לקוטי שיחות חלק ל״ד - אלול

The Previous Rebbe writes that on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul, the shofar is sounded “in order to practice.”

This requires explanation.

If a person does not know how to blow the shofar, it is obvious that he must practice. And if he already knows how to blow it, why is there a need to practice?

We must therefore say that there is a special significance to the very act of blowing the shofar “in order to practice.”

Accordingly, however, another question arises: when the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul falls on Shabbos, how is this special aspect of blowing the shofar for practice accomplished?

The explanation can be understood by first considering the Alter Rebbe’s explanation of the custom to sound the shofar after Neilah on Yom Kippur.

The Alter Rebbe explains that this blast is similar to the future fulfillment of “He will sound the great shofar.” It represents the ultimate elevation of the shofar blasts, something resembling the great shofar that will be sounded in the Future Era.

The meaning is that this blast is a simple, unformed sound, expressing the very essence of the soul, which is beyond every defined form—even beyond the particular structure of tekiah, shevarim, and teruah.

Based on the well-known concept of general, particular, and general, it may be said that just as there is a simple, all-encompassing blast after the hundred shofar sounds, so too there is a general shofar blast at Rosh Chodesh Elul, before the detailed shofar blowing of Elul and Rosh Hashanah begins.

Thus, the blowing on the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul “in order to practice” is not merely technical preparation. It is a general and all-encompassing shofar blast that precedes and contains within it all the subsequent shofar blowing of Elul and Rosh Hashanah.

When the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul falls on Shabbos and the shofar is not actually sounded, this same spiritual effect is accomplished through the teshuvah of Shabbos.

For the word Shabbos can be read as the letters tashuv—“return.”

Through this level of teshuvah, one reaches the inner cry of the very essence of the soul—the same essential, simple cry expressed by the all-encompassing shofar blast.