HOW A CHRISTIAN MAN HAS BEEN BLESSED BY AN ANCIENT JEWISH ANIMAL-HORN
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
IN THE MIDST OF THIS GLOBAL PANDEMIC – with all of its open-ended uncertainty, health concerns, job concerns, global market volatility, up-ended lives and fear of an unknown future – it’s been hard for many, perhaps most people to focus on the 40 day season of Lent which began Ash Wednesday (Feb. 26) and will end during Holy Week (sometime between Apr. 5-12 depending on who’s calculating). It seems as if everything in life has temporarily taken a backseat to the coronavirus threat and the unprecedented response to it.
Fortunately for me – and I sincerely hope for those of you who will take a minute to read what I’m about to share – I’ve derived tremendous comfort from both learning to blow the shofar and the experience of others’ reactions to it as I’ve asked to blow and then blasted-away with this ancient Biblical horn at significant places across central S.C.
It’s all been part my Lenten observances. My goal was to blow the shofar in at least one significant place every day for 40 days. Today, it’s been 38 days, and I’m already up to 107 significant places.
The experience has been extraordinary if you’ll pardon the trite adjective. But it has been ‘extra’ (outside of or beyond) the ordinary. I’ll explain why momentarily.
WHAT IS A SHOFAR?
Referred to simply as a horn and sometimes a trumpet in the various English translations of the Bible, the shofar is perhaps the oldest wind-instrument in the world.
A shofar is made from an animal horn, which is why we call a horn a horn. The shofar is usually made from a ram’s horn; sometimes a kudu antelope’s horn. Of course, not all horned animals are considered kosher in Jewish tradition, so the ram and kudu horns are by far the most prevalent shofars; though some shofars are fashioned from a gemsbok antelope.
We read about shofars in the Old and New Testaments whenever we read about “horns” and sometimes when we read about “trumpets.” Whenever we read of horns and trumpets together, the horn is always a shofar. But sometimes trumpets are horns (shofars), and sometimes trumpets are trumpets. And only those with a background in Hebrew (which I don’t) and perhaps a decent historical perspective (which I do) will know the difference when reading Scripture in any of the English language translations we have.
THE BLAST OF THE SHOFAR
For the ancient Hebrews, the blast of a shofar was used to announce the new moon or the beginning of festivals. Shofar blasts were also used as signals or alarms, or for military assembly. The watchmen or guards standing posts atop ancient city walls blew shofars. Attacking armies blew shofars. Priests blew shofars. The shofar blast is said to confuse the enemy and drive the enemy away. Most of us know about the shofar’s unique uses by Gideon’s men against the Midianites (certainly confusing and driving away the Midianites) as well as the employment of the shofar by priests accompanying Joshua’s forces before the ill-fated walls of Jericho. Angels are even said to blow shofars. Some sources say, the devil himself hates the sound of the shofar (Makes sense. After all, the shofar is, again, said to drive away the enemy.). Shofars in the ancient world were blown to announce the coronation of kings, and shofars are said to be a call to repentance. The shofar is also said to be the “voice of God.”
Today our Jewish brethren blow the shofar during their High Holidays, primarily Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We Christians rarely blow the shofar; though some do especially those within the Messianic Jewish tradition. BY THE WAY, did you know shofars were forbidden in Nazi death camps like Auschwitz? Some shofars, however, were smuggled into the camps, and at least one such shofar survived the war. That shofar exists today in a Holocaust museum collection.
The sound of the shofar is unique albeit similar to a modern trumpet. It’s considered more difficult to play though because no two shofars are alike. No shofar is symmetrically exact. And only a limited number of notes may be blown from the shofar, though those notes may be manipulated by the musician to sound like a different note.
SHOFAR, SO GOOD!
How did this shofar blowing come about for me? I really don’t know, except to say that about a year-or-so ago, it came to me that I needed to learn to play the shofar. Why? Also, not sure.
I looked online for a shofar. What I discovered was that shofars could only be purchased overseas, primarily Israel. I didn’t want to buy one sight unseen. So I temporarily put my desire for one on hold.
Then last Christmas, I noticed for the first time that in the movie Ben-Hur (the multiple Academy Award-winning 1959 version with Charlton Heston), a shepherd is depicted blowing the shofar in the very beginning of the film following the visit of the magi. I’ve seen Ben-Hur countless times, but that was the first time I had noticed the scene of the shepherd and the shofar.
Fast forward to Feb. 9, 2020, as several of us gathered for Sunday School. I asked my friend Dawn Faber, who I knew worked at Columbia International University (CIU, formerly Columbia Bible College), if she knew someone at CIU who had a shofar. She said she’d ask. Within days, Dawn introduced me to Dr. Bryan Beyer, the dean of CIU’s College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Beyer had two shofars, and he was willing to part with one he had purchased years ago in a Jerusalem market.
“YOU WILL SEEK ME AND FIND ME”
I picked up my shofar on Feb. 12. Daily practice began immediately, and something transformative began to happen as I would pray and blow. I wasn’t very good. I’m still not. But something spiritually exhilarating took place every time I practiced. I can’t explain it. I just know what the experience felt and feels like.
I decided within a week of my acquisition that I would play the shofar at 40 significant locations across central S.C. over the 40 days of Lent. Not sure what I was hoping to accomplish. But I was trusting God who tells us through the prophet Jeremiah, “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.” And this was but another way I would seek Him with all my heart.
What has since happened is something I cannot explain.
Every one of the chosen destinations I have stopped-by to blow – usually between daytime work meetings, sometimes late at night or the wee hours of the morning – I have been welcomed with open arms by people I have never met. Where there was the slightest bit of resistance (and that has been rare), it melted away before I could fully make my case. I have even been granted access within minutes to places where no one would otherwise be permitted. Truly the responses from those whom I have encountered have been nothing less than God-inspired.
AIRPORT RUNWAYS AND 50-YARD LINES
I’ve blown blasts from the top steps of the S.C. State House; the tarmacs of both Columbia Metropolitan Airport and Owens Field; the stage of Columbia’s Township Auditorium; two college football stadiums; the 50-yard-line of the Gamecock practice field; Colonial Life Arena; the rooftop of the Capitol Center (the tallest building in South Carolina); the Columbia Fireflies baseball park; the pulpits of myriad churches; the front porches of historic homes; military sites and military facilities; the Springdale racetrack in Camden; various other sites in Richland, Lexington, Kershaw, and Fairfield Counties; the banks of four rivers (three of them in a driving rain at dawn); the top of the Lake Murray Dam facing the five towers, and at the COVID-19 testing tents of every hospital in Columbia and Lexington.
I hadn’t played more than three-or-so notes at a Columbia church when a sudden bolt of lightning flashed and thunder pealed. I know that doesn’t seem too unusual. But how do I explain bells ringing from other churches’ bell towers at the moment I began blowing? Or the church secretary who, when I was explaining that I wanted to blow the shofar, simply handed me the keys to the sanctuary of one of the oldest, most beautiful churches in Camden. Wide open gates. Unlocked doors. Gatekeepers and security guards with open arms.
I could go on-and-on for over 100 sites with one site as truly significant as the next, and nearly everyone I encountered wanting to talk about God.
GIFTS FROM GOD
Nearly no resistance. Overwhelmingly welcomed. No explanation necessary.
For instance, when I pulled into the ER parking lot at Prisma Health Richland, got out of my car, and started blowing long slow blasts, I was approached by a hospital administrator who was guiding patients either to the ER or the coronavirus testing tent. I said, “Ma’am this is a…” But before I could finish my sentence she smiled a big smile and said, “I know what that is, and I know what you’re doing. May God bless you for this.”
At Lexington’s ER, I was approached by several nurses and administrators all of whom were wearing their protective masks. They were stretching out their arms toward me as a sort of a social-distancing embrace, and saying things like “God Bless you.”
Then there were the special gifts.
In early March, I played for some 30-or-so wide-eyed four-and-five-year-old children on the invitation of Pastor George Crow at my own Northeast Presbyterian Church within five minutes of my simply stopping by the church to practice. The faces of the children were a gift.
I was later invited to blow my horn at a neighboring church’s gathering around a firepit on Maundy Thursday. I had to decline the invitation as that would’ve been the evening and time of my own church’s Communion service. Like the Communion service, the firepit gathering has likely since been cancelled. But the invitation itself was a gift.
Then at the entrance to a downtown Columbia church where I startled a homeless man who was sleeping on the steps, I apologized and told the man that I was going to blow a few blasts from the shofar, but that he should go back to sleep when I left. He said, “No sir! Please blow. I know that’s the Lord’s horn!”
Therein lies the answer. It’s the Lord’s horn. The angels know it. And there are still a few days left in Lent.
– W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a New York Times bestselling editor and military technical advisor. Visit him online at uswriter.com.