One-Page Learn · The Halachos at a glance
שׁוֹפָר וְסֻכָּה וְלוּלָב
Shofar, Sukkah and Lulav 2
Sefer Zemanim · Who must hear the shofar, why intention makes the mitzvah, and when the shofar goes silent
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Word changes it: "to hear," not "to blow"
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Exempt: women, slaves, and minors
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Intentions required - blower and hearer
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Blasts when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat
2:1-3The debt you cannot lend
- The mitzvah is to hear. The blessing is "to hear the sound of the shofar," not "to blow" - the Rambam emends it deliberately, so the obligation is the hearing, and the blowing is only its means. (2:1)
- Who is bound, who is free. Priests, Levites, Israelites, converts, and freed slaves are obligated; women, slaves, and minors are exempt; a tumtum and an androgynos are obligated. (2:1)
- You cannot give what you do not owe. One who is not himself obligated cannot facilitate the mitzvah for one who is - so if a woman or a minor blows, an obligated listener has not fulfilled it, however kosher the blast. (2:2)
- The divided self. A person who is half slave and half free cannot even blow for himself, because his enslaved half cannot discharge his free half; he must hear a free man blow. (2:3)
RememberHoliness is not a candle you can hand over - only one inside the obligation can discharge it for another.
2:4-5Two minds, one sound
- Both sides must intend. The listener must intend to fulfill the mitzvah and the blower must intend to bring him into it; if either intention is missing, the obligation is not discharged. (2:4)
- The casual blast does nothing. One who blows merely to practice or to learn brings no one in, and one who hears a shofar blown casually has not fulfilled his obligation. (2:4)
- A wide intention reaches far. If the blower means to enable everyone who hears him, a listener who intends to fulfill does so - even a traveler on the road or a man in his home, whom the blower never knew was there. (2:5)
- Unlike matzah. Eating matzah under compulsion still fulfills the mitzvah, because the body benefits; hearing gives the body nothing, so the entire mitzvah lives in the meeting of the two intentions. (2:4)
RememberThe shofar cannot be done by accident - two minds must meet over a sound with no words in it.
2:6-10When the shofar falls silent
- Silent on Shabbat. When Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat the shofar is not sounded - not because blowing is forbidden work, but by a decree lest one carry the shofar four cubits in the public domain to an expert. (2:6)
- Where the court sits. While the Temple stood the shofar was sounded in Jerusalem on Shabbat; today it may be sounded on Shabbat only before a court whose judges hold semichah and that has sanctified the new moon. (2:8-9)
- Teaching the children. Children too young to be trained are not stopped from blowing on an ordinary Shabbat so they will learn, and an adult may help instruct them on the festival itself. (2:7)
- Two days in exile. We keep two days of Rosh Hashanah, and the shofar is sounded on the second day as on the first; if the first falls on Shabbat, those without a fit court blow only on the second day. (2:10)
RememberThe Alter Rebbe: Shabbat itself draws down what the shofar draws - so on that day the deepest hearing needs no sound at all. (2:6)