Sound Bites: The Purity of Its Sound

Aug 17th, 2010 by Rabbi Simcha Weinberg in Holidays, Prayer, Spiritual Growth

1 Comment

Sound Waves

“By His breath the heavens were spread – ‘shifra’ – His hand fashioned the earth-girding serpent.” (Job 26:13) Shifra – spread – shares the same root as Shofar. The Malbim believes that “Shifra” means more than to expand: “As the waters spread they purify the heavens, wash away the clouds, and allow the sky to expand.” Shifra is to expand through cleansing and purification.

The Shofar reminds us we must purify ourselves in order to expand and take full advantage of the potential offered by God as we prepare for Rosh Hashanah.

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1 Comment

• Él-Ad Eliovson Aug 31, 2009 at 8:15 am

  Reading this entry I was reminded of how good it feels to be healthy and whole. And then I thought about actions/activities I am drawn to that injure that wholeness.

  I often think to myself and review in my mind: we are mostly born whole. Children don’t smoke. They don’t drink coffee. They don’t drink alcohol. They don’t see movies over a G rating. Good parents make sure they have a balanced diet and get a full night’s sleep. They make sure they either don’t watch TV at all or allow only judiscious amounts of time for Television/Videos and monitor what they watch. Then I ask myself, when did I stop doing this? And I think of the benefit reverting to childhood routines would have for me.

  It is very beneficial to read entries like this, perhaps even as daily affirmations, in order to stay reminded of the state of being we ideally want to be – in order – to *want* it. If we don’t want purity, if we don’t want expansiveness or the potential being offered to us by G-d, we won’t get it.

  If one wants to be a talmid/a chacham/a, well, we have to want it; we have to crack open the books and imbibe their contents night after night after night!

  This idea also appears in Rav Moshe Stepansky’s comments to this blog entry: http://blog.thefoundationstone.org/2009/08/25/dancing-2-forgiveness/ where he quotes the great author of the Mei Marom, Rav Ya’akov Moshe Charlap saying that, “the QUALITY of each person’s experience in the redemption will be determined by the quality of that person’s *longing & expectations” for the redemption.”