The Shofar of Jubilee

Parshat Behar

by Rabbi Avi Billet

In its description of the Jubilee year, the Torah tell us in 25:9 that the shofar is to be sounded throughout the land on Yom Kippur of Yovel.

Noting how we don’t blow Shofar when Shabbos falls on Rosh Hashana because of carrying concerns, Netziv asks how can we blow the Shofar on Yom Kippur, which is Shabbos-squared?

Quoting the Talmud (Rosh Hashana 30a), Netziv says that the Torah injunction obligates every single individual to blow the shofar. This is how it is sounded throughout the land – as presumably, if everyone is blowing, no one needs to leave a house in order to do so.

What a profound thought: every person takes a direct grasp of his or her Jewish responsibility, and the fulfillment of the task at hand as a personal mission.

This incredible event, when the collective Am Yisrael unites to create not just a moment together, but an experience to which each person contributes, is meant to last in their hearts and minds for fifty years. Until the young people are old and the people born over the next fifty years can take charge of the Yovel Shofar sounding when it comes around again. For themselves and for their community.

The theme of every person taking charge of personal responsibilities repeats itself in the works of some of the classic commentaries on the Torah.

When the Torah is first given, and the Aseret Hadibrot are declared, the section begins with a reminder to the community – “Atem r’item” – “You [all] saw what God did to the Egyptians….” And yet, as we’ll read on Shavuos, the Ten Commandments are all written in the singular, what you the individual should or should not do.

Ramban notes that this is a reminder to individuals that every person bears a personal responsibility for one’s deeds. No one should feel that he or she will fall into the destiny of the masses, and just as the community will share in a destiny, the individual can roll with the masses and neglect personal obligations. Each person bears a personal, and in turn, a communal responsibility!

Every person is faced with a choice. I can do my mitzvah because I am personally commanded. Or I can do it as a member of a community.

A community should always strive to be greater than the sum of its parts.

In the Jewish communities Orthodox Jews have created, we are blessed and cursed. Cursed that we make it our responsibility to live within walking distance to a shul – so we can’t always live wherever we want. But we are blessed to create a community because of it. We all live near each other, in very relative proximity. And so we step it up for our friends and neighbors, in good times and especially in bad times.

A minyan is made up individuals, but together that makes a powerhouse for prayer – Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik spoke and wrote about how much he cherished davening in a minyan, because of the magic and majesty that comes from praying together. He may have been able to concentrate better when praying alone, but there is no comparison to the electricity felt when praying with a congregation.

The Rambam writes about the shofar on Rosh Hashana that it was meant to be a wake up call. A wake up call to the slumberers to reexamine deeds to remember your Creator.

Those who rest on the laurels of a community and never roll up their own sleeves to help out or contribute money, time, energy are missing the boat. It’s not exactly the same thing, because there’s no mitzvah to make or participate in a kiddush, but I know a man who decided close to 30 years ago that he would never eat at a Kiddush because he realized he never wants to sponsor a Kiddush. That is certainly one way to be consistent, but it also one way to pull away from the community.

Most people might only hear or participate in the Yovel Shofar blowing once in their lifetimes – if lucky, maybe twice. And maybe the collective Shofar blowing, with every Jew participating, was meant to serve as a wakeup call that you only have one life to live. So take your individuality, take your personal mitzvah, take your individual responsibility, and turn it into the most amazing contribution to your community, and to all of Bnei Yisrael.

Yovel may only come around once every fifty years, but we can learn about it and derive inspiration from it at all times.