High Holidays · Elul

Why is the shofar sounded in Elul?

A cry that wakes the sleeper

The shofar is not only the instrument of Rosh Hashanah; through Elul its raw, wordless voice is sounded each morning to prepare the heart. The Rambam, in Hilchot Teshuvah (Laws of Return) 3:4, gives the reason with unusual force: the shofar's blast says, in effect, wake, you sleepers, from your sleep; search your deeds and return in teshuvah. It is a sound aimed at the part of us that has drifted off — the routine that has become sleepwalking — and calls it back to attention.

The custom through the month

By long-standing custom the shofar is sounded on each weekday morning of Elul, after the prayers, from Rosh Chodesh onward. There is one deliberate pause: it is not sounded on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, to mark a break between the shofar of custom and the shofar of the mitzvah on the festival itself. Day after day, the sound does its slow work of readying a person for the judgment ahead.

What to do

If you can, hear the shofar in the morning through Elul — at your minyan, or even one blast to begin the day. And let the Rambam's question travel with you past the sound: where in these weeks have I been asleep? Naming one such place, and taking one small step to return, is exactly the waking the shofar is asking for. No one does all of it at once, and Heaven counts the turning, not the distance.

Source: Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 3:4 (the shofar as a call to the sleepers to wake and return); the Elul custom of the daily shofar..