It was a Rosh Hashanah like any other Rosh Hashanah. I sat in my accustomed place, in the front row on the far right, the majestic dome rising above towards the heavens. Almost thirty years have passed and here I was again. How had the shadow of time slipped by without me noticing?
The stained-glass windows, blue and red and green, reminded me of the Reform temple of my youth in Portland, Oregon. Back then, the rabbi was aloof and lacking in bedside manner. I never had a conversation with him. My current rabbi, standing on the elevated stage before me in his white kittel, his reddish beard tinged with gray, had become a fixture in my life. I ate with him and his wife almost every Friday night after my wife passed away two years ago. Each year, I observed the same details—his steps a bit slower now, the two of us knocking on the door of Old Age, that sneaky fellow who creeps up when you’re not paying attention.
The gabbaim, the ba’alei keriah, the sheluchei tzibbur, the openers and closers of the aron kodesh, the ba’al tokeah and the aliyah auctioneer all wove their sacred roles into the liturgy as the prayers traced their ancient path forward. I was content to remain anonymous. Although I began my observance in my early twenties—forty-five years ago—I feel that the “lifers” who grew up in shuls are familiar with the detailed customs while I remain an outsider. I stand when the kehillah stands, and I sit when they sit. I’m an extra on the set, observing the rabbi and his supporting cast. But when it comes time for the blowing of the shofar—a moment of spiritual awakening according to our sages—my mind drifts back to my youth.
In the third grade, I began playing the trumpet in public school. I played in the school band and orchestra, and I took private lessons with the first chair trumpeter of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. I practiced daily after school. I read musical scores as readily as I read English. I was the drum major of the high school marching band, high-stepping at halftime in my white uniform with the gold-tasseled helmet. And I played in a drum and bugle corps, with 100 kids traveling across the country on ancient, used Greyhound busses in the summer, from Akron, Ohio, to Wenatchee, Washington, sleeping on gym floors and on the bus. I continued playing at the University of Oregon, marching at football games and playing in the pep band at basketball games. When I left college to learn in yeshivah, playing music fell by the wayside. A decade after I last attended any formal services, I was once again in shul on Rosh Hashanah, and the blowing of the shofar awakened in me the memories of blowing my trumpet. I even bought a shofar and practiced every Elul, the sound of which no doubt was heard next door where the rabbi lived. My trumpet playing technique transferred to the shofar, and my daily blasts aroused in me an echo of the past, and a personal prayer for the future, for another year of life.
Everybody has a moment in their life when the strands of a lifetime come together in perfect harmony.
That year Rosh Hashanah began like any other, two long days in shul looming ahead of me. The davening progressed through familiar terrain, and I surrendered to the rhythm of the day, until the moment of shofar blowing arrived. Our regular ba’al tokeah began in his clear and expert style, handling the sets of tekiah, shevarim and teruah with no hesitation. But during the second set of blasts, he uncharacteristically began to sputter, and after repeated attempts, couldn’t produce a sound. The rabbi made a call to the bullpen. A small voice inside me hoped to be called up to save the day. But he motioned to a part-time professional musician who davens in our shul, who plays the tuba. Mr. Tuba took over, sending tekiahs and teruahs towards heaven without a hitch. Until he soon started to falter, and the shofar blasts turned into the sound of an old car that blew a gasket and broke down on the side of the road. The relief pitcher was out of gas, and the last set of thirty blasts remained. The rabbi huddled with the gabbaim. Nothing like this had ever happened. Again, I hoped that the rabbi would turn to me. Hadn’t he heard me practicing every morning? I was confident that I could have done the entire day’s regimen without tiring because I knew the technique of blowing without undue pressure on the embouchure. But I was reticent. I’m confident to assert myself at work, but I hesitate to assert myself in the shul. My outsider self-image remains. The meeting broke up and the rabbi walked in my direction. The closer he got, the more I thought that he was coming for me. He approached and whispered in my ear, “Efraim, do you think you could take over?”
Everybody has a moment in their life when the strands of a lifetime come together in perfect harmony. Right person, right place, right time. I didn’t hesitate.
“Definitely,” I said, intentionally nonchalant. I calmly approached the bimah in the middle of the shul. All eyes were on me. Fortunately, I didn’t have long to anticipate the moment and get nervous. I picked up the shofar, and the rabbi called out “Tekiah!”
My lips came together, corners of the mouth firm as I had been taught, and I remembered my trumpet teacher’s refrain: “Breathe from the diaphragm, like a drowning man going down for the third time.” After fifty years, I saw my teacher before me as I filled up my lungs with air. The sound emerged from the depths of long-ago memories, and I sustained the first long tone for more than the minimum requirement. The shorter notes also came out clearly. Now I was playing in front of my teacher, I was playing in the school band, I was on the field at half time of a University of Oregon football game, I was marching in a drum corps contest in Missoula, Montana. I was everywhere and anywhere. The commands of “tekiah, shevarim, teruah” were etched in my mind, and now the day was passing by too quickly. I didn’t want it to end. Finally, the rabbi called out “tekiah gedolah,” and I must have held the final note for thirty seconds. I could’ve gone on forever.
Efraim Jaffe is an independent certified financial planner who splits his time between Passaic, New Jersey, and Great Neck, New York.