This September or the Hebrew month of Elul, we hosted the “Let HERE Be Light” Tour run by Chabad on Campus on 40+ campuses around the country. As did Chabad in Clinton, serving students at Hamilton College. After Hamilton they went up to Oswego and before heading to Boston and Amherst for more fairs there, they spent Shabbat with us here at UAlbany. And that’s how the Clinton/Hamilton Shofar ended up in back of the Mitzvah Bike we have parked in our Shed. The LHBL staff were blowing it at the Hamilton fair, and accidentally took it with them on their travels and it ended up here when they stayed here for Shabbos.
But the Shofar on back of a Mitzvah Bike in a shed behind a Chabad House in Albany NY won’t help the students at Hamilton College 90 minutes west in Clinton NY!
This recalls a humorous Chelm story (a town about which many humorous fictional stories are told):
The Shamash (sexton) of Chelm would make his rounds up and down the streets of Chelm each morning, knocking on the shutters rousing the townsfolk for prayer. This was in the days before alarm clocks and his services ensured there would be a Minyan, a quorum of men to pray. But the Shamash got older, and the winters grew colder, and it got harder and harder for the Shamash to get around to knock on all the shutters. So the wise men of Chelm (often ridiculed in these fictional stories) gathered to discuss the problem. They came up with this solution: Instead of the Shamash venturing out in the early morning cold to knock on all the shutters, why not bring the shutters to him! So that’s what they did. They took one shutter off each home and lined them up in the Shamash’s home. Each morning he’d go over to the shutters lined up in his home wearing nothing but his pajamas and knock on each one.
But no one woke up! That’s because the knocking and wake-up call isn’t effective when its in the comfort of our homes, distant from the intended person. We have to knock on the shutters at their home! Not inside ours. Reaching out means reaching to where the person is at. Not where we are at.
Shofar only works with proximity and presence. The mitzvah isn’t designed for Zoom or a distance call. It’s mean to be present, to be close, to hear it personally. Rabbi Waks of Clinton County Chabad needs the Shofar over at his Chabad on College Street for it to work, it doesn’t do anything when its far off in Albany.
This Rosh Hashanah, be where the Shofar is. And Shofar where people are – so it hits home and the wake-up call works!