Forget your perfect offering… There is a crack in everything… That’s how the light gets in

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time of reflection and introspection.

The Torah teaches that we all have two images: one “above” and one “below”.

The image above represents what we could be, our potential.

The image below represents our imperfections, our reality.

Our journey and mission revolves around resolving the dissonance between our actuality and our potential.

The Shofar symbolizes the work we do to perfect ourselves and the effort we exert to refine ourselves. We work to close the gap between whom we can and want to be – based on our beliefs and convictions, and who we are in actuality with all our struggles and imperfections.

Our journey and mission revolves around resolving the dissonance between our actuality and our potential.

Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu

The difficulty is to align who we are, with who we can and should be. Through this struggle, we shine and invite G-dliness, positivity, and growth into our lives.

The various shofar sounds symbolize this yearning, this struggle, and this process. The culmination of the Shofar is when we blast the longest sound; symbolizing that after we invest ourselves – imperfections, flaws, and all – the product is a more genuine and valuable truth, one that is a true reflection of our effort and uniqueness.

The Shofar teaches that we find wholeness in the struggle and exertion to resolve the dissonance between our actuality and our potential.

This process is the goal. We work with our broken pieces, elevate our imperfections, accept and refocus our limitations: this is how the light gets in.