The signature sound of Rosh Hashanah is the blare of air through a ram’s horn, the shofar in Hebrew. Insufficiently educated in Judaism, I would have to consult Jewishpedia (it exists?) to explain its significance. What I do know is that it is the emblem of this holiday.
So when a young man, 15 or 17 at the most (my daughter and I were of different minds), just approached us outside a coffee shop in Brooklyn and asked if we were Jewish, then asked if he could play the shofar, I said in as authentic a Yiddish accent as I could muster, So why not? (That was for dramatic effect only – I just said yes.)
He began by having me say two prayers, the first six words of which are inscribed in my brain because, so far as I know, every Jewish prayer begins with the same six words: Baruch atah adonai elohenu melech ha-olam and then I had to fudge it, pretending I knew where he was going. I hchuhched sufficiently to cover my ignorance. My daughter got to say Amen. Twice. At which point the young man sucked in a goodly amount of air and expelled it slowly and rhythmically through the pearly horn. Dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black hat with a broad rim, black shoes, and what looked like it might be a trendy tan t-shirt underneath, he blew through the shofar for a good long minute, and, when he was done, we thanked him and he us. We wished each other a Happy New Year and that our names would be inscribed in the Book of Life. May yours too.
And for those with a sense of humor, see Rosh Hashanah Girl.
