Yom Kippur 5785, 2024: "The Shofar of Ne’ilah"

 
Rabbi David Etengoff
 
ה' יעזור וירחם על אחינו כל בני ישראל, בארץ ישראל ובכל חלקי הארץ
 
Rav Yosef Karo zatzal (1488-1575) is best known as the author of the Shulchan Aruch. Toward the end of Hilchot Yom HaKippurim (623:6), he states that we are obligated to sound four shofar blasts at the conclusion of Neilah: tekiah, shevarim, teruah and a final tekiah. In contrast, the Rema zatzal (Rav Moshe Isserles, 1530-1572), in his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, notes that the widely accepted Ashkenazi minhag is to sound only one tekiah. Somewhat unusually, neither of these Torah giants discuss the reason why we sound the shofar at this time.
 
One of the earliest sources to address the rationale for sounding the shofar at the conclusion of Ne’ilah is a gloss of Tosafot in the name of Rashi’s great grandson, Rabbi Yitzhak ben Shmuel zatzal (known as the “RI” or the “RI-HaZaken,” 1115-1184):

The sole reason why we sound the shofar at the conclusion of Yom HaKippurim is to publicize that it is now fully nighttime so that people may proceed to feed their children who have fasted. In addition, this is to inform the Jewish community that it proper to prepare the meal for the night that has followed the Yom HaKippurim day, for it is similar in kind to a Yom Tov… This is in contradistinction to the incorrect opinion of the Machzorim where it is written that the tekiah is a reminder of the Jubilee year (yovel). [If this were to be the case,] why would we sound the shofar year after year [at this time?] Is it possible for the yovel to be each and every year?  (Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 114b, s.v. V’amai, translation and brackets my own)
 
The RI maintains that in a world without accurate clocks and rapid communication, the shofar blast at the end of Neilah publicizes the end of Yom HaKippurim and the permissibility to eat, drink and cook once again. Moreover, he summarily rejects any notion of a link between the conclusion of this day and the sounding of the shofar as a reminder of the Jubilee year.

Approximately 400 years later, Rabbi Mordechai Yoffe zatzal (1530-1612) presented three additional reasons as to why we sound the shofar at the end of Yom HaKippurim:

We sound the shofar with one tekiah blast as a sign of the Shechinah’s departure, namely, that the Schechinah has left [this world] and has gone up to the firmament, just as it had done at the time of the giving of the Torah. As it is written: “No hand shall touch it [that is, Mount Sinai], for he shall be stoned or cast down; whether man or beast, he shall not live. When the ram’s horn sounds a long, drawn-out blast, they may ascend the mountain.” (Sefer Shemot 19:13) It is also written: “God shall rise with the trumpet blast; Hashem, with the sound of the shofar.” (Sefer Tehillim 47:6, with my emendation)

The tekiah is a symbol of joy and victory: This means we have been victorious over the Satan (Evil Inclination).

The sound of the tekiah is the symbolic representation of freedom, for on this day we have made our souls free from sins and our bodies have become free from enslavement and punishments. (Sefer Levush Malchut, Levush HaHod 623:5, translation, brackets, underlining and parentheses my own)
 
Closer to our own time, Rabbi Yechiel Michal ben Aharon Halevi Epstein zatzal (1829-1908) offers a new interpretation for sounding the shofar at the conclusion of Ne’ilah: “We sound one tekiah as a sign of good fortune to proclaim the news that Hashem has received our prayers.” (Aruch HaShulchan, Orech Chaim 623:8, translation my own)  In Rav Epstein’s view, the tekiah is a declaration of success, a sound that signifies we have encountered the Almighty through the medium of prayer and in His great chesed and rachamim, He has accepted our heartfelt tefilot.

In stark contrast to the opinion of Rav Epstein, my rebbe and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zatzal (1903-1993), known as the “Rav” by his students and disciples, asserts that the sounding of the shofar at the end of Yom HaKippurim is symbolic of our failure to communicate our depth-level spiritual longings to the Master of the Universe through our words:

… the Rav said that on Yom Kippur, at the conclusion of the Ne’ilah service, he often felt that despite having spent the entire day in prayer, he had not articulated even a tiny fraction of what he had wanted to express… [He was convinced that on the existential level, every] Jew has similar feelings at the conclusion of Ne’ilah, the final prayer on Yom Kippur: [they have] spoken, yet said nothing.
 
What can we do when such a feeling of defeat descends upon us? Rav Soloveitchik provides us with this groundbreaking answer:

In order to adequately express his deep longing when words have cruelly failed him, he feels the compulsion to release an instinctive, inarticulate cry. In the seconds before the Holy One Blessed Be He once again retreats into obscuring clouds, man must urgently express what he could not verbalize in an entire day of prayer. He thus sounds the shofar as a response to the ultimate futility of verbal prayer to express his needs. (Before Hashem You Shall Be Purified: Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik on the Days of Awe, summarized and annotated by Dr. Arnold Lustiger, page 24, underlining and brackets my own)
 
In short, for the Rav, when words fail us, the shofar blast at Neilah represents a radically different approach: In essence, we are expressing to our Creator our deep desire to renew our spiritual relationship with Him as it was in the past.
​
In conclusion, interpretations of the sounding of the shofar in the final moments of Yom HaKippurim range from the sublime to the practical, and from the assertion of man’s greatness to the recognition of the futility of words in reaching out to the Almighty. Fortunately, no matter which perspective we take, we can rest assured that, “For through this day, He shall grant atonement for you to cleanse you. Before Hashem you shall be purified from all your sins.” (Sefer Vayikra 16:30, emendation my own)
 
G'mar Chatimah Tovah and Shabbat Shalom
 
Past drashot may be found at my blog-website: http://reparashathashavuah.org
The email list, b’chasdei Hashem, has expanded to hundreds of people. I am always happy to add more members to the list. If you would like to be added, please contact me via email: mailto:[email protected].
 
*** My audio shiurim on the topics of Tefilah and Tanach may be found at: Tefilah and Tanach
 
*** I have posted 164 of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s English language audio shiurim (MP3 format) spanning the years 1958-1984. Please click on the highlighted link.
 
 

---