It’s the Jewish High Holiday season, and Jews the world over are preparing to visit their local synagogues – for community, for prayer, and to hear the arresting, soulful sounds of the shofar.
An animal horn – typically a ram’s horn – used as a wind instrument, the shofar is featured over 70 times in the Torah. In ancient Jewish tradition, horns were sounded for everything from calls to action to royal coronations. In the spirit of both, the Bible calls upon Jews to raise forth shofar blasts on Rosh Hashana, which literally means the “head,” or start, of the year.
