Constable: Blowing shofar sets tone for Rosh Hashanah message

One of the most beloved parts of the Jewish High Holy Days, which begin at sundown on Wednesday, is the traditional blowing of the shofar, usually a ram's horn, which dates back to the time of the Ten Commandments and Moses atop Mount Sinai.

“On the morning of the third day, there was thunder, lightning and a thick cloud on the mountain. Then a shofar blast sounded so loudly that all the people in the camp trembled,” reads Exodus 19:16 in the Torah.

A godly blast inspires trembling. An ungodly squeak does not.

So shofar teacher Orin Rotman, 64, moves through his gathering of students at Congregation Beth Judea in Long Grove, gently suggesting changing the grip on a horn, moving the off hand to the chin, and changing the placement of the horn's opening on the lips to create an embouchure that will produce a sound worthy of the religious services.

“Put your legs farther apart. Give yourself some balance. OK. You have the idea,” Rotman tells one aspiring shofar-blower, Dr. Joel Fisher, a 61-year-old neonatologist at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.

“That's it,” Rotman says to Fisher, who elicits several seconds of a lingering blast from a 3-foot-long gazelle horn.

Taking turns on a much shorter, curved ram's horn, 9-year-old triplets Benjamin, Anna and Rachel Veronie of Gurnee have moments producing melodious tones, but each lapses into a few breathy misses near the end of long segments.

“By the time you get to that big one, your mouth is gone,” explains Steven Peck, 60, an estate planner from Long Grove who decided to take advantage of Rotman's free instruction after he inherited a shofar that had been in his family. “I just wanted to try it. It looks like fun.”

It is, Rotman agrees, but the shofar plays a serious role in celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the days of repentance until Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.

“It's not about the blower. It's about the people hearing it,” Rotman says, telling students to visualize the sound coming out of their horn as if it were smoke filling the temple and traveling to shut-ins and loved ones far away. “Your job is to bring the mitzvah (good deed) to all Jews.”

The first blast, called a tekiah, “awakens the spirit,” say Rotman, a former officer of the congregation, board member of the Men's Club and frequent teacher in various programs.

Following the cues during the service, shofar players also produce a shevarim (a tone of equal length divided into three parts), a teruah (a similar tone, only divided into nine parts), and the shofar service-ending tekiah gedolah, which is a single tone held as long as possible. Creating rapid notes from a single breath comes naturally to Aaron Kudlowitz, 15, a sophomore at Buffalo Grove High School, who uses that same technique with his tongue to separate notes when he plays the euphonium, which has a more forgiving mouthpiece than the small and varying openings on shofars.

“Why are we taking essentially what is a prehistoric, primitive instrument that's carved from a kosher animal? Well, nothing in the Jewish ritual is done without a reason,” says Rotman, who, in his role as the “gabbai of the shul,” manages the order and integrity of the Torah reading service on Shabbat and other days. “Not everybody will agree about the reason, but there has to be a reason.”

Rotman, who can elicit steady, beautiful sounds from his gazelle's horn, says most shofars are made from rams' horns. The story says Abraham was willing to sacrifice his precious son, Isaac, on orders from God, until an angel appeared at the last second, and both agreed that sacrificing a ram caught in nearby bushes was the way to go.

A father of three and grandfather of three, Rotman says he has developed “a large cadre of shofar blowers over the last 25 years,” and some return (one came back from Sweden) during the holidays to play during services before the congregation.

“The shofar blast on Rosh Hashanah is to Jews a universal call to personal accounting, experienced and shared in both the simplicity and the complexity of its sound and symbolism,” Rotman says. “It beckons attention to priorities, humility before God and integrity.”

So much the better if it sounds good.

“You have to do it so well that you are not concentrating on the blowing,” Rotman says. Then, even the “master blasters” blowing the shofar can focus on the message.