Welcoming Rosh Hashanah

“God’s shofar will travel,” said a smiling Rabbi Mordechai Grossbaum, a Minnetonka-based outreach director who brought a box of rams’ horns and power tools to a Heilicher Jewish Day School classroom in St. Louis Park on Thursday.  

Grossbaum’s mission is “to make Judaism come alive,” driving his Shofar Factory-on-wheels to eight citywide Jewish schools and synagogues in a week. He's teaching kids whose families are about to enter the High Holy Days, beginning with Rosh Hashanah at sundown on Wednesday.

“You can push a book in a kid’s face or you can involve him so he enjoys it,” said Grossbaum, as children with hacksaws cut a mouthpiece into the horns.

The horns will used as home versions of the sacred trumpets that will blast 100 times in temples around the world to awaken spiritual sleepers for a three-week season of self-reflection and renewal.

“A picture paints a thousand words with children,” said Grossbaum, whose orthodox, yet non-sectarian, Chabad House located in Minnetonka partners widely throughout the Jewish community.

“Our Living Legacy outreach has 13 hands-on programs," he said. "Last year, for example, we made a nine-foot menorah (Jewish candelabra for Hanukkah) out of jelly beans.”

The philosophy is that having fun is an important component to learning and that kids remember what they taste, touch and hear. The ram’s horn-sculpting activity certainly stirred excitement in the Day School’s 5th graders.

“I’ve been dying to get to 5th grade to make my shofar,” said Anthony, treasuring the moment and sanding his horn by himself outside the classroom-turned-workshop, away from the dust cloud, loud power tools and bantering classmates.

“I like music. I play drums in our school band. I think it’s cool how people long ago could make instruments out of rams’ horns,” and without modern technology, he noted.

Inside, a burly kid from one pair of boys had the 15 to 30-minute job of sawing off the tip of the horn to create the mouthpiece. His more slightly built partner cheered when they were the first ones finished.

“He’s so strong, he could be the best quarterback in the league,” he said.

Girls teamed with girls, focused and intent, muscling the saw with pride.

“It’s hard work, but it’s worth it,” one girl said.

As children finished and the Rabbi drilled, power-sanded, and honed each piece, kids pursed their lips and blew until they were red in the face. The chorus of sounds grew louder and louder.

Down the hall, lunching students who had brought shofars from home lined up. They have sounded the blast daily through the month of Elul, which is a month of preparation similar to the Christian Advent.

The trumpeting helps a 13-year-old boy imagine what it was like for the people of Israel in biblical times.

“Any time there was a need to call people to gather, for Sabbath, to the market or because of a military threat, it would echo against the mountains and hills,” said the boy.

“The sound is so evocative,” said Aviva Hillenbrand, chief program officer at the Sabes Jewish Community Center next door to the school. “It’s not a sound you hear in modern times. It’s a call to attention. It creates a powerful sense memory, just like the eating of apples and honey.”

Families will gather, many observing two Rosh Hashanah meals this week, to eat symbolic foods like honey cakes and pomegranates and wishing each other a sweet new year.

“We create the sound, feel and taste of a holiday,” said Hillenbrand.

It also launches the self-reflective 10 Days of Awe, which is similar to the Christian’s season of Lent. It ends with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on October 8.

“It’s a time of prayer and fasting, to rebuild relationships with God and others that have been severed due to sin or a loss of joy in following God,” said Rabbi Grossbaum, putting aside his drill.

“We step back and ask, ‘Am I running an honest business? Why am I making this money? Only to become wealthy, or to raise a family, give to a charity, and use it for positive purposes?”

Assessing motives, and leaving behind the dishonorable ones, is important, said Grossbaum.

“You can complain and kvetch,” observing the Holy Days begrudgingly, he said, “or you can observe them out of awe, joy and love of God. The goal is an intensification of our relationship with God until all of life becomes godly.”