Monday, September 30, 2024
The Hasid’s triumphant blow
There's an ancient Jewish custom of charity collectors coming to synagogue during the weekday morning prayers, and a slightly less ancient Ashkenazic Jewish tradition of blowing the shofar each day following those prayers in the month of Elul — the four weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah.
Recently at one such service in Jerusalem, a stout reddish, grayish Hasidic schnorrer (donation collector) entered a nondescript synagogue basement sanctuary where about 30 men were in the middle of their morning prayers. Sometimes, schnorrers like this one will approach people mid-prayer, asking for a few shekels to help a poor family with many children or an ill parent. Other times, they will respectfully, yet impatiently wait until the end of davening in order to get everyone's attention at once, hopefully benefitting from their largesse, as well.
This particular Hasid generally fit into the second of those categories. As the end of prayers neared, seeing an unmanned shofar on the lectern in the middle of the room, this particular Hasid made an ambitiously instinctive decision: He would be the one to blow the shofar at the end of prayers.
It was as if God himself had placed the shofar there — A blessed opportunity to get everybody's attention all at once and collect a bounty for hungry children dependent on the generosity of the men in that room.
He began to wander over to it. As prayers concluded, the zaftig little man with twinkly optimism in his eyes triumphantly raised the ram's horn, tilted his head to the heavens, placed the shofar at his lips and began to blow.
The sound that came out was reminiscent of a moribund goat trying to blow a shofar with its last dying breath.
It was as if the Hasid had never even seen a shofar before, let alone tried to blow one.
In his defense, even experienced blowers sometimes experience a showing such as this – if, for example, they're not used to that particular horn, or forgot to ensure that the pipe was clear.
It seems, however, that this particular Hasid was not that type of shofar blower.
This particular Hasid, it seems, was just a really bad shofar blower.
God bless him, this particular Hasid kept trying.
Whether it was 30 seconds, a minute or two, he really gave it a shot.
Ultimately, the shot didn't work and someone else from the crowd came to salvage the blow.
The Hasid's tilted head fell downward. He dejectedly shook his shoulders and smiled a bit, accepting the fact that he had given it a shot and, for some reason, it hadn't worked out.
From me, and perhaps some others, that particular Hasidic's act elicited a kind of strange, curious respect.
It also raised a lot of questions.
Had he ever blown a shofar before?
Did he anticipate being able to deliver a true, triumphant blow?
Days later, still pondering the incident, I wondered if perhaps it had all been intentional in the first place. After all, a performance like that actually probably drew more attention than if his shofar blowing had been up to par.
Nonetheless, despite the bizarre absurdity of the event, I ultimately realized that — like many unexpected places in life — perhaps we all actually have a lot to learn from this particular Hasid, especially as we approach the New Year.
Maybe this particular Hasid had come to that particular synagogue that particular Elul morning to teach us about taking chances.
Embracing the potential to fail.
Not fearing embarrassment.
Getting over ourselves.
Aiming high, even if we know deep down that we have no clue how to actually get there.
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