The Torah is quite specific in discussing the various festivals, but seems to drop vague hints when it comes to Rosh HaShanah? What’s the secret of the shofar, so mysterious that the text can’t even tell us what it is?
We’ve come to the end of one year about to enter another and as we embark on the holy days of Rosh HaShanah we anticipate the power of the central mitzvah of the day: we prepare for it study its halachos anticipate its strength in awakening our slumbering souls.
The mitzvah of course is tekias shofar. But there is something quite unusual about this mitzvah: when the Torah speaks of Rosh HaShanah in Sefer Vayikra and in Sefer Devarim it doesn’t actually tell us to blow the shofar or even what a shofar is. The pasuk in Vayikra (23:24) speaks of a “day of rest a remembrance of a [shofar] blast a holy convocation.” What is meant by “remembrance of a shofar blast”? Elsewhere in the Torah Rosh HaShanah is spoken of as “yom teruah a day of [shofar] blasting.” There the word “shofar” isn’t even mentioned and the Torah doesn’t specify what the mitzvah consists of. Why would the Torah hold back this essential information?
Furthermore when we look at the surrounding verses which describe the observance of other festival days we see a stark difference:
Regarding Shabbos we are told plainly “Six days you shall do work and on the seventh day… you shall do no work of labor.”
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