Shofar

The shofar is an unmelodic horn-trumpet, made by hollowing and flattening the horn of a ram, goat, or wild ox and shaping a small mouthpiece at the tip. It produces a small range of piercing pitches and a characteristic raw, slightly buzzing tone. The shofar is the oldest continuously played wind instrument in religious use anywhere in the world. In the Hebrew Bible it sounds at every covenantal threshold: it cracks the air at Sinai when God descends (Exodus 19:16, 19), levels the walls of Jericho on the seventh circuit (Joshua 6:5), proclaims the year of Jubilee when slaves go free and debts are released (Leviticus 25:9), and rallies Israel to battle under Gideon, Saul, and Joab. The annual Feast of Trumpets (Yom Teruah, later Rosh Hashanah) is named after its blast (Leviticus 23:24). The New Testament carries the imagery forward: the last trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15:52 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16 — the call by which God gathers his people — draws on shofar language. The synagogue still hears its three traditional calls — tekiah, shevarim, teruah — each Rosh Hashanah.