Rabbi Yosef Wolvovsky climbs onto the roof of a business in Glastonbury, Conn., lifts the shofar to his lips and lets the sound carry over the block below. Some mornings, he takes to the Connecticut River instead, blowing the horn from a boat as the notes travel across the water.
Either way, people stop what they’re doing and listen to the unmistakable sound of the ram’s horn.
It’s shofar season. Throughout the Jewish month of Elul, in the lead-up to Rosh Hashanah, the familiar blasts have been sounding in synagogues, homes, parks and now, rooftops and rivers.
This Sunday, Sept. 13, Jews around the world will gather to hear the shofar blown on Rosh Hashanah. For those who won’t be in the synagogue, people are gathering in public spaces to fulfil this central mitzvah of the Jewish New Year, an alarm that calls on humanity to examine their deeds, and reconnect with G‑d.
The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, launched Chabad-Lubavitch’s Shofar Campaign prior to Rosh Hashanah of 1953, sending yeshivah students out of Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood with shofars in hand to Jews on park benches along Eastern Parkway, patients at Kings County Hospital and shopkeepers on Pitkin Avenue in nearby Brownsville. He explained that one of the aspects of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah is to coronate G‑d Almighty as king of the universe, a coronation in which every Jew has a part.
Taking a mitzvah out of the synagogue and into the street was unheard of back then, and the campaign became the template for his many mitzvah campaigns that followed. In 1975 the Rebbe extended the Shofar Campaign across the entire month of Elul and pressed for it to reach the Jews least likely to hear the shofar otherwise: soldiers on duty, prisoners, the hospitalized and the homebound.
Stepping Up to Blow
Alex Behar, of New York City, started blowing shofar for Rosh Hashanah two years ago, in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
“It was a particularly serious and sober time for Jews in New York,” he says, “so I think I felt a little more responsibility to not hide in the shadows and be someone who could in some way inspire other people to show up and be Jewish in public.”
Behar follows his father and grandfather in blowing shofar for his community, and this year, he’s ready again.
He is part of a shofar-blowing group on Manhattan’s Upper East Side organized by Rabbi Yosef Wilhelm, director of Chabad-Lubavitch Young Professionals of the Upper East Side, that goes around the city on Rosh Hashanah to homes, businesses and the streets, to ensure every Jew has an opportunity to perform the mitzvah.
“It’s a really beautiful thing, when other people see you as a Jew practicing your religion,” he says.
By Land and by Sea
Back in Connecticut, Wolvovsky, who serves as executive director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center of Glastonbury—about 20 minutes southeast of Hartford— alongside his wife Yehudis, has made a project of finding new places to blow shofar. A mitzvah that makes a sound, he says, grabs people’s attention in a way that quiet ones don’t, turning even an everyday office building into something holy.
“I think it leaves an impression that might be even deeper than the impression of the shofar they might hear in shul,” he says. “It says G‑d is welcome everywhere.”
He spends much of Elul meeting people where they are and blowing shofar for them, hoping the sound does what words sometimes can’t.
“Even though sometimes we can’t articulate it, sometimes we fall short in our personal observance or our adherence to every detail of the law, the shofar is an essential, visceral connection between the Jewish soul and G‑d’s essence,” he says. “It symbolizes the core connection we have with G‑d in every situation, and opens up avenues of expression of our relationship with G‑d that might otherwise remain dormant.”
That’s why he keeps climbing to rooftops and heading out onto the river.
“It became a thing where people look for environments to get ready for Rosh Hashanah, especially with the shofar, in a special, uplifting way,” he says. “By land and by sea, on the ground and on the roof, wherever a Jew might hear and be inspired by it.”
This year, the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat, so the shofar won’t be blown that day. Wolvovsky’s community will instead hear it the following morning at synagogue and again at tashlich that afternoon.
“We have found throughout the years that the shofar, in addition to being a biblical mitzvah and a mitzvah campaign the Rebbe was very passionate about, we also see the results,” he says. “It does evoke in people a special feeling, a special connection.”
Bringing It Into Public View
Sam Probber, who is involved with Chabad Young Professionals of the Upper East Side as well as Chabad of the Upper East Side, went to a public shofar blowing last year in Long Island City and a few years ago, walked to Brooklyn’s Crown Heights with one of his rabbi’s sons, blowing shofar for people along the way. He says he plans to be at services for Rosh Hashanah and to attend these community shofar events again, as well as to encourage other people to join in.
“I think it’s important for a lot of unaffiliated Jews around the city, who aren’t maybe going to services, just to hear and have some contact with something Jewish, especially around this time of year,” he says.
He makes a point of sending word about the public shofar blowings to relatives and friends who might want to come.
“I don’t know if people recognize it when they see it or hear it, or when they’re going by, but it has that kind of symbolism in my mind.”
Probber is glad shofar-blowings on the street are happening where others can see it.
“It’s uplifting to bring parts of Judaism that’s normally behind closed doors out into the world,” he says.
This year, he adds, the sound carries a little more weight: “It can be a wake-up call for the city and for other residents.”
He’s focused less on security concerns than on the support he sees around him. “I think the majority of people in New York City and in the country are supportive and empathetic to what’s been happening to American Jews,” he says. “This is something that’s done every year, but it’s just to be present, continually be present, and show other people that when things get tough, Jews continue being Jews.”
Sara Armet has been involved with Chabad Young Professionals of the Upper East Side since 2018, and has chaired its Shofar in the Park event since 2020. In collaboration now with Manhattan’s storied Park East Synagogue, the group will again offer people several chances to hear the shofar together.
“Hearing the shofar blast is like coming home,” she adds. “When someone walks by, you see it, their eyes see it, they hear it. It is a calling, and it’s almost a relief for them that they’re there to connect in that moment.”
Every year, the turnout grows, she says, and other synagogues on the Upper East Side have started joining in as well. “It’s just an amazing moment of unity. You can feel the power and the strength and the unity of the community. And if we can impact one person, it means the world.”
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