Wilhelm set up a work table with a sander, hand saw and drills to demonstrate what goes into making the shofar....
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What The Greenwich Time Should Have Told You About The Holiday:
First: There are four different kinds of shofar blasts, and combinations. including “tekiah gadola,” a two-note sound that’s held as long as possible.
You want hear a good blast of the shofaron the second note. An experienced player will go about 30 seconds or more for a really good "wake up" blast. Basically the player wants the congregation to think he is going to pass out. You want the congregation to be very impressed. That’s what you’re going for.
Second: Today, Greenwich synagogues will echo with the blast of the shofar, a ram’s horn transformed into a kind of trumpet in a tradition with roots millennia deep.
The horn is blown on Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year and beginning of the Jewish calendar’s holiest period, a 10-day period concluding with Yom Kippur. The holiday begins at sundown.
Rosh Hashanah means the “head of the year,” marking the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve.
It’s the day we accept God as our kind, our sovereign, the one who will guide our lives for the rest of the year. It’s also a day of judgment, when God looks at how we achieved that goal in the past year.
Rosh Hashanah is traditionally a season of taking stock.
It’s commemorating the birth of the world, so it’s a time for us to recognize achievements and shortcomings in the year past, and get ready for the year to come.
As part of the traditional rituals, Jews eat apples and honey, to start the year sweet as part of holiday dinners. But the shofar’s sound is the peak of the liturgical day, usually blown by an experienced player.
The shofar’s sound is meant to be “a cry of the hearts, from the depth of the soul.
It’s a sound of hearts crying to God to ask for a good year.
In another way, it’s meant to be a symbolic “wake-up call to remind us that it’s the new year, and to reconnect with god.
And in these troubled and fearful times perhaps we need to hear that symbolic wake up call and reconnect with god in a more genuine and powerful way.
If you hear the shofar tonight think of the first man who ever blew a shofar.
Some time after the birth of Isaac, Abraham was commanded by God to offer his son up as a sacrifice in the land of Moriah. The Abraham traveled three days until he came to the mount that God taught him. He commanded the servant to remain while he and Isaac proceeded alone to the mountain, Isaac carrying the wood upon which he would be sacrificed. Along the way, Isaac repeatedly asked Abraham where the animal for the burnt offering was.
On New Years Day, Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, he was prevented by an angel, and given on that spot a ram caught in the thicket (Gen. 22:13) which he sacrificed in place of his dear son.
It was said that Abraham was the first to fashion and play a shofar on that day.
Can you even hope to possibly imagine how strong and powerfully long that first ever blast of the shofar was on that day.
It is new beginning.
It is a new day.
A precious anointing can come your way.
May God Bless You and Your Family And May You Have A Happy, Healthy And Peaceful New Year.
During this period of reflection and introspection, let us take time to review our actions this past year and consider how we can improve ourselves and the world in which we live. Let us have a humble prayer that this year that we will work for justice.
Let us rededicate ourselves to ending poverty and bringing peace to the world.
As we consider the economic challenges facing our nation, let's not forget those who are struggling to feed, clothe, and shelter their families. Let us think of those threatened by oppression and genocide, Let us think of our young brave men and women in uniform who have selflessly volunteered to stand in har,s way in order to protect us, and please Lord let us think of the ways each of us can bring an end to all wars and conflict.
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The new year becomes a hands-on experience
Helen Neafsey/Staff photoWhile helping to make a shofar out of a ram's horn Sunday, Daniel Rosenblatt, 10, was confident that it was something he could do every year.
The staff of First Church Preschool in Old Greenwich unveiled the preschool's newly renovated playground at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept.
The Convent of the Sacred Heart soccer team continued its recent surge, defeating host Canterbury 2-1 in New Milford Saturday.
The financial gyrations of recent weeks drives home the importance of understanding investing, whether in a company-sponsored 401(k) or a portfolio of individual stocks, bonds and other vehicles.
To the editor:
I suggest that residents e-mail CIP2009Comments@greenwichct.org indicating opposition to one more unnecessary spending item.
If the town were flush with excess funds, then by all means build the pool. But going into a period when revenues will undoubtedly be decreased, charitable contributions are already being reduced by contributors and we will probably be facing post-presidential-election austerity measures, we should not be spending for any new initiatives that are not absolutely essential. Let's take care of our infrastructure before we spend for superstructures!
Bad idea for now. Perhaps for the future.
Roger H. Lourie
Greenwich
This independent has had it with John McCain! The last straw for me was him accusing Barack Obama of responding to our current financial crisis with "me first, country second" politics.
This is merely a cute transposition of his "country first, me second" mantra. At one time, his mantra sounded believable. But when he picked Sarah Palin as a running mate in an attempt to convince right-wing extremists not to stay home on Election Day, his hypocrisy became readily apparent. Country first, my foot! He wants to win and will do anything to get that done.
Choosing Palin puts winning the election first, and the good of the country last - and heaven help this country if McCain doesn't make it through the next four years. We'd be in for meaningless pronouncements (like "I look out my window and I see Russia, and so therefore I know something about Russia"), constant repetition of the big lie (Like, "Thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere"), and, based on her pre-campaign history, attempts to ban books and teach creationism.
To quote David Brooks, "like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness."
With respect to foreign affairs, nobody has said it better than Republican Senator Chuck Hagel: "In a world that is so complicated, so interconnected and so combustible, you really got to have some people in charge that have some sense of the bigger scope of the world." Palin is light years away from having that sense, even with the help of experienced foreign-affairs professionals. With her at the helm, other countries would respect us even less than with Bush.
If McCain wins, we'd better pray for his health every morning.
Philip J. Feuer
Riverside
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