kind. This is not a combination of two days that each remain in place, in the Rogatchover’s terminology a juxtapositional composite, from the idea of neighbors. Rather, it is a combination that blends the two components and fuses them into a new entity, in his terminology a blended composite, from the idea of mixture or fusion.⁷

In this chapter we will try to describe the nature of such a blended composition of different days, which fuse and thereby create a third type of day. We will begin with Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, and continue with two additional examples.

Shofar-Blowing on Rosh HaShanah That Falls on Shabbat

The later authorities disagree about the status of someone who violated the rabbinic decree and blew the shofar on a Rosh HaShanah that fell on Shabbat. Rabbi Akiva Eiger, in Derush VeChiddush in his discussion on Chagigah, claims that such a person fulfilled no commandment at all. The Magen Avraham, by contrast, apparently holds that the person did fulfill a commandment, though rabbinically it was forbidden to do so, or perhaps it was a commandment attained through a transgression.⁸

That is, Rabbi Akiva Eiger argues that such a sounding is not only less than a full commandment; it is not even a commandment attained through a transgression. There is no commandment here at all. As though the Sages cancelled the commandment entirely, so that it no longer exists even at the Torah level.

Many have brought support for his position from Tosafot on Sukkah 3a, in the passage beginning “for he could say to you,” where Tosafot states that someone who sat in a sukkah while his table remained outside the sukkah did not fulfill the commandment even by Torah law. But that principle is itself disputed among the medieval authorities; for example, the Ran later in the tractate disagrees.

According to our analysis, perhaps there is no sounding here because the Sages did not merely cancel the sounding; they determined and sharpened the very essence of the day. They instructed us how to fulfill the commandment of “a memorial of blast.” Had we not paused in some years and refrained entirely from sounding, then even in the other years, when we do sound, we would not be able fully to fulfill the commandment of “a memorial of blast.” Therefore this is not merely a rabbinic decree; there is simply no point in sounding. Or, more precisely: there is a point in not sounding.

That is, a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is not a juxtapositional composite of Rosh HaShanah and Shabbat. If it were, then someone who sounded the shofar would indeed have violated Shabbat, but at least he would still have fulfilled the commandment insofar as Rosh HaShanah is present in that day. If there is no commandment here at all, that is a sign that this day is a blended composite of Rosh HaShanah and Shabbat. After the fusion, it is no longer simply Shabbat and no longer simply Rosh HaShanah. It is a day of a third type, and on such a day shofar-blowing does not belong at all.

Yom Kippur That Falls on Shabbat

The law states that the Yom Kippur offerings in the Temple must be performed by the High Priest. Maimonides, in Laws of the Service of Yom Kippur 1:2, writes:

“The service of all these fifteen animals offered on this day may be performed only by the High Priest, whether he is the priest anointed with the anointing oil or the one invested with additional garments. And if it is Shabbat, even the additional offering of Shabbat may be offered only by the High Priest. Likewise, the other services of this day, such as the burning of the daily incense and the tending of the lamps, are all performed by a married High Priest, as it is said, ‘and he shall make atonement for himself and for his house’—’his house’ means his wife.”

Maimonides rules that on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat, even the Shabbat offerings are offered by the High Priest, and not only the offerings specifically belonging to Yom Kippur.

The author of Or Sameach, in Laws of the Service of Yom Kippur 4:1, argues that we see from here that Maimonides understands Yom Kippur as one unified essence, in which all the sacrifices brought on that day—even if, ostensibly, this is accidental, because in that particular year it happened to fall on Shabbat—are sanctified with the sanctity of Yom Kippur. Therefore they must all be offered by the High Priest. Another example he brings there is the Passover offering, certain parts of whose rite may be performed on the Shabbat that precedes the festival, showing that it too is considered a “Shabbat” offering, even though Passover falling on Shabbat is, on the face of it, accidental rather than essential.

If so, the combinations of Yom Kippur and Shabbat, or of Passover and Shabbat, create a day of a third type. This is not a juxtapositional composite, but a blended one.

As a practical conclusion from his discussion there, the author of Or Sameach writes that on Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat, if a sick person must eat because of danger to life, he need not recite Kiddush beforehand. Eating on Shabbat ordinarily requires Kiddush, but Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat is not a simple conjunction of Yom Kippur and Shabbat. It is a day of a third type. The character of that Shabbat is not detachable from the fact that it falls on Yom Kippur. The sanctity of that Shabbat finds expression precisely in fasting, and therefore there is no obligation of Kiddush at all, even for one who must eat.

If so, the conjunction of Shabbat and Yom Kippur is not accidental. It creates a new essence called “Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat,” exactly as we saw with Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat.

A Festival That Falls on Shabbat

In Tzafnat Paneach, no. 2, the author discusses the case of an ordinary festival that falls on Shabbat. The law states that there are certain labors performed for the preparation of meals, termed in halakhic language food-preparation labor, and these are permitted on a festival. On Shabbat, such labors are forbidden; there is no food-preparation dispensation. The question with which the author of Tzafnat Paneach deals is this: if someone performed such a labor on a festival that fell on Shabbat, and therefore violated the prohibition of labor on Shabbat, did he also violate the prohibition of labor on the festival?

The Rogatchover discusses this question from several angles, and not necessarily from the one we are presenting here. Our own claim, however, is that there is strong room for the argument that he did indeed transgress both prohibitions. The reason is that the combination of festival and Shabbat is not juxtapositional but blended. There is not here a Shabbat, in relation to which these labors are forbidden, alongside a festival, in relation to which they are permitted. There is a day of a third kind, and from all the perspectives of that day these labors are forbidden.

Of course, the character of this third day is determined by its components, for the prohibition stems from the fact that Shabbat is also present. But once that character has been determined, it extends to every aspect of the day.

The View of the Author of Tziyunim LaTorah

Rabbi Yosef Engel already addressed the question of two sanctities that become intermingled, and he too discusses whether a new sanctity is thereby created or whether the two original sanctities simply remain side by side. He ties this to a dispute between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel in Tosefta Berakhot 3:13, which says as follows:

“On a festival day of Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat, Beit Shammai say: one recites ten blessings, and Beit Hillel say: nine. On a festival that falls on Shabbat, Beit Shammai say: one recites eight and says the blessing of Shabbat separately and the blessing of the festival separately, beginning with Shabbat. Beit Hillel say: one recites seven, begins with Shabbat and concludes with Shabbat, and inserts the sanctity of the day in the middle. Rabbi says: he even concludes it, ‘Blessed are You, who sanctifies Shabbat, Israel, and the appointed times.'”

The Tosefta discusses the conjunction of sanctities and presents a dispute as to whether, when a festival falls on Shabbat, the festival should be mentioned in a separate blessing or inserted into the blessing of Shabbat. On the plain sense, the dispute is whether a festival that falls on Shabbat is a juxtapositional conjunction, with festival and Shabbat dwelling side by side, or a blended conjunction, in which the festival “colors” the Shabbat and together they create a day of a different character.

Rabbi Yosef Engel wishes to explain in this way also the law that we sound the shofar on an ordinary Rosh HaShanah, and the Sages did not decree there lest one carry it four cubits in the public domain, unlike Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat. According to Beit Hillel there is no difficulty, because they accept the principle that once a labor is permitted for food preparation on a festival, carrying is broadly permitted as well, and so there is no problem of carrying on a festival. But Beit Shammai do not accept that principle; according to them, there is a carrying problem even on a Rosh HaShanah that does not fall on Shabbat. If so, according to their view, one would have expected them to equate a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat with an ordinary Rosh HaShanah.

Following his line of thought, he explains that Beit Shammai hold that a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat consists of two distinct sanctities. Therefore the prohibition of carrying, which stems from Shabbat, is unrelated to the obligation to sound, which stems from Rosh HaShanah. Consequently the obligation to sound does not override the concern about carrying. But on an ordinary Rosh HaShanah, both the obligation to sound and the prohibition of carrying stem from the force of the festival of Rosh HaShanah itself, and therefore the obligation to sound overrides the concern about carrying.

This now raises a question regarding Beit Hillel, who see a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat as one day: why does the obligation to sound not override the concern about carrying there as well? It seems that according to Beit Hillel, a Rosh HaShanah that falls on Shabbat is indeed one day, but its character is colored primarily by Shabbat, which is the dominant component.

It should be noted that on a Rosh HaShanah that falls on a weekday, where shofar-blowing is the very essence of the day, a “day of blast,” reason would suggest that it would override the concern about carrying in the public domain even if such a concern existed on a festival according to Beit Hillel.

Footnotes