Rosh Hashana - This Year The Shofar Is Silent. Your Soul Is Not.

This year, the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbos, and the shofar will not be blown. For many of us, especially after October 7, that silence feels frightening. If the shofar awakens us and protects the year, why would Chazal ask us to enter Rosh Hashanah without it?This shiur, delivered to the Chizuk Mission before Rosh Hashana, explores the difference between יום תרועה and זכרון תרועה and what becomes possible when there is no sound coming from outside of us. Drawing on the Rambam, the Yerushalmi, the Bnei Yissaschar, the Mei HaShiloach and Rav Kook, we discover that the longing we feel for Hashem may itself be evidence that the soul has never forgotten Him.On the first day, we will not hear the shofar. Perhaps the silence is asking us to notice that its cry has been inside us all along.