Rav Yitzchak Breitowitz: Lessons in Unity and Why We Blow the Shofar 100 Times

[Music] everybody thank you for coming and uh today Shar is dedicated ra for bar beneda and for as always for the liberation of er Israel from its enemies and the safe return home of the soldiers and the hostages the lasting Unity of am Israel and uh braa for all of those whose Health has been affected by the war as well as dedicated to the release of Arvin Nano benaa in Iran as well as Alat benzer and as we announced uh last week the ant annual campaign for theim is well underway to collect and distribute Seda to the needy during the upcoming holiday season and uh a link can be found in the YouTube description box and on the ban website and as kazal tell us CH cha repentance and prayer and charity can cancel the evil decrees and bring much much ra to is and of course uh all of us are very very concerned uh We've this the entire year virtually at 5784 we have been in a state of War uh Kamas is still doing its nefarious deeds and there are hostages whose lives are still on the line as well as and as we haven't really finished with that we have the great R Soros coming from the north very reminiscent of the verse of from the north comes the evil in this case Hezbollah and what's going on in in Lebanon and you know God forbid we hope and we pray it will not turn into a full-fledged War but you know who knows and things don't look the best for us so uh this has been a very very difficult year but you know uh as the year changes and new year begins everything new everything is up for grabs everything can turn around on a dime that's really the primary lesson of rashishana it's a lesson of the lesson of renewal and therefore giving stuck is one of the most powerful ways that we can be and in the Torah learning which is of course always necessary uh may all of us may all of aqual may all of erel may all of the world um you know there is again as I say may be a greater urgency than we normally have every rashash our lives are up for grabs but we don't always have that sense of life in death maybe this year we have it a bit more than we might have it uh normally again I I tell people I mean um this is a very serious time I wouldn't call it singular I wouldn't call it unique I think you know 1939 was a more difficult time uh for the Jewish people so I'm not going to say this is like the worst thing but it is a serious thing people are suffering uh we are in a dangerous mat so it behooves us to take it seriously and to turn to for and have that in his love for and he will bring us a a GAA uh so it's interesting I uh the decision not to have a Shar last week was literally just made like three minutes ago so was Zig I was planning out a two-part Shear on chauffeur blowing part one Tonight Part Two next week now I'm trying to think how do I combine uh two classes in one uh so it's interesting so I'll have to kind of uh combine and maybe summarize and cut out some stuff that I would say that maybe we can use chaum Kipper and the like I wanted to talk about the great Mitzvah of theat chaur and basically I first wanted to give you a little bit of a historical analysis this may be a bit technical some people don't like that stuff other people do like it I hope you'll find it interesting but it'll be a little different than usual kind of how we got everybody knows that on rashishana you're supposed to hear the chaur a hundred times but we're going to see that under Torah law you only have to hear the chauffer nine times so I just want to trace in five stages how you get from nine to how you get to 100 right that's the first thing I want to show you and it's a very interesting series of different his steps that were taken in the hak system over 10,000 years over a very long period of time under Torah law the Torah obligates you to sound a tea which is a long unbroken sound a turua which is a crying sobbing sound and a tea three times that's it tea trua tea three times and that's all you have to do uh we count every tea as one sound we count every tra even if it has nine uh components as one sound so that's nine times now the symbolism of bracketing a crying sobbing sound with a straight sound is explained very beautifully by the ramban the ramban says that the trua the broken the broken sobbing sound is a symbol of the broken heart that is turning to God for Mercy that is brokenhearted over its sins that is desperate for the Salvation of the almighty that has a sense of its unworthiness to approach God and that's kind of the mat of CH in which we understand as we're going to say inos this Saturday night we knock at your door like an impoverished beggar we can't come to Hashem and say I deserve it we come to Hashem and we plead that's the crying sound but the balatan says if the trua is symbolic of the broken heart the tea which is strong confident unbroken is symbolic of sim and joy the broken heart has to be bracketed with joy before and after the joy of coronating God rashash is considered to be the day of Coronation the joy of being able to serve Hashem the joy of Chua this is the Paradox of Chua on one hand part of Chua is the broken heart and the crying and part of chuva is the joy of renewal the joy of of restoration I think I mentioned this before you know um last time I visited uh my uh son in Baltimore which was pre-co in quite a long time already so he had a uh then it was a puppy now it's already more of a grown-up dog but he had a puppy and I draped my jacket over a chair and the jacket was low hanging so as puppies do puppies love to chew and the whole pocket was like chewed up Now in America you can't go to a tailor and repair something they don't repair something you get another jacket who I mean who's going to repair a a rip or a tear but I figured in I Israel I'll go to I'll go to Mayar I'll go to a poor neighborhood and you know they're used to mending things they're used to repairing things but even I was embarrassed because it was really so badly mangled so I went to the Taylor you know you probably you probably can't do anything about it but you know here it is and he said why can't why can't who says I can't do anything about it and he he he gave me the words anything you can ruin you can fix now those are actually words taken from rman of bre and he described that that is the ultimate message of chuva you can fix it you can make it better that's a wonderful thing in The Crying In The Grieving in the remorse in the guilt is the joy that things can be better and things can be different and indeed that has to be more dominant than the sadness in the middle is the broken heart but on both sides is the joy of the tea beautiful beautiful message the idea that shua is profoundly joyous we make a big mistake when we associate Chua with only sadness and grief and depression and anxiety you know I I I often mention that you I get a lot of I get a lot of emails from people this time well the whole year but this time of year actually more so than any other time of year and it's like everybody is going through a simultaneous nervous breakdown which of course gives me a nervous breakdown uh and it doesn't have to be that way this is not about anxiety this is about hope it's about optimism it's about courage it's about resilience the Chua process itself says go ahead you can fix it so that's the beautiful important message that the Broken Heart of the trua has to be bracketed by the tea R cook makes another point I'll just mention as in the side that there is actually a of chaur that you must blow the chauffeur from the narrow end outwards right the way the way you normally blow a chauffer the narrow end and uh the the air leaves the wide end I don't know if it's possible but theoretically if you would be able to get a sound by blowing from the wide end you wouldn't be y there's actually a you must Blow from the narrow end outward and R cook says because the blowing of the chauffeur represents the TR trajectory of human consciousness in which I may start off my rosashana thinking about me and then my family but ultimately you move outwards to think about qual Israel to think about the world leave your selfishness leave your parochialism and be focused on other people's needs as well we want a world of blessing not just for myself and my family we want the world of blessing certainly for every Jew and the msis for every non-jew of goodwi who does not want to hurt the Jewish people remember what Hashem said to AR Hashem said to Aram all the way back at the beginning of that relationship I will bless those who bless you those who bless the Jewish people deserve blessing from God as well so have cook said that's the important meaning of TOA from the katar to the uh to to the white okay now going back to the historical development so to you only need tea tra tea three times now why three times I explained I think the symbolism of tea trua tea right the happiness that brackets the broken heart why would the T actually require it three times in particular so here already we don't have a clear explanation I we have a derivation for it from different verses but the zo connects it to a y and yob that that each set elicits a spiritual power emanating from the spiritual essence of each of the otes and therefore we want to invoke all of that okay now so stage one is you blew the chauffer nine times that's it that would have been a much shorter diving stage two you still only blow it nine times but the sages wanted to connect it to the musaf blessings now we know that the musaf of rashishana has a very unique structure that does not apply to any other amida and that is instead of a middle braa which talks about the holiday whether it's chabas or or rakis Mar in mus we have three middle blessings that's why the amida is nine blessings Al together the only Shon that's nine blessings and the three each is devoted to a particular theme the first one is malos God's sovereignty God's kingship the second section isonos God remembers the Good Deeds of our forefathers and the third is chaur various ideas connected to the chauffeur both the chauffeur of Matan Torah that was that was sounded at the time the Torah was given the chauffer of mashia the chauffer of resurrection of the dead and the light so these are three bras now each of them incorporate 10 suim meaning the way it works is three Torah verses three Kim verses all of which are from saer toim three Nim verses and the 10th verse goes back to the Torah so Torah it's a little unusual Torah Torah Torah and in malos the verses are all about God as King in zos the verses are all about God remembering us and chaar are the different verses about Chau but it's 10 10 10 a total of 30 verses and after malos we blow the chauffeur after zos we blow the chauffeur after churos we blow the chauffeur right now let me point out in stage two there was no chauffeur blowing before MF at all you got to clear your mind there was no chauffeur blowing before MF there was no chauffeur blowing after MF the only thing that was blown was after malos they blew teia tra teia once after zeronos they blew teia TR it teia twice once rather and after churos teia tra teia once nine which means stage one was blowing the chauffer nine times not connected to prayer stage two kazal enacted that it be connected to prayer because the chauffeur blowing is kind of crying out to God to accept our prayers in heaven so in both stage one and stage two you only blew the chaur nine times nothing else that's it okay and as late as the mishna which was compiled in the year 200 of the Common Era this is what the mission says a lot of people learned the and they're very confused because it is it is describing a chauffeur blowing that is totally not different than what we do the answer is yeah the time of the mishna they only blew the chauffer nine times three times after MOS that's all three times after zos three times after chos that's it that means daving would have been a lot shorter we then come to stage three where we actually have a Quantum Leap this is where things get bigger and bigger and bigger and this was in the time of rabi Abu rabu is after the mishna RAB is an he's already in the period of the gorah he was a talet he was a disciple of RAB yanan who was the first generation of Amora RAB AO is the second generation of Amora and RAB AO made a certain Tak interesting question what gave him the authority to make a Tak for Claus he was a great Rabbi but he was not a Sanhedrin it's interesting question why did rabi AO have the power to do that I I'll leave that as a question to think think about but here is the problem R of oad and this is going to be a little complicated the Tyra says you got to blow a tea a trua a tea three times tra is a crying sound as we know but the problem was different communities practice the crying sound in different ways each one considering that to be the trua of the Torah in some communities the crying sound of trua was a wimper which is what we call a trua like you know when you're whimpering of these short Subs so in some communities trua of Torah equals what we call trua in some communities the trua sound was practiced as a moan or a groan that we call a Chev a c uh uh uh and in some communities it was a combination of groaning and sobbing which is what we call a tra now this is confusing a little bit because those three variations were attempts to understand what the Torah meant by the word trua so that actually meant before rebi AO they only blew the chauffeur nine times but you might have heard a different configuration depending on a show that the community that you went into in some communities they would blow teia sharum tra teia three times in some communities they would blow tea sharim tea three times that's it and in other communities they would only blow a tea tra tea three times understand they didn't blow all the variations because each Community had its own position what was the appropriate crying sound you literally would have heard a different type of chauffer blowing in different kilot so comes RAB AO and he says you know on the day of rashash Shana we need to be United we need to be together we don't want to ask Hashem with Mercy by people doing different things on the other hand RAB AO didn't want to say one minute was more correct than the other so RAB AO enacted that you got to do three times of each version therefore after takana after malos now again remember remember I have to keep on saying this there was no chauffeur blowing before M and there was no chauffeur blowing after M the only chauffeur blowing was after malosos that's it but instead of just blowing tea TR teia once you got to do it in three different versions te once te te once te tra te once so that's the way we abbreviate it is called tat how do you get tashat it's an abbreviation the tough is tea the shin is sharim the r is Tera why is the r trua isn't the first of tra a t indeed it is but since tough is also the first letter of teia in order to differentiate in the acronym between the and the tra the tra is denominated by its second letter which is a so T te te tarat te tra tea so this is a big Quantum Leap meaning to say before RAB AO we blew a tea a trua and a tea sound three times but different shs had different ways of doing the trua in any one of those three options RAB was m to bring in all three of those options now that gives you a kesman of 30 how do you get that because you always count every tea is counted as one sound a even though it's three is one a tra even though it's nine Subs is also one so tashat is four tashat is three tarat is three 4 3 3 is 10 so it's 10 after MOS 10 after zos 10 after chopos so you've gone from 9 to 30 so that's our major Quantum Leap not yet 100 but you've gone from 9 to 30 three times more then the Torah would obligate you uh to uh uh to do right you get now we then so that's stage three right so stage one is blow the chauffer nine times stage two is to connect it to Mal still nine times stage three is to to incorporate all of the Alternatives which makes it 30 now let me share with you a very interesting chuba of rabu haon this is the period of the gim after the tud the Babylonian gim and the last of the gim and many say the greatest of the gim was rabenu haon who died around the year 1000 the period of the Reon him begin after the death of Ron and Ron raises the question the Mitzvah of schaur was given to us by mosha rabenu Alem how could it be that there was uncertainty that developed how to fulfill the Mitzvah of Schauer the T says tra and you're telling me that the communities had three different views as to what was a trua that means 2third of them are wrong two we don't know which one but 2third of the Jewish people were not keeping a Mitzvah of Schauer how is it possible that such uncertainty would enter the H system and Jewish people wouldn't be doing a Mitzvah that's so beloved and so important so gives a very interesting insight into the rabo even though people were doing it in three different ways it's not that one way is right and the other way ways are wrong the Tyra obligates a crying sound but left it to communities to formulate the way they want to express it so it's not that this kahila was right and that kahila was wrong all of the kilos were y the Mitzvah RAB Tak was not as people thought people think oh rabo wanted to make sure everybody is yot so he incorporates all the options that's not EMS ofon says people would be y with whatever ver they would have been y with whatever version of nine they would have had he wanted there to be Unity so that's why he combined all the versions so that every Jew would feel their minog had an accepted place that's an interesting Kish uh I think the rambam uh does not seem to learn that way the rambam seems to learn there was a bonified uncertainty as to how to do the Mitzvah and uh RAB yo wanted to Res that uncertainty so we have Aus exactly was to resolve uncertainty or was just to incorporate all the different ways of doing it okay be it as it may therefore after stage three after malos there would be one tashat one tat one tat after zos one tatat after chos tatat that's it nothing before for nothing after afterwards okay you got to be clear because again we're so used to the way we do chaur we automatically impose our ritual on the practice we have to remember there wasn't that there was not that we now come to stage four in the evolution of chauffeur blowing and that is kazal decided to add an entire chauffeur service before the ding of mus this came later in other words the original was only in MF they then made it before and there's a name given to that the chauffeur blowings before mus are called teot deav the sitting down chauffer blowings now the truth of the matter is all of us stand up right so why do we call it the sitting down Cher blowings the reason is because since it is not connected to a Shona it's not connected to anid technically you are allowed to sit so if a person has difficulty standing they could sit you're not to stand up although that's our custom as opposed to the Cher blowing during mus that goes by the name teot the teot that are standing because they're recited in the amida so even though te are blown first they were added later was there before there were teot of in fact as far as I know even the name of te did not exist until you had the meaning you didn't give the mus blowing a name of standing teos till you invented sitting teos once you invented sitting teos you rename the mus ones standing teos now what is the reason why did we add a whole chauffeur service before mus why are there toot after all the Mitzvah because you blow a tea sound three versions of the trua sound tea sound you blow it three times so there are two reasons why teos were added one is a pragmatic reason and one is a mystical reason the pragmatic reason why muab was at it is there were people who could not hang around for a home mus of service they were old they were sick maybe there were women that had children so if the only chauffeur blowing you would have would be in the musaf amida there might be many people that would not hear the chauffer the those days you didn't yet have kabat houses so you didn't have people going making house calls on the light so therefore the put in the so that even the people who are not going to be in show for the musaf will be able to hear the chauffer so the main chauffeur blowing is the m but you are y say the torah's requirement with the m now once again how much do you have to blow for the you have to blow 30 you have to blow because you have to blow once again tea true it tea three times but you have to have the three options of it right however here you'll notice an interesting thing you'll notice that the way we blow the Mi is not the same as the way we blow the and it's important to note this and figure out the reason when we blow the meave we blow tashat three times te three times then we blow tashat three times then we blow tarat three times that gives you 30 in musaf we do it differently after malos we blow one tashat one tashat one tat after after zos we do one tashat one tashat one tat after chos one tashat one t one so you get the same 30 but do you see the difference in what you're doing in the MAV you blow all the tashat first and then you go to all the tashat and then you go to all the tats as opposed to the musaf you do one of each you do you know ABC ABC ABC and as opposed to a AA BBB CCC right see the difference now the reason is very simple the goal in musaf is I want to have one tea true a tea sound after Mal one and since there are three versions of how to get that one I got to do one of each a b c because those are the three versions of what is the trer see to blow three tou wouldn't make sense after malus because I'm not incorporating the other versions so maybe I didn't do the true assound in when I'm not connecting it to I just want to get three of each so I can do a AA BBB CCC but once you're connecting it to you got to do ABC ABC ABC not a AA BBB CCC l I don't want to get into something overly complicated it's already complicated there are actually some Min hug that even in they do a AA BBB very very very difficult to understand the standard Min that I think you will encounter in all of your is inos it'll be ABC ABC ABC which which makes the most sense and that's the most widely practiced custom okay so as I said why is there m pragmatic reason is for people who will not be able to stay from mus there is a more mystical reason that the gamarra itself gives the gamarra says the reason why we blow before mus is this confuses the Su Satan it confuses the Satan let me say a few words about the Satan first because uh he's a widely misunderstood character uh in Biblical Hebrew and even in kazal Satan is not a name it's not a proper name Satan Satan is a job description you know in Christian theology Satan is an angel that tried to fight God and tried to destroy God and he was kicked out of heaven and he morphed into the the Antichrist so to speak who is there to wage a war against God in our tradition Satan is a member of hashem's heavenly Court he is the district attorney he is the prosecutor obviously this is a metaphor but but the description of Hashem is Hashem is sitting as a judge and Hashem is judging every person every nation and just as when someone is standing trial there is a prosecuting attorney and there are defense attorneys so too the Satan has a job in shamay to be a prosecutor H Satan note the he the accuser the prosecutor Satan is not a name it is a job description the prosecuting attorney he is a member in good standing of the Heavenly Bar Association right this is his job somebody has to do it now we know that if you're up for trial you're a criminal defense uh you know person you don't you know you'll always want to delay your trial you don't want to get your trial early you want to delay delay delay when we blow chauffeur chauffeur is like a call to judgment so if we're blowing the chauffeur early the Sutton gets a little confused why are the Jewish people asking for an early early judgment as if we're asking for a judgment earlier the suan gets confused he's unable to present his case because we're asking for judgment earlier than we need to ask for judgment and therefore he gets confounded now what that exactly means is also a little strange but essentially it's connected to the idea that when we ask God to judge us what we're saying is we accept with love and faith that whatever Hashem will give us is for the good and that itself is a great when a person accepts everything that God will give them that's a great for there to be mercy and compassion in the judgment and that confuses the Satan the Satan sees people of nobility people of goodness people of commitment and the Satan is unable to say bad things about the Jewish people the chaar is M it reverses the attribute of din to the attribute of mercy so we have two reasons for one is the pragmatic reason of enabling people who cannot stay from musaf to hear the chauffer 30 times 30 times and the second reason is it confuses the Satan by showing our willingness to connect to God's judgment okay so that's stage four right so again stage one you sounded the chauffeur nine times but and it was not connected to the Avenue it was just free floating nine times stage two you connected ding malos stage three R you went from 9 to 30 stage four you then added a whole chauffer service called which is already approaching what we did but we now have stage five and that's the last stage stage five is not in the Tet it's after the Tet and although today it's virtually Universal it was not always agreed upon in all communities and that is there was an ancient tradition that we want to sound the show for and Ros sh 100 times actually some even had the tradition 101 times I'll explain where that came from why would there be a tradition to sound the chauffeur 100 times it's certainly not a Torah La the Torah requirement was nine and even with RAB it would have been 30 so where do he get 100 so it says it's based on a mid that talks about cisra cisra was a munite general who oppressed the Jewish people and this is when d'vorah led the Jews in battle Doria and a righteous woman yel enticed cisra into her tent got him drunk killed him and there was a great great Victory which was memorialized in devoris poem and in the fourth peric of the book of schim we have what is called the shiras dvor the poetic song of d'vorah and it mentions that in in her song that cis's mother was waiting for him why is he so late what's taking so long not because she missed her son but she said where's the jewels where's the gold and the silver where's the beautiful Spoils of War that he's going to bring and there's a midrashic tradition that she cried 100 times so to counteract the crying of cis's mother we blow the chaur 100 times this is a later custom that's based on the again be sure you understand this blowing the chauffer 100 times is is not from a medish the medish does not say blow the chauffer 100 times it is a later custom based on the midrashic teaching that the mother of sister cried 100 times so the minog was we want to blow the chauffer 100 times to counter the crying of sister's mother now what does that mean sister's mother died quite a few years ago she hasn't been around for 3,000 years so what do I have to counteract her crying and what is there to counteract so the truth is there's a much deeper meaning here which unfortunately is relevant even to this day and that is a mother's cry over her child always elicits a certain measure of Divine Mercy even if the child is not worthy and the mother is not worthy God does not ignore a mother's pain sra's mother cries over her son he's no good she's no good but that creates Divine Mercy problem is Divine Mercy to these evil people is going to turn into things that are very destructive for Amel so essentially what we cis's mother represents all of the women of Rim who are crying over their children that potentially could give them Mercy in the world which will be used against us so we cry back and we tell God yeah God I know a mother is suffering but look look at what we're look at what they're doing to us look at what the suffering they're imposing on us and therefore we blow 100 times to push back all of that Mercy again this is I don't want to get into into politics it's it's of course in AR itself it's almost impossible not to get into some type of politics but you know people talk a lot about the casualties in Gaza and the destruction in Gaza and the truth of the matter is it's something that that should bother us as well you know the people are dying but we also have to we also have to look at the Alternatives that unfortunately Kamas has put us into in which without eradicating them without going in all the dangers we face all the destruction we face so sometimes as sad as it is we have to do what on one level looks like a cruelty looks like a non- merciful thing to do in order to preserve Mercy for am Israel as a whole and that's actually the meaning of the hund chauffer sounds to counteract the mercy that would be elicited by cis's mother so it's not just cis's mother she's long gone but it's emblematic of the cries of those who hurt the Jewish people that we ask God not to pay attention to their Mercy okay so given the fact that we now have to do 100 so let's see how much do we have on stages 1 to four how much do we already have so let's first take regular askanas custom then I'll add in custom before RAB I'm sorry before stage five before you had the Min of 100 colot how many do you already have so you have 30 m that's what three tashat three tashat three tats that's 30 and then you have 30 after Mal one one after one one one after so if you combine and you have 60 you have now heard the chauffer 60 times because stage five once to get it up to 100 we have to hear the chauffeur 40 more times that's a lot so those are the final stage the chauffeur blowings that you blow after MF so how do you get 40 very simple you blow three Tash rats which is 12 three tou shots which is uh n three tats which are nine so 12 99 is 30 and then you blow one of each one tashat which is four one tashat which is three one tarat which is three as you blow uh a a a BBB CCC that gives you 30 and then a b c gives you 10 and the most common is in the middle of Kadesh before you say cabel God should accept our prayer you blow the 30 and then when Kadesh is finished you blow the the 10 and that's how you get 100 chauffeur sounds from nine to 100 that's more than a 10 times increase more than a th% increase in the in the Mitzvah now let me point out in reality you will probably hear the chauffer more than 100 times because the btoa often has to repeat a sound because it was not Hally proper so you might hear the chauffer 500 times on uh Rashana if the Bala has to repeat it depends on how good the btoa is ETC but uh there will be in the 500 that you'll hear there should be 100 kosher sounds 100 proper sounds uh that that we done now this is is how you get it I I still remember this I don't know why I I first became so aware of this when I was in ninth grade because I mean I had been going to sh beforehand but my first year in Nel in Baltimore CU I was a nth grader I was 14 years old and daving in Yeshiva was really really really long rashash daving went to like 4:00 in the afternoon truth is the shivas here don't do it as long but uh most don't but there was like 4:00 in the afternoon so I was ex you know I was exhausted you know for some reason kids don't get exhausted know playing basketball for 5 hours uh but a long ding kids get exhausted too and I was really exhausted and finally mus was over and then they start blowing all the Cher again and again and again think are we going to do mus again what's going on here I didn't really understand what was going on uh but yeah yeah you got to do 40 now let me explain a certain quirk in the and those of you Dad will experience this and also among manyam as well they do to are not only done in the repetition they are also done in the silent amida now I've actually never daved in a minion that does that but I imagine if this is the first time you would attend such a minion it would be quite shocking that in the middle of a silent right all of a sudden there are chauffeur blast and how does that even work since everybody is at a different place you're not diving at the same place so the answer is that the btoa the chauffer blower stands next to the kazin so they kind of diving together and when the kin in his silent am the silent finishes Mal o even though maybe you didn't you're not up there yet there'll be a bang on the table and all of a sudden they'll blow the chauffeur now let me point out because you're blowing in the middle of the amida the the the sounds are not other there's not an announcer he doesn't announce teia because nobody can talk and also the things that we say after the chauffer blowing is only in the repetition not in the silent in the silent you just hear the chauffer and go on now that me nobody can move interesting story nobody can move you're in the middle of shones right so if the Bala can't blow and you have to get somebody else you can't go to somebody else you got to pass the chauffeur from hand to hand till somebody decides they could blow it so Dr Abraham tki tells the story that in his father's in Milwaukee they blew in the silent amida after malot after zon after chro and the baltera couldn't get a sound so the cha was being passed around and everyone has a Talis over their head so finally he's an 8-year-old kid then and he gets the chaur and he blows it perfectly but nobody knew who was blowing it Mal so afterwards everybody was curious who was the person who blew the chauffeur so beautifully and they discover it was an 8-year-old child now that's a wonderful thing that an 8-year-old blow chaur problem is nobody is yot and you can't make it up I mean they blew uh 30 sounds but you can't make up what you miss in Musa because you already daved mus so that part of it is lost forever so he says he understood for the first time how it's possible for a parent to be proud of his child and annoyed at the same time he said his father conveyed pride and annoyance at the same time because it was it was an accomplishment but I say it you know the consequences were not not as good okay so now here's the thing among most Asim we do not blow in the silent we only blow in the repetition as a result as I indicated M and M only give you 60 and you got to blow 40 after mus but if you follow and if you follow many you actually already have 90 because you have 30 you have 30 inside silence and you have 30 in repetition you already have 90 so that means by the time you finish musaf if you have to get to 100 you only need 10 more so after mus you only blow one tashat which is four one tashat which is three one tarat which is three 4 3 3 that gives you 10 and that is why the after mus blowing in AIC minion will be much much shorter than the after mus blowing in a regular razik minion simply because they already blew 30 in the silent uh Shimona Shimona asay okay so this is the historical evolution of chofar a play in five acts a play in five different acts uh one other interesting thing I want to talk about for chaur again I again I this is maybe a bit more H than usual but we'll make up for it uh at least before yum Kipper we'll talk more about some of the philosophy and hash here uh and uh that is we know of course when rosashana falls out on chabas which is not this year uh we do not blow the chauffeur when falls out in shabas and the reason is that the RAB made a gazer that they were afraid in your anxiety to blow the chauffeur properly you might take it outside and carry it to go to an expert to correct something and that would be desecrating chabas carrying four amot in a public domain even though we have Arabs and everything else but some places didn't have a there would be a Prohibition so the truth is this is a very unlikely problem right it's very unlikely that this is going to happen number one most places have ARs and number two if there's not an arave most people are conscientious enough they're not going to violate the shabas and yet for a very unlikely contingency of desecrating chabas the sages took away the precious Mitzvah of chauffeur blowing quite amazing however the mishna says that they did blow Chau for in the B mikdash that when it was shabas in the B they did blow chauffeur now there's a very interesting argument between Rashi and the rambam about what does bam mikdash mean in this context according to Rashi B mikdash meant only the B mikdash they blew schau in the B mikdash that's it according to the rambam the entire city of yush was Nik was included in the category of bet Mikes so they blew the chaur according to the rambam not only in the temple they blew chaur in the whole city of usam now that doesn't mean harno but that would mean basically the old city more or less now the big question is this according to the ramban is the heter of blowing in sh on chabas only when there is a basa mikdash or could the Heder even be applied today so in the early well I either the late 1800s or early 1900s but you the end of the 19th early 20th century there was a bit of a controversial RAV in re AA yener who was convinced that in the old city you should blow chaur on rash that falls out on chabas even when there's no B mikdash he said we how can we not do a Mitzvah if the r said you could do it and he went to the legendary RAV of yush who had been RAV for 70 years ra salant and he wanted ra salant to give aak that in the old city everybody should blow the chauffeur on chabas rosant refused to give such a he said not everybody agrees with this and we're not going to change the Tak of the but there's an old m in Yim that R schlesener blew schaer privately in his house on chabis that people who walked by his house heard chauffeur sounds on chabas because even if he didn't get a public Pak he followed that Pak in his own for his own family and then there's another part of the story that's fascinating R salant had a very able assistant who himself was a godor reav RIT to abbreviated the alav benitz toim who was the San he was the assistant of salant interestingly the ader was R Cook's father-in-law he was R Cook's father-in-law although I can't say they always agreed on every every single issue and it is said that the aderas was standing outside of RA Sal's house so he could hear the chauffeur sounds and his argument was this listen even if my position is you're not allowed to blow the chauffer when rash shabas because of Rabbi decree so the guy who's blowing it is transgressing a rabbi decree there is still the Fulfillment of a Biblical Mitzvah so I should listen to it meaning I'm not doing anything wrong he's doing an a because the said not to blow chauffeur buta a Mitzvah is being done so I want to hear the Mitzvah so he went and he said he wanted to hear it presumably he didn't want to tell ref schleser that he's listening because that would encourage ref to violate but he said I'll listen from behind the wall and be out the Mitzvah of of Chau this is very very fascinating because this gets us into a whole sugya which we're not going to talk about tonight A Mitzvah that you do through a sin not only do you have a sin you also don't have a Mitzvah so a say you're not y but then the other hand who did the AA the only one who did the AA was the blower not the listener so fascinatingly if anybody would blow chauffeur on chabas maybe the blower wouldn't fulfill his Mitzvah but the listeners would so if you knew somebody was going to blow chauffeur and chabas maybe it behooves you to go listen you get your and you get a Mitzvah now I'm told I am told maybe you know this more than me I am told that there are some in the old city that actually follow to this dayers and they do blow chauffeur when rashash falls out on chabas and this is based on the ramb that the het of bet mikdash also applies to the old city I'm not again I I don't know this firsthand but some people have told me that there are kilas that so pas even though I need to emphasize that is not normative that is not normative let me just end with one one other thought here rev hutner has a very striking imagery of what chauffer blowing is he says chauffer blowing is a symbolic death because what happened in rashash Shana God created us how did he create us he breathed into us his Spirit he blew air into us what is the show for we're blowing the air out of us it's as if we're saying to God take my life you own my life I'm giving my life back to you to decide if I deserve a renewal it is a symbolic experience of giving your life back to God and thereby getting reborn and getting renewed and that's why the zo's imagery is so beautiful and precise The Zo says when we blow the chauffeur below it triggers the blowing of the chauffeur above it's much what it is we blow our lives back to God and that he it's God's desire to blow his Spirit back to us right the chauffeur I give my life to God and God will give me back my life in that Merit very very striking in this way he says you know the minog is fres gazm once again that although any kosher animals horn is valid for a chauffeur that's why they have these huge yemenite chauffeur us from antelopes and goats why wild goats but the minog is for ashkenazim that we use a Ram's Horn a ram is a male sheep because that commemorates the aada of Y Abram's willingness to sacrifice his son as well as y's willingness to give up his life so rautner says it's not just remembering the AA he says chauffer blowing itself is an ARA like experience I'm giving up my life to Hashem and I'm giving it back to God you see and uh that's the idea of chaur as the personal ARA that we go through uh every every single time okay so beem uh hope that all of us all of is all over the world should have of there's an old saying in in in in that as we approach the end of the year May the year and its curses be ended and may a new year begin with blessing this year of 5784 the statement is quite literal this was the year of many many many curses and we're not out of the water yet but our prayer is may all of these curses end may we have a year of bra of Yeshua of GA a br of peace now it's fast I one little V from the Ezra we read in last week that one of God's if we keep the Torah I will give peace in the land the Ezra adds one word to the PK but shom in your my meaning it's not just peace from and peace from Hezbollah peace within us that's the main braa that's the greatest bra the shom should be the peace between us and within us [Music] it [Music]