Perhaps this year, the shofar has a message for us beyond a general call to teshuvah
The month of the shofar is here.
It arrives just as events seem to indicate that we’re not quite out of the Covid woods yet. As cases rise in Eretz Yisrael, restrictions have been reinstituted in an effort to avoid a fourth lockdown. Across the US, the daily average of new infections has risen above 100,000 for the first time since February. The New York Times reports that doctors working in COVID-19 hot spots across the nation say that “the new arrivals are younger, many in their twenties or thirties and also seem sicker than younger patients were last year. And they are deteriorating more rapidly…. Some have no underlying health conditions that would make them more susceptible.”
Perhaps this year, the shofar has a message for us beyond that of a general call to teshuvah.
The Michtav MeEliyahu (3:133) cites a letter of Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the Ramchal, explaining why there are times when we are denied our essential spiritual resources — whether through the passing of tzaddikim, decrees against doing mitzvos, or the shuttering of yeshivos and shuls. According to the Ramchal, Hashem brings these things about to move us to address the sin of avodah zarah in our midst.
This is an internal aveirah — the uprooting of emunah in our hearts and minds — and thus requires a correspondingly internal response. Hashem removes our external spiritual supports — the teachers of Torah, the yeshivos and seforim, the shiurim and the tefillos — so that we are forced to dig deep within to find the resources to learn Torah and do mitzvos because we really want to, not because it’s what everyone’s doing or what earns us positions and plaudits.
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