The Significance Of The Sound Of Shofar

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the start of the period known as the High Holy Days, begins on Friday evening at sunset. Interestingly, in the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, the holiday was simply called, “Yom Teruah, the Day of the Shofar Blast.” The ram’s horn, which is blown to make the sacred sounds, […]

Facts As To Why Sofar Horns Are Blown

We’re familiar with the sights, tastes, and sounds of Rosh Hashanah—the sweet sensation of honey on our tongues, the rhythmic swaying of the congregation in prayer, the cry of the shofar piercing the air. But have we ever stopped to think about the messages behind the deeds of the day? While every commandment is essentially […]

What does the shofar symbolize?

Definition of shofar : the horn of a ruminant animal and usually a ram blown as a trumpet by the ancient Hebrews in battle and during religious observances and used in modern Judaism especially during Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Jewish people read Genesis 22, […]

Why Blow Shofar Horns??

Mike Huckabee, one of several American Christians in Jerusalem for the opening of the US embassy last week, announced that he planned to commemorate the occasion on live TV with a Hebrew greeting and by blowing a shofar. The shofar, an obscure instrument made of a ram’s horn and traditionally blown during the Jewish High […]

History Of Shofar Horns

Shofar, also spelled shophar, plural shofroth, shophroth, or shofrot, ritual musical instrument, made from the horn of a ram or other animal, used on important Jewish public and religious occasions. In biblical times the shofar sounded the Sabbath, announced the New Moon, and proclaimed the anointing of a new king. This latter custom has been […]

mastodon ivory to gemstone

Heat-induced color changes of fossilized Miocene mastodon ivory (13-16 Ma) have been known at least since the Middle Ages. Cistercian monks are believed to have created odontolite, a turquoise-blue “gemstone,” by heating mastodon ivory found in Miocene geological layers next to the Pyrrenean chain, France, to use it for the decoration of medieval art objects. […]