There are moments that etch themselves into memory, not for their drama, but for the quiet truths they reveal. In 1991, as a newly minted college graduate skipping class at HUC, I stood with Women of the Wall, shofar in hand. As I sounded the blasts near the Kotel, a Haredi woman, disturbed by our presence, emitted a sound beyond normative articulation – a raw, primal cry. Rabbi Dr. Bonna Devora Haberman, z”l, leaned in and whispered, “It’s her inner shofar.”

That phrase, “her inner shofar,” has resonated with me for decades. Most American Jews are intimately familiar with the outer shofar – the ram’s horn that signals shifts in our calendar, calls us to spiritual alertness, jolts our communal memory, and awakens us to repentance. Its blasts, as our tradition teaches, can touch hidden strands of our being, a primal sound preceding all words.

But lately, it is my inner shofar that has been in overdrive. I suspect yours has been too. The overwhelm is immense. For years, it seems, we’ve spoken of “unprecedented times,” navigating crisis after crisis: #MeToo, the fight for racial justice, a global pandemic, and then, the seismic........

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