The Shofar’s Silent Call

By Rabbi Meyer Laniado

The shrill of the shofar sends shivers down my spine. I feel goosebumps and am overcome with a sense of awe. In my mind' s eye, I am facing the city of Jericho as its walls come crashing down. I am with Abraham as he embraces his son, spared from sacrifice. I am at Sinai, trembling before the thunder, lightning, and the shofar’ s overpowering blast, overwhelmed by God’ s presence. Yet, it is not the blast that lingers but the silence that follows that really moves me

As the shofar’ s final note fades, the room is enveloped in an almost palpable silence, as if the air itself has become heavy with meaning. Every breath is held, every rustle ceases, and the space between us expands. In this quiet, each person is left alone with their innermost thoughts. It is at this moment that my chest and my stomach tighten with nervousness and anticipation for a moment where we confront ourselves and stand in the presence of our Creator.

This is profoundly expressed in the powerful 6th-century piyut, which has become the quintessential prayer of every Ashkenazi synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, Untane Tokef.

It reads: uBshofar Gadol Yitaqa, veQol Demamah Yishama. A Great Shofar Shall Be Blown, and a Small, Still Voice Shall Be Heard.

The piyut states that ‘ a great shofar shall be blasted,’ yet, surprisingly, it is not the resounding, reverberating shrill of the shofar that is heard. As the piyut continues, it is a ‘Qol Demamah, ’ a small, still voice that emerges

This small, still voice, or Qol Demamah, from Untane Tokef mirrors the unique phrase Qol Demamah Daqah that appears in Eliyahu' s contest at Har haCarmel. There, after confronting the 450 false prophets of Ba’al, Eliyahu haNabi encountered God in a profound silence, a Qol Demamah Daqah.

Despite his momentary success in proving these prophets false, incapable of bringing forth fire from heaven, Eliyahu remained immensely frustrated. He failed to convince the nation and their Queen, Izebel, to move away from the worship of Ba’al. In fact, Izebel was enraged and sought to take Eliyahu’ s life in revenge for his killing of the false prophets of Ba’al. In his despair, Eliyahu ran to the wilderness, where he walked forty days and forty nights, finding himself at the same mountain where Benei Yisrael had encountered God amidst thunder, lightning, fire, and the blast of the Shofar (Melakhim 1 19).

We often imagine God’ s voice as overpowering and earth-shattering, yet in Eliyahu' s encounter, we learn that God' s voice was not in the mighty wind, the earthquake, or the fire but in the small, still voice, the Qol Demamah Daqah Rashi interestingly comments on this phrase, expressing that “ no voice was actually heard (Melakhim 1 19:11). ” Rather, it was a perception of something profound emerging from the silence.

Daniel Matt, in his book Becoming Elijah, expands on our understanding of Qol Demamah Daqah and translates it not merely as a small voice but as a 'pregnant, vibrant silence'—a stillness so profound it carries the weight of the Divine Presence. This silence is not an absence but a presence—an experiential stillness through which Eliyahu perceives God (Becoming Elijah, page 29)

Benei Yisrael, like Eliyahu, also experienced ‘hearing’ God’ s voice on this same mountain The Midrash Shemot Rabbah describes the moments leading up to revelation:"No birds were chirping, no oxen were plowing, none of the Ophanim (angels) said 'Kadosh,' the sea did not roar, none of the creatures made a sound”—Ele haOlam Shotek uMaharish veYasa haKol: Anokhi Hashem Elohekha, but rather, “the entire world was quiet and silent. Then, from this thick silence, the voice emerged and said:'I am the Lord your God'"(Shemot Rabbah 29:9).

The world was entirely silent—complete stillness—and from this silence, Eliyahu and Benei Yisrael experienced the voice of God. In this absolute quietude, the Divine voice emerged, not from the shofar' s sound but from the stillness and silence—the holding of breath—the refrain from all creation

In the book The Chosen, Chaim Potok captures the potency of this type of silence as he writes:"I' ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own. It talks to me sometimes. I feel myself alive in it. It talks. And I can hear it (page 225). ”

This idea is echoed by Gordon Hempton, an Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist known for capturing the world' s natural soundscapes: “Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything… But silence cannot be imagined, although most people think so. To experience the soul-swelling wonder of silence, you must hear it (One Square Inch of Silence: One Man' s Search for Natural Silence in a Noisy World, prologue page 2). ”

To ‘hear it,’ we need to listen actively. Yet, so many seem to avoid this experience. At moments of quietude, we pick up a book, read an article, listen to a podcast, or take on an activity to fill the void and ‘be productive.’

Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century philosopher and mathematician, observed that even a king, surrounded by wealth and power, is not immune to this need for distraction. In his Pensées, he writes that [this king] “If he is without what is called entertainment, he is unhappy, and more unhappy than the least of his subjects, who plays and entertains himself” (Pensées, Fragment 139).

Pascal harshly criticized humanity’ s obsession with what he called divertissement—the relentless pursuit of entertainment and distraction, which he saw as an escape from the discomfort of facing one ' s mortality and the profound truths of existence. He argued that "all of humanity' s problems stem from man ' s inability to sit quietly in a room alone." This restlessness, Pascal suggested, leads people to seek diversions that can manifest in harmful ways, such as the pursuit of war, driven by a desire to avoid confronting the uncomfortable realities of life and oneself.

In a 2014 study, Pascal' s observations were corroborated in a paper entitled Just Think: The Challenges of the Disengaged Mind, in which Dr Erin Westgate shared her findings that 67% of the men in her study preferred to self-administer electric shocks rather than sit quietly with their thoughts for fifteen minutes.

Many years ago, I took a group of campers to the Grand Canyon. Instead of standing in awe and soaking in the vastness, they immediately took out Nintendo Game Boys and playing cards—the thought of experiencing the void' s stillness, quietude, and expanse was viewed as strange and something to be avoided. They may not have been afraid or uncomfortable with silence but unaccustomed to stillness and quietude—habituated to filling the void.

Rosh Hashanah urges us to embrace stillness, confront our innermost thoughts, and stand face-to-face with our Creator.

As the shofar' s sound pierces the air, it calls us to attention and invites us to immerse ourselves in the vibrant silence that follows This silence is not void but a resonant stillness, stripping away distractions and compelling us to confront our innermost selves before God.

When the shofar’ s blast fades, a momentary stillness permeates the room. In that silence, we hold our breath, drawn into a moment of reflection and introspection. Everything stops as we stand together during Mousaf, and our minds briefly pause from their perpetual chaos We focus, feeling the room filled with this tangible stillness It is the steady calm that emerges when all distractions fade, the moment where the noise of life subsides, and we are left with the unmistakable presence of something greater.

The Mishna captures this intimate moment, describing how we stand kibnei Maron—each of us individually, personally, standing before God, fully exposed to the reality of our existence and the truth of who we are (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2).

This Rosh Hashanah, let us not merely hear the shofar’ s blast but embrace the silence that follows In that sacred stillness, may we find clarity, reflect deeply on the year past and the one to come, and discover a renewed connection with ourselves and our Creator.

For Qol Demamah is not just a still, small voice—it is the profound quiet that allows us to truly listen. In this silence, we find the space to confront our deepest thoughts and the strength to stand before our Creator with honesty and humility