Mimic the Shape of the Shofar - Rabbi Ori Strum

You've ever eaten a french fry? It tastes like a fried potato. But something dramatic happens when you dip that same french fry into ketchup. The taste is now completely different. You've actually just negated some of the flavor of the fried potato to the [music] ketchup. And now you have a new taste, a new entity called french fries with ketchup. What's happening here is actually something very spiritual. The Lubavitcher Rebbe teaches that the word bittel and tifel are the same. Bittel means to nullify, to negate oneself. And tifel means to dip. When you dip something, when you dip a food into another food, you are being mevatel. You are negating and nullifying some of its own flavor for the enhancement of the dip. And the same thing happens in our relationship with Hashem. We are meant to [music] dip, to be mevatel ourselves, our own egotistical wants and desires for the sake of God. To become a better person. To dip ourselves into him, to incline towards holiness. [music] And something amazing happens. When we nullify, when we dip ourselves into Hashem, the flavor of our lives becomes dramatically enhanced. The quality of our lives becomes elevated. The shofar can be seen as an instrument of bittel, conveying the message of dipping ourselves, of nullifying ourselves to Kadosh Baruchu, [music] of being humble enough to do his will and heed his call. In fact, we specifically use a shofar that's bent, kafuf. Something that's bent [music] connotes humility. This is one of the deeper messages on Rosh Hashanah when we say the paragraph of Aleinu and we say "Anachnu korim", we bow down to Hashem. We are meant to mimic the very shape of the shofar. The shofar is bent and we are supposed to bend ourselves, to dip ourselves into Hashem. And just like the french fry and ketchup, it's now an enhanced food when we dip ourselves and we become like that shofar and are humble enough to dip ourselves and nullify our own wants and desires for the sake of Hashem, our lives will be tremendously enhanced and we will live with greater meaning, intensity, and purpose.