More than an Echo: Rosh Hashanah 5787

 This piece was first published on Thursday 10 September 2026 in the Hanassi Highlights. You can also read it in Hebrew here, thanks to ChatGPT.

Rosh Hashana is known in the Torah as Yom HaZikaron—the day of Remembrance. We speak of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. We recall the Akeidah. In Zichronot we ask Hashem to remember the covenant with our ancestors. Even the shofar itself recalls the ram offered by Avraham in place of Yitzchak. Yet the question can be asked: why does memory play such a central role on the day of judgement? We stand before Hashem and ask to be inscribed for another year of life. Why, at precisely that moment, do we spend so much time recalling the past and remembering those who lived thousands of years ago? Surely the question ought to be about us: Who are we? What have we done? What kind of year have we lived? 

Perhaps the answer is alluded to in a fascinating halacha concerning the shofar. The Mishna teaches that השומע קול הברה לא יצא—one who hears merely an echo of the shofar has not fulfilled the mitzvah. It is not enough to hear a distant reverberation of a sound that originated somewhere else. We must hear the voice of the shofar itself.

Illustration: 'Sounding the Shofar in Jerusalem' by Alex Levin

Maybe when it comes to the memory of our ancestors, the same lesson can be applied. The merit of our ancestors cannot simply be an echo from the distant past. We cannot stand before Hashem and rely solely upon the greatness of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov while remaining unchanged by the values for which they lived. Their merit becomes our merit when their voice continues to live through us.

That is the challenge of Jewish memory. We do not remember simply to preserve the past; we remember in order to shape the present. Avraham’s chessed, Yitzchak’s gevurah, Yaakov’s truth: these are not merely stories about our ancestors. They are part of the inheritance they entrusted to us.

Rosh Hashana therefore asks us not only what we remember, but what we will continue. Which values received from generations before us will find expression in our homes? What will our children and grandchildren see us prioritise? What kind of Jewish life are we building for those who come after us?

The shofar cuts through the noise and asks us to listen. Not to an echo, but to a living voice—one that has travelled through generations and has now reached us. Our task is always to ensure that it does not stop here.

Shabbat Shalom and Ketiva veChatima Tova!