The Music of the Soul
A year ago this month I concluded my tenure at Congregation Dor Hadash in San Diego after 15 years. My career in the pulpit rabbinate actually began 15 years before that, when I arrived in NYC and to BJ as the first Rabbinic Fellow. I’ve resisted the label of retirement, favoring instead the notion of “repurpose-ment,” absorbing the last 30 years in hopeful anticipation of what might come next.
I entered a different kind of wilderness with this transition, a wild and open space for imagination and discernment. Though I’ve done various rabbinic work over the last year, I’m now listening for and to the call of renewed service, even if I don’t know exactly what it sounds like just yet.
As the Israelites make their way in the wilderness of old, the Torah imagines that Moses instructed the people, “Have two silver trumpets made; make them of hammered work.” (Num. 10:2) These trumpets would be used to call people together, to journey, to march defensively, and to announce the festivals and Rosh Hodesh (new moon) days. The rabbis of the midrash notice a strange Hebrew formulation of the instruction. The text says, aseh lekha shtei hatzotzrot, which literally means, “make for yourself two trumpets.” We aren’t told if these instruments appear to be different or are for different purposes, only that exactly two are required.
The rabbis offer the insight that a beautiful instrument does not call attention to itself in the midst of music emanating from it. What emerges from the instrument is what people notice and remember. Perhaps then we are to make ourselves like two trumpets, a beautiful, unique, externally sounding instrument as well as the trumpeting sound that comes forth.
The sages teach that when we make ourselves like trumpets, we focus our attention on the divine, in whose service we are called, and then the music that comes forth is the way we conduct our lives, the words we say and the deeds we perform. I think a lot about Roly in this regard—not only because as a rabbi and a musician he has sounded the calls of community, justice, compassion, harmony, and faith for the last 40 years, but because he has always thoughtfully considered the sounds and their impact that emerge from his instruments. I’ve no doubt the sounds of his trumpets will continue to reverberate long after he is no longer on the pulpit, and I imagine he too will listen for new direction and discernment for his music—literal and metaphoric.
When each of us imagines what melodies come from the trumpet that is our own life, what notes do we play? Do we sound off with integrity and patience, giving thought to how we are heard? Do we serve as an example to others? Is the music divine?
May this Shabbat be an opportunity to play the internal and external music of our souls, as we navigate the wilderness of our lives.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Yael Ridberg