What transforms a celebration into a spiritual experience?
Table for Five: Behaalotecha
In partnership with the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles
Edited by Nina Litvak & Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
“And on the days of your rejoicing, on your festivals and on your new-moon celebrations, you shall blow on the trumpets for your ascent-offerings and your peace sacrifices, and it shall be a remembrance before your God; I am the Lord your God.” – Numbers 10:10
Miriam Mill – Kreisman
Tzaddik Foundation
The verse in Book of Numbers 10:10 paints a beautiful picture of Jewish celebration. On festivals, new moons, and other joyful occasions, the Torah commands that trumpets be blown over the sacrifices. At first glance, the trumpets sound like musical instruments adding excitement to the festivities. But they seem to represent something much deeper. They were spiritual alarms.
Happy moments can easily distract people. Food, guests, laughter, music, and celebration can pull a person into the moment so completely that they forget where the blessing came from in the first place. The blasts of the trumpets cut through all of that and reminded everyone: “Do not forget Who gave you this joy.”
The phrase “and it shall be a remembrance before your God” is especially striking. God does not forget. Judaism is built on the belief that God sees and knows everything. So why speak of remembrance? Perhaps the Torah is teaching that the trumpet blasts turn the celebration into something eternal. The moment becomes spiritually engraved both in our memory and in our relationship with God.
It reminds me of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The shofar awakens us during serious moments of judgment and reflection. But here, the trumpet blast sanctifies happiness itself.
Maybe God is saying: “When life is good, remember that I am here with you too.”
Rabbi Chaim Singer-Frankes
Multi-Faith Chaplain, Kaiser Panorama City Medical Center
God commands Moshe to fashion two trumpets. These trumpets are to be sounded as alarms to gather Israel for sacred purposes; as distinct calls summoning each flank of the camp, for warfare against enemies, and to beckon days of gladness and festival seasons. Throughout the chapter, the text repeats this reference to pairs of trumpets. The Avodat Yisrael, a late 18th / early 19th century Hasidic master employs wordplay and draws from the mystical tradition to elucidate a deeper meaning in this doubling. *“Hatzotzrot,”* he states, alludes to two words; *“hatzi-tzurot,”* suggesting two distinct forms or halves. Using a classic mystical device of the “remez,” (the hinted meaning of the Divine text), this signifies the People Israel traveling side-by-side with our Divine partner. When at odds, both yearn to unite in soul, spirit and mind; Israel in harmony with The Creator, the Blessed One. When unified, the will of God can be achieved. The Avodat Yisrael brings more pairs than the trumpets. There is “ha’yihud v’hadibur” i.e. the Unification and the Speech, describing how God brings the universe into being through Divine speech and utterance, connecting the Infinite and finite worlds. He cites the mitzvah of Lulav and Etrog, held together to show the Divine as a melding of two complexions; splendor and majesty. Our mystics call these “Tarei Palgei Gufa” two sacred entities with their full purpose realized only in correspondence, one with the other. May these trumpets herald our people’s unity, both internally and with the Divine!
Rabbi Eliot Malomet
Host of Parasha Talk on YouTube
Ted was a Navy veteran, and when we buried him recently, his family requested a Navy Honor Guard to play Taps at his grave. The trumpeter lifted the stirring melody to the heavens. The flag was gently removed from his pine casket, meticulously folded and reverentially smoothed thirteen times, and then respectfully handed to his widow in perfect perpetual isoscelesity.
A ritual going back to the 18th century, Taps lights up the Lite-Brite’s of our souls in a dazzling mosaic of emotional hues: Patriotism. Camaraderie. Sacrifice. Loss. Longing. Its melancholy melody chills our spines. Music will do that.
So why did they sound the silver trumpets at the sacrifices? To instill awe? To inspire joy? Or to distract from the terrifying liminality between life and death, blood and fire, smoke and sizzle? Was it a long wailing siren or a string of arresting staccatos? Did the trumpet-duo sound one note in unison or two notes in harmony? Beam us back so we can hear it!
Alas, Torah flashes an enigmatic hint: the trumpet sounding over the sacrifices, “shall be a remembrance before your God.” Remembrance of what? My suggestion: Sinai – the time we stood before God totally enveloped in sound.
Like Taps at the grave, the dual-trumpeted tekiah accompaniment of sacred-day sacrifices stirs a complex set of emotions in our souls: Awe. Fear. Love. Joy. Gratitude. And perhaps, in the post-blast silent stillness, we will detect a faint echo of God’s stirring words: I am the Lord your God…
Rabbi Brett Kopin
Executive Director, The Six11 Project
Twelve years ago, I attended a Shabbaton in Monsey, NY featuring a prominent South African rabbi as the Scholar-in-Residence. This rabbi had helped many Jews find their way into Judaism through his books and lectures. That Shabbaton took place on Parshat Behaalotecha, and at one of the events over the weekend, the host introduced the rabbi by saying: “This rabbi is the silver trumpets of this generation, bringing all of Klal Yisrael back together.” The rabbi chuckled at this introduction, quipping that no one had ever called him a trumpet before!
Those words, however, stayed with me as a powerful image of what it means to be a leader in the Jewish world today. Aside from politics and denominational labels, a Jewish leader’s true role is to be the call that gathers Klal Yisrael together, or at least those within reach. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov once taught that in Hebrew, Rabbi is an acronym for “Rosh Bnei Yisrael,” head of the Children of Israel. The head, or leader, gathers the people together. Meeting and being in relationship with other Jews, especially those outside of one’s immediate community, is a cause for celebration. It is a momentous and joyous reunion, a remembrance of what it must have felt like to gather during the festivals in ancient times. Our prayer now is to be granted the strength not only as leaders to deliver the call, but to hear it when it sounds.
Eilon Presman
Director, Actor, Producer | Assistant at accidentaltalmudist.org
Trumpets? Why trumpets? I’m sure there is an answer which I will look into, but I wanted to give you my thoughts about the verse before any of that happens.
There are special moments in life that arrive so fully. A child’s laughter, an unexpected reunion, a view that stops you mid-step. What’s special about these moments is that they almost hurt. The feeling of joy, at its peak, has an ache to it. As if some part of us knows it won’t last, and we’re already grieving it while we’re in it.
We need a disruption. Something that will tell us, “Hey! Wake up, live this moment.” Maybe that’s why God commanded the trumpets.
The trumpets are commanded not as background noise, but as punctuation. As if joy, left unmarked, risks becoming just another thing that happened.
I’ve had too many of these to count. Milestone moments that passed through me before I could fully feel them. A trumpet blast would act as an interruption. A holy one. It would say: “Stop. Feel this. Mark this.”
“It shall be a remembrance before your God.” Now this isn’t just a note in God’s ledger, but an engraving in your own soul. The blast wasn’t for God’s benefit. It was for ours. A reminder to be present before the present was gone. Some of us need to hear that most when life is actually good.
With thanks to Miriam Mill-Kreisman, Rabbi Chaim Singer-Frankes, Rabbi Brett Kopin, Rabbi Eliot Malomet and Eilon Presman.
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