As we turn the page on 5786, we think about our hopes and possibilities for the new year. We contemplate and conjecture how we can be a better version of ourselves in this, as yet unwritten, chronicle of our lives. There is something magical happening every year on Rosh Hashanah. It’s our job to bottle that magic and use it to improve next year’s version of myself.

Where does this optimism come from? Well, let’s look at the two verses in our Torah describing this event we call Rosh Hashanah:

Speak to the Israelite people thus: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts. (Vayikra 23:25). And: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations. You shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded. (Bamidbar 29:1)

Pretty similar. Obviously, the date’s the same. They both reference the holiness (‘sanctity’) of the day. But then comes the day’s special, unique ingredient: The SHOFAR is sounded.

What is the SEGULA or one-of-a-kind nature of this instrument? Boy, are there a lot of answers to that question!

Rashi offers the most famous approach: I recall for you the offering of Yitzchak in whose stead a ram was offered having been caught by its horn. In other words, on this the anniversary of the AKEIDA (abortive offering of Yitzchak), we blow the ram’s horn to access the merit garnered by........

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