As the sun sets here in West Texas, a shofar blasts long and loud, the unearthly sound disturbing the air molecules and reverberating throughout the building like a sonic boom. Something deep within my soul is stirred to arousal, and I shut my eyes tight to blot out my surroundings and attune myself to the ram horn trumpet’s plaintive wail as it sings through the ages.
A shofar blasts, and I am jostled about by other human bodies pressing forward. I open my eyes, and I am surrounded by a vast sea of people in clean, colorful ancient garb, more human beings than I am able to count in one setting, all facing a large, foreboding mountain. Dark grey nimbostratus clouds veil the mountain’s peak like a burial shroud. Brilliant lightning and heavy thunder roll around the mountain like javelins thrown by angry giants. Though the people surrounding me sweat with fear, they respond to the lightning by raising their hands in awe and reverence, shouting in jubilation, and stepping forward toward the rocky base of the mountain led by others garbed in white robes.
The shofar sounds again, louder this time, a lengthy tekiah blast that blares beyond the crowd noise and seems to shake the very air around us. Another shofar joins in the awesome din, sounding out in staccato teruah.
The smoke surrounding the mountain forms a dark, gloomy pillar around the peak, and the people around me — still screaming in both dread and jubilation — move as one toward large stone boundary markers that had been placed around the base of the mountain. I am forced to move toward the base of the mountain with them to avoid being trampled, though the earthquakes and the sounds of thunder and shofar blasts leave me disoriented and barely able to discern what direction I should be moving in. Some brass-armored figures bearing weapons and torches attempt to stand guard around the boundary markers, but the crowd threatens to bear down upon them and crush them underfoot.
A robed figure draped in shadow breaks through the mists at the mountaintop and begins to climb down the mountain toward the crowd. The people around me halt in place at the sight of the figure, whose slow movements betray his advanced age. When the figure — an aged man with a lengthy white beard and pale, almost glowing face contrasting his somber-patterned crimson robe — reaches the torch-bearing guards, he waves his hands through the air and the shofar-blowers cease. “Stop! Stop! All of you!” he screeches. “Don’t go any farther than this! If you pass the boundaries, Adonai will break out against you, and many of you will die! Consecrate yourselves before you approach the boundaries! Come no closer than that!”
Almost on cue, the earth trembled and threatened to buckle beneath us. The lightning flashed around us anew, nearer this time, striking near the boundary stones like the white-hot swords of vengeful angels. The crowd trembled as a mass of writhing bees, every soul stumbling backward in terror. I stood in place transfixed as the people fled backward, then fell to my knees in the trembling earth, awe-stricken by the fearsome tableau.
The figure then motioned to someone in the crowd. “Aharon! Come with me!” Another elderly man emerged from among the white-robed figures at the head of the crowd — this one wearing a long, deep blue robe over a white robe with a white turban and a dazzling golden chest-plate containing twelve gems that glittered with each lightning strike — and stepped forward. This person gingerly set one foot past the boundary stones, then, realizing that the lightning had not struck him for trespassing the boundary around the base of the mountain, quickly scurried to join the figure that had descended the mountain as quickly as his aged legs could carry him. As they both headed further up the mountain, the thick, black smoke surrounding the mountain’s peak like a pyroclastic cloud gently rolled over them and swept the two men up inside.
As they disappeared into the gloom, a shofar sounded again, though this one was not a trumpet blown by human hands. A voice from the mountaintop boomed over the din louder than thunder rolling over the echoing desert, a fathomless, resounding roar that rattled the rocks and boulders of the mountain and nestled deep within my chest:
“I AM 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 YOUR ELOHIM, WHO BROUGHT YOU OUT OF MITZRAYIM,
OUT OF THE LAND OF SLAVERY…”
A shofar blasts, long and loud, and I kneel transfixed not in trembling earth, but on a mirror-polished pavement of metamorphic rock as brilliant blue as a cloudless sunny sky at noontime. This azure floor was translucent, and beneath its coruscant glassy sheen, I saw the stars of the Milky Way pass beneath my knees, each of its telltale constellations sparkling and dancing as if performing some exuberant cosmic waltz. Underneath the center of this crystalline floor, the Earth rotated slowly, its lone pale natural satellite circling it as silently as a shadow. Bright points of light dotted the Earth spinning beneath me, like giant fires raging across its surface, and dark black clouds of ash covered the planet like bitter shrouds.
Surrounding me are twenty-four ornate seats stationed equidistant from each other in a circle around the room I knelt in. A luminous human figure adorned in white robes sat on each throne, an equally pristine white turban bound to each head by a dazzling circlet of gold as ornate as the seats these figures inhabited. I could not discern their features, as each figure’s face shone as bright as the sun, and I had to avert my eyes when I tried to meet their gazes. A glittering golden menorah stood near the center of the room, the flames of its lamps only adding to the brilliance of the room and making it more difficult to see clearly. I can barely make out several tall, powerfully muscled winged beings standing behind the twenty-four seated figures, their feathers catching the light emanating from the center of the hall like prisms, casting will-of-the-whisp like glimmers of light on the walls and doors behind them.
At the center of the room stand four fearsome, immeasurably potent, radiant inhuman beings, their skin embedded with unblinking, always-moving eyes all around their bodies. They see everything and they know everything. The figures are stationed at ordinal points around the most elaborate and decorated throne I have ever laid eyes upon, far more ornate and enchanting than any mortal-made seat of power. The figure at what could be called the northwest point looks like a proud lion with six wings protruding from its back; the figure at the northeast looks like an aggressive young bull snorting in preparation to charge, six dazzling wings protruding from its back; the figure at the southeast point looks like a flaming human figure bearing six fiery wings, one set of wings covering its face, another set of wings covering its feet; and the final entity at the southwest point looks like a six-winged eagle, each powerful wing in motion as the multi-eyed “eagle” hovered in place, each eagle-eye as watchful as the eyes of its fellows. A ribbon of emerald light surrounds them, arching over them like a shining “rainbow” of various shades of green and sparkling like the finest emerald.
Seated on the shining throne at the center of the four powerful winged entities is a robed human being I cannot see well, as it shone with a potent reddish-amber light that shifted through deep red and orange-red colors like a bonfire. At the sight of this fiery celestial Being, I kneel my head to the floor — in part out of a deep-seated reverence I could not explain as I cannot see who the Being is, in part to avert my eyes lest the tableau of light and colors surrounding me blinded me permanently.
I shield my eyes, and I see a meek and lowly Lamb, though this Lamb is no ordinary member of Ovis aries. This seven-horned, seven-eyed lamb stood on His hind legs like a man, and His hands appeared eerily human. Painful-looking crimson scars mar its wrists, and a horrifying gash punctures its right fore-flank. This Lamb holds a simple scroll of well-worn parchment in its gentle hands, the scroll bearing seven rich red wax seals, all of them freshly broken. Seven powerfully winged angels stood behind the Lamb, each bearing a gleaming golden shofar in its hands.
Six angels have their trumpets lowered, as if having just played their blaring notes. The seventh angel brought his golden shofar closer to its face, ready to play its fateful tune…
The angels standing throughout the throne room loudly cried:
“THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD HAVE BECOME THE KINGDOM OF 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄 AND HIS MESSIAH,
AND HE WILL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER!”
The angel placed the shofar to its lips…
A shofar blasts, one long, powerful tekiah gedolah blast, and I am roused from my reverie by the spiritual alarm. I bow my head for a moment of quiet reflection.
I have heard the song of the shofar at its appointed time — here at my domicile tonight, and echoing through my soul into eternity. The time for sleep is over, and the time to arise from slumber is upon us as we have now stepped into the Days of Awe. Time to wash away the old, watch it all pass away on Yom Kippur, and do something new with my life.
At this time, Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish “civil new year” observance1 — is at its close. Numbers 29:1 refers to it as Yom Teru’ah (“The Day of Sounding [of Trumpets / the Shofar]”)2, and it is considered the Shabbat Shabbaton or “the ultimate Sabbath” as well as the beginning of the High Holy Days or the Yamim Noraim (“Days of Awe”), the most sacred time in the Jewish calendar. It’s a time of deep reflection, introspection, and spiritual renewal.
Those who adhere to the Torah’s edicts are supposed to spend the month before Rosh Hashanah — the month of Elul — in penitent meditation. I loathe to admit this, but lately, it’s been one thing after another: the crush of work and the crushing mental weariness afterward, the burdens of financial obligations I can barely meet at times, and the myriad of other mind-numbing day-to-day dreariness I often struggle to accomplish or put off entirely… I’ve felt too buried by every responsibility I’ve been forced to face that I’ve felt like I’ve been smothered to sleep. Yet, I haven’t completely banished Rosh Hashanah from my mind; it’s been at the edge of my subconscious for some time now. I’ve peeked at the calendar now and then, watching the day draw nearer, like an insomniac awaiting their clock’s shrill alarm.
That’s what Rosh Hashanah is: it’s a spiritual alarm clock, with the blowing of the shofar as a living “wake up” call to change our lifestyles, as Rabbi Maimonides wrote in the fourth section of his chapter on Teshuvah (Repentance) in the Mishneh Torah.
It is as if [the shofar’s call] is saying: “Wake up you sleepy ones from your sleep and you who slumber, arise. Inspect your deeds, repent, remember your Creator […] Improve your ways and your deeds and let every one of you abandon his evil path and thoughts.”
For reasons I find difficult to explain, I feel tremendous exhilaration — a deep-seated emotional agitation, a turbulent spiritual arousal — at Rosh Hashanah. In light of this, I must ask: What was I hoping to be awakened to this Rosh Hashanah? What kind of deeds do I want to be remembered for in this life and in eternity?
I can almost see a glimpse of myself through an imaginary mirror… but it’s not myself I’m seeing, not really.
The person I see has fully realized himself. He knows exactly who he is, and he is wholly inhabiting every moment he lives. He works for a purpose. He writes for a purpose. He’s an artist, a filmmaker, a tzaddik at one with Adonai and possessing a clear vision, and he presses forward until that vision is made real by his hands and by the hands of those who struggled alongside him, in the merit of Yeshua and at the urgings of Adonai. He gives without expecting reward, he loves without holding anything back, and he smiles in the darkest of moments.
He seems so far from where I am and who I am now…
I can almost spot him now and then, out of the corner of my sight. I see how he dresses, how he moves, who he surrounds himself with… but I stare through a glass darkly, my head facing a different way. Work catches my sight and draws my vision one way, obligations turn my head in another, family toward a wholly different direction, and I never get a full, head-on glance at the person I’m striving to become.
Finances and health concerns, social struggles, and worldly woes press me back to sleep night after night, but it’s been a fitful slumber, the sleep of the resurrected-in-progress pushing as hard as possible against six feet of heavy earth while broken bones are still mending and muscle tissues are still reforming. I’m almost free… but free of what? What am I fighting against, and what am I really fighting for?
I will know soon enough! Rosh Hashanah is the wake-up call, and tonight the sleeper awakens…
The initial story portion of this post is based on a Yom Teruah 2022 sermon by the late Dan Johnson, pastor at Emet HaTorah of Odessa, Texas.
