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Community Corner

Children Embrace Rosh Hashana Tradition, Handmade in Shofar Factory

The Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana begins Wednesday.

Mendota Heights resident and Torah Talmud Headmaster Sara Lynn Newberger joins Jews worldwide who welcome Rosh Hashana sundown Wednesday, when her students will blow their own handcrafted ram horns, or “shofar,” signaling the start of a three-week High Holy Day season.

“God’s shofar will travel,” said a smiling Rabbi Mordechai Grossbaum, who brought a box of ram horns and power tools to both Torah Talmud Jewish Day School in St. Paul and Heilicher Jewish Day School in St. Louis Park last week.  

Grossbaum’s mission is “to make Judaism come alive,” driving his mobile Shofar Factory daily to kids at eight citywide Jewish schools and synagogues whose families are about to enter the three-week High Holy Day season, beginning with Rosh Hashana sundown Wednesday.

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“You can push a book in a kid’s face or you can involve him so he enjoys it,” said Grossbaum. Children with hacksaws cut mouthpieces into the horns, to be used as home versions of the sacred trumpets that will blast 100 times in temples around the world to awaken spiritual sleepers to self-reflection, confession, and renewal.

Headmaster Newberger likes Grossbaum’s educational approach, she said. “This kind of hands-on experience is really important for kids because it creates more than brain memories. It’s in their ears and fingers or in their body experience as well."

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'Taste, Touch, See and Hear'

“This is one of the wonderful things about Judaism and the Jewish holidays in general,” she continued. “There are a whole lot of sensory experiences in most of what we do, whether it’s tasting the apples and honey, or sounding the shofar, or in the wonderful food being cooked—all kinds of things to taste, touch, see and hear.”

“A picture paints a thousand words,” said Grossbaum, a Minnetonka-based rabbi who runs this educational outreach, called Living Legacy, to bring Judaism to a kid’s level. “We have 13 hands-on programs. Last year we made a nine-foot menorah (Jewish candelabra for Hanukkah) out of jelly beans.”

The ram horn-sculpting activity stirred excitement in Heilicher’s fifth graders.

“I’ve been dying to get to fifth grade to make my shofar,” said fifth-grader 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 got the 15-30-minute job of sawing off the tip of the horn to create the mouthpiece. His slighter partner cheered when they were the first ones done.  

Girls teamed with girls, focused and intent, muscling the saw with pride. “It’s hard work, but it’s worth it,” one said.

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

Down the hall, lunching students who had brought shofars from home lined up. Like a religious pep band, they have sounded the blast daily through the month of “Elul,” a month of preparation similar to the Christian season of Advent.

To Newberger, hearing the shofar blasts, as she will this week at in Mendota Heights where she is a member, “is a moving experience. It says, ‘Stand up and pay attention to this.’ And it (reminds you) year over year, which is kind of nice.

“There’s a call to mindfulness, or making choices and deciding if the choices I’ve made up until now are the kind I want to continue to make or if I want to make different kinds of choices.” 

Preparing the Table

Newberger has made her own preparations, continuing her tradition of bringing five different locally produced honeys to the Rosh Hashana table. “We have a taste test just for fun. I bought one or two at the State Fair, another at a farmer’s market, but always local.”

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

Rosh Hashana also launches the self-reflective 10 Days of Awe, similar to the Christian’s season of Lent, ending with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on Oct. 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 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.” 

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