Rosh Hashanna Questions

Moshe Ben-Chaim




This weekend, in preparation for Rosh Hashanna, I ask you to offer your answers to a number of questions intriguing me. Let these questions inspire your Shabbos and weekly study. Please feel free to respond to me with your insights.

1) To start, what is the central idea behind the command of hearing shofar?
From where does shofar derive its central distinction? Was it from Abraham’s sacrifice of the ram instead of Isaac; the ram caught by its horns – its “shofar”? Was it the shofar blast heard at Sinai, at God’s giving of the Ten Commandments? Or was it from Sisra’s mother who wept over his death? Whichever shofar it was, what is its connection to Rosh Hashanna that we must duplicate and hear this sound?

2) What is the primary significance of this day of Rosh Hashanna?  The Talmud[1] states that we must accept God’s kingship as referenced through the first Rosh Hashanna blessing of “Malchiyos” (kingship). We must then cite God’s remembrances, Zichronos, so that we might be remembered before Him for good. And we are told we achieve this via the Shofaros blessing, citing Torah passages referring to shofar. But if we already recalled God’s kingship and His remembrance through the verbalization of each ‘blessing’, what greater purpose is achieved through the additional shofar blasts during those blessings? This is compounded by the Talmud’s[2] words that if we lack either the blessings or the blasts, a lack of blasts nullifies the blessings and a lack of the blessings nullifies the blasts. So what is this combination of prayers and shofar blasts, where both are crucial to the fulfillment of our Rosh Hashanna obligations?

3) We must study the blessings prior to attending services, if we are to truly gain from this holiday. What can we derive from the blessings themselves? Why these three, Malchyos, Zichronos and Shofaros?
The first blessing concludes with the words “Blessed are You, God; King of the entire Earth, Who blesses Israel and the of day of remembrance.” 
The second concludes with the words “Blessed are You, God; who remembers the treaty.”
The third concludes with the words “Blessed are You, God; who hears the sound of the shofar of your people Israel with mercy.” (The concluding blessings underscore the central focus of each prayer)
We must learn why the first and second blessings focus on God’s “remembrance”…and remembrance of “what” exactly? And we are also curious as to the distinction between the first and second blessings, as they both refer to remembrance…is the second blessing redundant?  We then wonder what is so vital about God hearing Israel’s shofar blasts.


What is Rosh Hashanna all about, and what is the role of shofar? What are the primary messages of each of the three blessings? To fulfill this great holiday as God deems fit, we must understand the ideas behind these central performances. I am sure your discussions will prove fruitful, and I look forward to your thoughts.


[1] Rosh Hashanna 16a, 34b
[2] Rosh Hashanna 34b