Sunday, September 10, 2017

WAAAAAKKKEEEE UUUPPPP!!!!

A sweet Jew sent me the following explanation to this post:


I once heard a great mashal to explain this Rambam.

A person walks into an ICU and is surrounded by people who are in comas and are sedated and starts to scream “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEE UUUUUUPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!! He does this over and over. Of course nothing happens. If a person, rachmana litzlan, is so far from consciousness and so close to death, no noise in the world will wake him up. But if a person is merely sleeping and dozing off, or even in a deep slumber, and person starts screaming “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKEEEE UPPPPPPPPPPP!!!! in his ear, he’ll jump right up.

So the Ramabam is saying the shofar is here to wake us from our slumber, to remember Hashem and to do teshuva. LEFICHACH, therefore, he has to live the whole year as if he’s chetzi zakai and chetzi chayav. Meaning, the best way to ensure that the sound of the shofar will have an impact, is to try your best throughout the year not to fall too deep into a spiritual coma, where the sound of the shofar may not be able to wake him up. Everyone has to do teshuva and many of us are sleeping, but hopefully not too deep that the sounds of the shofar won’t affect us.

שפתיים ישק!