Qualifications for a Shofar Sounder (Ba'al T'kiyka)
Arthur L. Finkle
BEING A BA'AL T'KIYAH (SHOFAR SOUNDER) IS AN HONOR.
"The one who blows the shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah...should likewise be
learned in the Torah and shall be God-fearing, the best man available. However, every Jew is eligible for any sacred office, providing
he is acceptable to the congregation. If, however, he sees that his choice will
cause dissension, he should withdraw his candidacy, even if the improper person
will be chosen"
(Shulhan Arukh 3:72). The Ba'al T'kiyah shall abstain from anything that may cause ritual contamination for three days before Rosh ha-Shanah (Shulhan
Arukh 3:73).
When I train Shofar Sounders, I make sure that
they all participate in the service and that no one is highlighted at the
expense of another. I have also declined invitations to sound the shofar at
other congregations if I know that I will displace another sounder. The democracy of each
congregation is important. And it
only enhances a sense of participation of as many people as possible can
participate in a service.
Finally, the Ba'al T'kiyah
shall recite the benedictions before the shofar ceremony.
Arthur L. Finkle, Easy
Guide to Shofar Sounding, Torah Aura, 2002
Moreover, the Talmud
indicates that a woman can sound the Shofar but only for other women
because this positive mitzvah
(obligation) is time bound for which women are exempt.. Mishnah Berurah 588:6.
To which I would now add
that, in the preponderance of non-Orthodox synagogues, women have achieved
ritual equality as men. Accordingly, there is no prohibition for a man to sound
the Shofar in these synagogues.
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The general
rule is that women are exempt from mitzvahs which are time-dependant.1 This would include
the Mitzvah of hearing the Shofar -- which has a very specific time
designation; it must be fulfilled during the daytime hours of Rosh Hashanah.
Nevertheless, there are certain
time-contingent mitzvahs which women have accepted upon themselves to
observe. Hearing the sound of the shofar is one of these. Indeed, there are Halachic authorities which maintain that because
it has become a universally accepted custom for women to hear the shofar,
today it is has become mandatory -- as is the case with any custom which has
become accepted practice.
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Footnotes
·
1. See
http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/411,2512/Which-mitzvahs-are-women-obligated-to-fulfill.html
By Rebecca Honig
Friedman
One of the
highlights of the High Holy Days is the blowing of the shofar, and the best
shofar-blowing I ever heard was by a woman. Her tekiah gedolah was — the long blast sounded
at the end of each shofar-blowing sequence on Rosh Hashanah and at the very end
of the Neilah
service on Yom Kippur — was sublime. She held the note longer than anyone else
I’ve ever heard, until her face turned so red I was sure a blood vessel would
burst, or worse.
But it wasn’t
in shul that I heard this impressive, lung-busting performance. Rather, it was
during an interview for The Jewish Channel’s “Holy Dazed”
program, where various Jewish personalities share their thoughts, both
thoughtful and humorous, about the Jewish holidays. And the woman in question
was no rabbi or cantor but the owner of Davida’s Aprons, a purveyor of kitschy,
Jewish-themed gifts. She just happened to blow a damn good shofar, and she said
she did so every year at her synagogue, where congregants were invited to blow
their own shofar along with the official “shofarist” (a term coined by Tablet’s
Jesse Oxfeld in another episode
of “Holy Dazed”).
As I was recalling
Davida’s shofar prowess, I remembered an anecdote shared by the Reform
movement’s Rabbi David
Ellenson about how as a young assistant rabbi assigned to blow the
shofar for High Holiday services, he ran out of steam and was saved by his
fellow assistant rabbi, Sally Priesand, the first woman ever ordained as a
rabbi. That story made me realize that, having gone to Orthodox synagogues my
whole life, I have never heard a woman blow the shofar in shul. With all the
strides that Orthodox women have made in synagogue and ritual life — reading
Torah, leading services (albeit for women only), and even serving in rabbinic
positions — shofar-blowing is one ritual role that Orthodox women, to my knowledge,
have yet to go after.
Is that
because women blowing shofar is halachically problematic, I wondered, or is
this simply a case of tradition left unchallenged? I put the question to a
halachic authority I thought would be sympathetic to my cause, Mahara”t Sara Hurwitz of
the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. She filled me in: “Women do not have the
same obligation as men to blow shofar. They cannot blow on behalf of men. But a
woman can blow for other women.”
To expound on
that, because shofar-blowing is a time-bound mitzvah, women, who are exempt
from most time-bound mitzvot, are exempt from blowing or hearing the shofar.
Since they’re not obligated in the mitzvah, they cannot fulfill the mitzvah for
those who are, namely, men. But there is no problem if a woman wants to blow
the shofar for other women, who are also not obligated in the mitzvah. In fact,
when I asked another rabbi for a second opinion (always good practice in
halachic-decision and medical-prognosis seeking), Rabbi Joshua Yuter of the
Stanton Street Shul noted that the Talmudic commentator “Machzor Vitry (written
around 1105) #316 writes explicitly that if women want to blow shofar, we do
not prevent them.”
How
progressive of him.
So, according
to Orthodox halacha, for a woman to blow the shofar in an Orthodox shul, she
would have to do it in a special women’s-only service, similar to what is done
in many shuls on Simchat Torah when women read from the Torah. But on the High
Holidays, when congregational unity is a theme of sorts, I wonder if a
breakaway women’s minyan just for the sake of shofar-blowing is the best idea.
And then, as Rabbi Yuter noted, there is the further-divisive question of
whether a woman blowing shofar for other women should say the requisite
blessing, containing the words “asher
kiddishanu bemitzvotav v’tzivanu” [who sanctified us with the
commandments that he commanded us], since she is not technically commanded in
this particular mitzvah.
And as I
learned from Wikipedia,
woman aren’t the only ones who can only blow the shofar for each other: “A
hermaphrodite may make his shofar sounding serve for other hermaphrodites.”
I’m not sure
what to make of that except that the rabbis really do seem to have thought of
everything, and that there is a consistency in their thinking, at least where
women and hermaphrodites are concerned.
So my next
question is, can a woman blow shofar for hermaphrodites, and can a
hermaphrodite blow the shofar for women? And what would be the status of a
hermaphrodite vis à vis participating in a women’s minyan?
Anyone who can
give me a satisfying answer to these questions gets a free shofar.
Larry Lennhoff
Oct 14, 2009
All who are
obligated to hear the shofar can blow the shofar for others to fulfil their
obligation. A child (meaning under the age of bar mitzvah), a mentally
incompetent person and women are exempt from the Torah's obligation of hearing
the shofar. A child is exempt since he has not reached the age of mitzvahs,
nevertheless, parents bring children to hear the shofar in order to educate
them in this important mitzvah. A mentally incompetent is not required to hear
the shofar, since the Torah does not obligate someone who is severely lacking
in intelligence. A women is relieved of her obligations to hear the shofar
since it is a mitzvah that is time orientented. Even so, most (if not all)
woman have the custom to hear the shofar, just like a man. However a woman does
not blow the shofar for a man, since she is not obligated by the Torah to hear
it and a man is.
The
person who blows the shofar must have in mind that everyone who hears it will
fulfil their obligation to hear it. Therefore, we do not practice blowing the
shofar on Rosh Hashanah; perhaps someone will hear the practice blast and think
that by hearing those sounds he has fulfilled his obligation.
Qualifications for Sounding the Shofar
The Shulchan Aruch begins its exploration of
fitness by citing excluding classes of people:
1.
Whoever is not obligated to fulfill the
mitzvah of sounding the shofar should not substitute his efforts for another
whose duty it is to perform a mitzvah. For example, the Baal Tekiah sounds a
shofar for a synagogue in Chelm cannot perform he same mitzvah when another in
the town of Lodz can fulfill the mitzvah.
2.
The mitzvah is not valid for a deaf mute
(cannot hear), moron (lacks the capacity) and a child (lacks the adult status).
3.
Women are exempt because the mitzvah is time
bound.
4.
A hermaphrodite may make his shofar sounding
serve for other hermaphrodites.
5.
Women should not be Baal Tekia’s because they
would be substituting her efforts for another whose duty it is to perform a
mitzvah. However, if a female Baal Tekiya has already intoned the shofar for
other women, it is valid. However, women should not make a blessing.
6.
Only a freeman (not even a slave who will
become free in the next month) can be a Baal Tekiya. MB 590:1–5
Being a Baal Tekiya (Shofar Sounder) is an
honor.
"The one who blows the shofar on Rosh
Hashanah . . . should likewise be learned in the Torah and shall be
God-fearing; the best man available. Nevertheless, every Jew is eligible for
any sacred office, providing he is acceptable to the congregation. If, however,
he sees that his choice will cause disruption, he should withdraw his
candidacy, even if the improper person will be chosen” See Shulchan Aruch 3:72.
Moreover, the Baal Tekiya shall abstain from
anything that may cause ritual contamination for three days prior to Rosh
Hashanah. See Shulchan Aruch 3:73
A Baal Tekiya can sound the shofar for
shut-ins and home-bound women who have had baby.
If a blind blower was dismissed, but the
community did not find a blower as proficient, he should be appointed as
community blower. The touchstone is proficiency not disability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shofar
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