“How are you?”
It’s such a simple question. But these days, it feels impossible to answer. Every time I’m asked, I take a deep breath, because whatever I answer, feels dishonest. Fine, I’m holding up, ok…all things considered. But the truth is — the real answer — is I am not fine. Everything feels heavy. Overwhelming. Our country and our world feel fragile.Every day brings headlines that make me wonder: what crisis has deepened, what violence has spread, what truth has been shaken, what new level of uncertainty must I now sit with?
I don’t need to give you the headlines, or ramble off every crisis that is plaguing us right now – they are running through my mind, and I’m guessing yours, too. Every minute of every day, I am living the headlines and I know I’m not the only one. I’ve heard from so many of you, from my colleagues, my friends and loved ones- each of us, in our own way, is living with the awareness that what once felt steady is no longer guaranteed. What we’re experiencing right now is not only a private worry or individual fear — it is communal anxiety. The ground beneath us feels unsteady, even trembling.
And just in this moment of deep unease, we arrive at our sacred day of Rosh HaShanah — also known in our Torah as Yom T’ruah, the Day of the Shofar’s Sound. This is the time in our Jewish calendar that will not let us escape the trembling. In this unsteady moment, the shofar meets us. Its blasts surround us as a community, giving voice to our pain and our anxieties — and calling us to listen closely to the deeper meanings hidden in each sound.
That first, unbroken blast of tekiah can be almost more than we can bear. In the Talmud, this kind of blast is described as peshutah, as a simple, uninterrupted sound. On the surface it may seem plain, even solitary, but its length must stretch to match the broken calls that follow. That “simplicity” is deceiving, because within that single note is the raw pain we each carry.
Tekiah is personal. Tekiah is the weight of a diagnosis, the ache of grief, the stress of caring for loved ones. Tekiah is not knowing whom we can trust or what news sources are reliable. Tekiah represents the piling up of our worries and the relentless anxieties.
Our Jewish texts are familiar with anxiety as a deeply human experience. Proverbs teaches: “Happy is the person who is anxious always, but the one who hardens their heart falls into misfortune.” While this is most commonly translated as an anxious person, the Hebrew here is adam mefached — literally, a person who is fearful. This is actually a preferred state, compared to a numbness toward every trouble and tragedy.
Adding to this idea of anxiety being a preferred state, the19th century commentator, Malbim explains: “Anxiety is a spiritual strength, for it represents concern for the future.” It is better to have fear than to grow numb. Anxiety, according to this commentator, is a virtue, a strength. It reminds us that even in an endless moment of uncertainty, our hearts are still awake to the world. What if the knot in my stomach when I scroll through the headlines isn’t only dread, but also a sign that my heart has not hardened? What if your fear, my fear, our fear, was actually a doorway to hope?
Anxiety, then, is not only a spiritual strength but also a sign of hope – proof that we still care, that we still imagine a world beyond what it is today. Proof that when fear shakes us, it is because we are alive to the possibility of a future that could be.
Tekiah is heavy, but it is also holy. As we hear this first call of the shofar, we lean into the anxiety and we allow ourselves to feel its weight, trusting that naming our fears is the first step toward hope.
The second blast, shevarim, contains three broken calls. The Rabbis of the Talmud teach that these represent brokenness or fractures. Thus the long anxiety of tekiah shatters into weeping and pain.
Shevarim is the cry of a broken world. Even in the brokenness of shevarim, there is a possibility of healing and transformation.
Proverbs 12 teaches: “If there is anxiety in someone’s mind, let them quash it, and turn it into joy […].” While this text is again most commonly translated as anxiety, the Hebrew phrase is actually da’agah b’lev – worry in the heart. Not just in the mind, not just a fleeting thought, but something lodged in our chest, and deep in our hearts.
The verse points to a process of transformation: that the worries of the heart can be eased, and that joy can return. The text does not exactly tell us how to do this, but it plants a seed of hope that worry in the heart is not permanent. Shevarim tells us that we may feel fractured in this current moment and even alone in our brokenness, but the broken notes themselves carry the first echoes of healing. Within the cracks of shevarim, of our societal brokenness, of our communal weeping hearts, light can break through.
The third shofar call, t’ruah, is nine short, staccato blasts – an alarm that jolts us awake.
The prophets describe the shofar as the sound that awakens us from sleep: “Shall a shofar be sounded in the city and the people not tremble?” T’ruah is that trembling, that command which says: Do not look away.
If tekiah is the ongoing anxiety, and shevarim are the fractures, then t’ruah is the insistence that we face reality and act. It shakes us out of numbness. It says: You cannot just sit in despair. This is the time to rise, to organize, to come together.
We need t’ruah right now. Because despair is tempting. It is easy to be overwhelmed by everything that is broken. It is easy to shut down, to turn away, to scroll past. And it is also easy to believe that naming the brokenness is enough—that our awareness absolves each of us from action, that someone else will show up in our place. But t’ruah calls us back to life. Back to responsibility. Back to hope.
Finally, the great blast, tekiah gedolah. The note that stretches our lungs to their limit. Tekiah gedolah does not come from nowhere. It does not erase the tekiah, shevarim, and t’ruah that came before. It rises out of them. The anxiety, the brokenness, the alarm — all become the breath that makes hope possible.
Tekiah Gedolah is the sound of possibility. It is understood that this specific blast represents liberation, redemption, and freedom. For us, today, it is the sound of a better world not yet here, but coming closer if we dare to believe in it.
Rabbi Michael Marmur explains that “sometimes anxiety and hope should be seen not as opposites, but as necessary engines […] to get through these anxieties and build a more robust strategy of hope.”
Our worry, then, is not wasted energy. It sharpens our awareness, keeps us attuned to the pain and fragility of the world, and pushes us to seek change. When we allow ourselves to face anxiety honestly — not to be consumed by it, but to recognize it — it can become the raw material for resilience. In those very cracks of unease, we discover openings where hope can take root, and from that hope, we can begin to shape strategies for living with courage and purpose.
We cannot solve all the problems of our world, our country or even our city. But the shofar gives us a path to move through our communal anxiety with personal moments of hope. These are our guideposts when we are drowning in headlines, crises and tragedies.
Each of us brings our own fears, our own grief, our own worries of the heart into this sanctuary tonight. But the shofar reminds us that we are not alone in these feelings and in this experience.
When we stand together for tekiah gedolah, holding our breath as the sound stretches longer and longer the power comes from hearing it, together. Not echoes, but the real cry for a better future. A cry out that we need to transform our brokenness to hope.
The sounding of the shofar is not just an ancient ritual. It is our roadmap through moments of uncertainty. From the solitary weight of tekiah, through the breaking of shevarim, to the alarm of t’ruah, to the stubborn hope that refuses to be extinguished of tekiah gedolah.
I, too, am reminding myself of this. Hope has been hard for me to hold on to lately. The world feels unbearably heavy, as if each week brings a new crisis. I’ve stopped looking for hope in the big headlines and endless commentary — because too often, they leave me feeling empty and more anxious.
Instead, I’ve turned to smaller places: to conversations, to small acts of kindness, to the ordinary moments that soften despair. That’s where I’ve found my hope. And yet, I see it, too, in us — in the ways our community shows up for one another in joy, in grief, and in action; in conversations with our middle and high school students who have asked for more social justice programming because they see the connection between justice and their Jewish identity. These are my glimpses of tekiah gedolah. Where have you found yours? Where have you found hope in these hard days?
Our tradition does not leave us without guidance. The shofar blasts themselves chart the path from fear to hope. The shofar calls us: tekiah — the individual fears we carry; shevarim — the brokenness and the cracks that let hope seep through; t’ruah — the alarm that jolts us awake; and tekiah gedolah — the breath we hold together, refusing to give up on hope.
These High Holy Days, do not ask us, “How are you?” They do not give us permission to gloss over our state of being with a superficial “fine”. Rather, they call upon us to embrace this full emotional journey.
When we hear the shofar during this season, may it rattle our anxious hearts – not to make us into people without fear, but into a people transforming that fear into hope. May its blasts awaken us, break us open, call us to courageous acts, and summon us into hope. And may it call us into this new year together, into a hope that endures.
Ken Yihi Ratzon