How the Shofar Flips the Script on Teshuva

What I Suddenly Heard Inside the Word Shofar

This Torah is dedicated לעילוי נשמת, for the elevation of the souls of, our fallen soldiers, Ephraim ben Liat v’Shmuel, Yosef Malachi ben Dina v’David, Eliyahu Moshe Shlomo ben Sarah v’Shimon, Yosef Chaim ben Rachel v’Eliyahu, Netanel ben Revital v’Elad, Yakir ben Chaya v’Yehoshua, Ron ben Sara v’Kenny, and Harel ben Yonat v’Shlomo. May their memories be a blessing, and may the lives they gave so much to protect continue to grow, flourish, and bring light.

Sometime in the middle of the night last night, I woke up with a big thought that is probably completely obvious to everyone else but me, but it caught me by surprise.

Shofar. Shipur. Improvement.

Shofar and improvement share the same Hebrew root ש.פ.ר.

I have heard the shofar every Rosh Hashanah of my life. I know the Rambam's famous call hidden within its sound: עורו ישנים משנתכם—wake up, you who are sleeping. I know that the shofar calls us to teshuva, repentance, and return. But somehow I had never stopped at the word itself.

שופר, shofar. שיפור, shipur, improvement

Once I saw it, I couldn't go back to sleep.

Improvement is a very specific act. I only invest time and effort to improve things that I already think are worthwhile. If I have a beautiful home, I may find the perfect picture for an empty wall, add a plant to a corner, change the lighting, or move a piece of furniture so that the room looks even better. I make improvements because I love the house. I see what is already there, and I can imagine how much more fabulous it can become. If I dislike what is in front of me or see no value in it, I will not invest in it; I will discard it.

Improvement is an investment, and investment requires confidence in the raw material.

I think the same is true of ourselves. Real improvement begins with the belief that my life is worth investing in. I am worthwhile enough to pay attention to the details, to become more honest, more generous, more disciplined, more present. What is here is valuable enough to improve.

That thought led me to a woman whose very name carries the word שיפור, shipur, improvement.

Shifra

The Torah introduced Shifra and Puah in one of the darkest moments of Jewish history. Pharaoh had enslaved the Jewish people and commanded the midwives to murder the baby boys as they were born. Chazal, our Sages, identified Shifra as Yocheved and explained her name:

שפרה — שמשפרת את הולד.

“Shifra — because she would improve, tend to and beautify the newborn.”

I picture Shifra straightening a tiny outfit, adding an adorable accessory, putting a little pink bow in a baby's hair. But I have also always wondered why Chazal, our Sages, chose to tell us this and why it is such a special behavior.

These women were saving babies from Pharaoh. They were risking their own lives rather than participate in the murder of Jewish children. Against that backdrop, why does it matter that Shifra made the babies beautiful?

Keep the baby alive. Surely survival is what matters.

I think I was missing the point.

Pharaoh had reduced Jewish life to the most basic question of existence: Will this baby live or die? Shifra refused to allow Pharaoh to define the terms. It wasn't enough that this child survived. This child was precious. This child deserved to be held, tended to, cleaned and cared for. Pharaoh saw a Jewish baby whose life was disposable; Shifra saw a precious life worth investing in.

Her שיפור, her act of improvement and care, was an act of defiance.

Where did this defiance happen?

מצרים, Mitzrayim

Mitzrayim, the place of מיצרים, narrow places and constriction.

The first image that came to mind when I thought about שיפור, improvement, was not of beautiful, comfortable circumstances. Shifra was making improvements in the narrowest of places. She tended to beauty while surrounded by brutality, taking something precious into her hands in a world trying to destroy it.

And once again, we are right back at the shofar.

From the Narrow Place

The shofar itself moves from narrowness to expansiveness. We place our mouths at its narrow opening, put our breath into the meitzar, the narrow place, and the sound travels outward as the horn widens.

מן המצר קראתי יה, ענני במרחב יה.

“From the narrow place I called to God; God answered me from the wide-open space.”

The sound does not begin in the מרחב, the merchav, the open space. It begins in the מיצר, the meitzar, the place of constriction, just as Shifra's שיפור, improvement, began in Mitzrayim.

The places in our lives that most need שיפור rarely feel expansive. They feel tight and uncomfortable. They are the moments when I realize that the story I have been telling myself isn't completely true, when someone gives me feedback I don't want to hear, when an old pattern shows up again, or when I recognize that something I have comfortably blamed on someone else actually belongs to me.

Our instinct in those moments is often to escape the constriction as quickly as possible. I can defend, explain, blame, minimize—anything that gets me out of that uncomfortable space.

Or I can put my breath there.

The shofar begins exactly where things get tight.

This brings us back to the Rambam.

Wake Up

The Rambam hears a message inside the shofar:

עורו ישנים משנתכם ונרדמים הקיצו מתרדמתכם.

“Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep. Those who are slumbering, awaken.”

I used to understand that sleep rather simply. We get distracted. We become complacent. We move through life on autopilot, and the shofar comes once a year to shake us awake: Pay attention. Look at your life.

I now hear another layer in those words.

Sometimes sleep is survival.

There are things we don't see because seeing them feels dangerous. If every mistake I uncover becomes evidence that I am bad, self-awareness carries an enormous price. If acknowledging that I hurt someone means admitting that I am a terrible person, I will find ten explanations for why what happened wasn't really my fault. If recognizing jealousy, selfishness, fear, or dishonesty threatens the story I need to believe about myself, I will hold onto that story for dear life.

We call that defensiveness, but defensiveness keeps us asleep. It protects us from information we don't feel safe enough to know.

The connection between שופר, shofar, and שיפור, shipur, becomes much clearer. The shofar tells us to wake up, while improvement changes what waking up means. We are not waking up to put ourselves on trial. We are waking up to pay attention to something worth tending.

That is exactly what Shifra did with the newborn in her hands. She saw the baby's beauty amid the blood and mess of birth. These were simply the things that needed tending.

Have we made teshuva, repentance and return, much harder than it needs to be by confusing seeing what needs attention with discovering that something is fundamentally wrong?

And then I discovered that Chazal had been here all along. I love when that happens.

שפרו מעשיכם—Improve Your Actions

In Vayikra Rabbah 29:6, Rabbi Berechiah reads the words תקעו בחודש שופר, “Blow the shofar at the appointed time,” and hears within them the very connection that had kept me awake:

בחודש הזה תחדשו מעשיכם... בשופר, בחודש הזה שפרו מעשיכם.

“In this month, renew your actions. With the shofar, in this month, improve your actions.”

שפרו מעשיכם — improve your actions.

The Midrash then continues:

אם שפרתם מעשיכם הריני נעשה לכם כשופר הזה. מה שופר זה מכניס בזו ומוציא בזו, כך אני עומד מכסא הדין ויושב על כסא רחמים, והופך לכם מדת הדין למדת רחמים.

“If you improve your actions, I will become for you like this shofar. Just as the shofar takes in from this side and brings out from the other, so I rise from the throne of judgment and sit upon the throne of mercy, transforming for you the attribute of judgment into the attribute of mercy.”

The Etz Yosef, citing the Radal, explains:

מה שופר זה מכניס בזו ומוציא בזו — מכניס מן המצר ומוציא לרחבה.

“The shofar takes in from the narrow place and brings out into expansiveness.”

I had followed שיפור, improvement, to Shifra, and Shifra had taken me to Mitzrayim, the place of constriction. I had looked at the shape of the shofar and seen the movement from מיצר, constriction, to מרחב, expansiveness. And here, inside the very Midrash that connects שופר to שיפור, that same movement appears.

Improvements begins מן המצר, from the narrow place.

Not after the constriction has passed. Not when everything is comfortable and clear. The movement itself begins there. We put our breath into the narrow opening, and something different can emerge from the other side.

The Midrash then describes the corresponding movement above. We respond to the shofar with שיפור, improvement, and God moves from דין, din, judgment, to רחמים, rachamim, mercy.

There is something profound in the pairing. דין, din, looks directly at what is wrong and renders judgment. רחמים does not make the mistake disappear or remove responsibility for it, but it holds the mistake within the context of the whole person. And that is exactly the space in which honest improvement becomes possible.

When every flaw becomes evidence for the prosecution, I need a defense attorney. I explain, justify, and protect myself. But when I am held with רחמים, mercy, I can stay in the uncomfortable place long enough to become curious. I can ask harder questions because the answers no longer have the power to destroy the whole.

Why did I do that? What was I protecting? What didn't I see? What can I learn now?

The shofar is beginning to sound less like an alarm that frightens us into changing and more like an invitation into a completely different kind of awareness. It calls us to wake up without requiring us to condemn ourselves in order to do it.

And it changes the way I hear words we say in our Rosh Hashanah tefillah, prayer:

אהבת אותנו ורצית בנו.

“You loved us and You wanted us.”

We do not arrive at Rosh Hashanah trying to persuade God that we are worth investing in. אהבת אותנו ורצית בנו, “You loved us, and You wanted us" is already part of the relationship. We enter the work of teshuva, repentance and return, from within that knowledge, just as every baby born into Shifra’s loving hands was received as a life that was wanted, precious, and worth tending to.

The house is already mine. I already love it.

Now I can look around carefully and ask what needs attention.

The Sound

After all of the words we use to explain teshuva, repentance, and return, the central sound of Rosh Hashanah contains no words at all. The shofar does not formulate a defense or explain exactly what went wrong. It does not present a neatly organized plan for the year ahead. We place our mouths against a narrow opening, fill it with breath, and cry out.

There is something profoundly unashamed about that cry. Shame makes us contract. It tells us not to make noise, not to expose need, and not to take up too much space until we have figured ourselves out. The shofar allows something much less organized to emerge. I can want more before I know exactly what “more” looks like. I can feel the distance between where I am and where I want to be before I know how to close it. I can bring confusion, longing, regret, hope, and desire into one wordless sound.

That sound, beginning in the מיצר, the meitzar, the narrow place, means something different to me. It is not simply a cry to escape the narrow place. It is the beginning of שיפור, improvement, itself. The narrowness can hold the very breath that carries us toward מרחב, expansiveness.

I find myself thinking again about Shifra standing in Mitzrayim with a newborn in her hands. A Jewish child has just emerged into a world of slavery, danger and uncertainty. There is blood and mess, and Shifra tends to the baby because none of that obscures what she sees. This is a precious life.

משפרת את הולד—tending to and beautifying the newborn

The shofar has to begin from the narrow end. שיפור, improvement, doesn't begin after we escape the uncomfortable places. It begins when we are willing to enter them without confusing constriction with condemnation.

This year, I hope to hear the shofar as an invitation to wake up enough to notice more. To notice where I am constricted, where I am defending, and where there is something I haven't wanted to see. To put my breath there instead of running from it, trusting that awareness itself can become an act of שיפור, improvement.

Life is not a finished product. Neither are we. There is always another detail to notice, another choice to make with greater intention, another piece of raw material to work with. That doesn't diminish the value of what is already here. It is what we do with something we know is worth the investment.

shofar. Improvement

מן המצר קראתי יה, ענני במרחב יה.

“From the narrow place I called to God; God answered me from the wide-open space.”

From the narrow place, we wake up, we call out, and we begin to move toward מרחב, merchav, expansiveness.

Wishing my dear husband Daniel a huge happy birthday! It is a true honor and privilege living this complex and beautiful life at your side. You make everything more fun! Thanks for being my Matzav Man. May Hashem bless you with a beautiful year of joy, nachat, success, and good health.

A Tefillah for the New Year

To my dear friends and family,

I wish for you the ability to love the vessel that you are. To know that the desire to improve it is evidence that you are remarkable raw material, worthy of attention, effort, curiosity, and investment.

I wish for you the courage to wake up and see more of yourself this year, including the parts that are still messy and unfinished, without needing to turn what you find into a verdict. May you have the confidence to remain in the מיצר, the meitzar, the narrow place, long enough to discover what it has to teach you, and the faith to know that constriction is an invitation and can open into מרחב, merchav, expansiveness.

Most of all, I wish for you the willingness to call out. To call out in the middle of the mess, before you have found the words. To bring the unbaked requests, the confusion, the things you want to change, and the things you don't yet even know need changing. May the cry come before the clarity.

Hashem does not need you to arrive neatly packaged.

אהבת אותנו ורצית בנו—"You

loved us and You wanted us.”

He already loves you. He already wants you.

May that knowledge give you the confidence to put your breath into the narrow places, to wake up without fear, and to keep investing in the remarkable life you have been given.

May this be a year of שיפור, shipur, improvement; a year of רחמים, rachamim, mercy; and a year in which the cries that begin מן המצר, from the narrow place, open, with Hashem's help, into extraordinary מרחב, merchav, expansiveness.

כתיבה וחתימה טובה