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Merrick Fagan is a bass player and bartender, not a rabbi, but during the High Holy Days, he is entrusted with a sacred, God-ordained task. At Rosh Hashanah morning services, he blows a hollowed-out ...

Alan Wagner still pictures it as one of the most stirring religious experiences of his boyhood. Perched on his father’s shoulders in their synagogue in Omaha, Neb., he strained to catch an ...

In the Torah, (the Five Books of Moses) the Hebrews are given a commandment that on the first day of the seventh month (Tishrei) of the Hebrew calendar “you shall observe complete rest, a sacred ...

Of all the commandments in the Torah, the blowing of the shofar on the Jewish New Year is one of the most important. The ancient sound — signaling the beginning of the days of repentance — is heard on ...

Blowing shofar at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley daily for the month of Elul and for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Cooper is used to the feeling of clenching his shoulders and neck muscles, having ...

In preparation for the Jewish new year, children and their families will craft their very own ram’s horn instrument, known as Shofar in Hebrew, at Chabad’s Shofar Factory. Children, with adult ...

Being little more than a husk of keratin hacked off the head of a ram, the shofar is not a very versatile instrument. Because there’s no real mechanism to alter pitch within the hollow horn, the ...

Early emerging cicadas singing their last song this September faced stiff competition from a different type of seasonal sound. Across Chicagoland, Jewish communities took to trails, parks and parking ...

Your support goes further this holiday season. When you buy an annual membership or give a one-time contribution, we’ll give a membership to someone who can’t afford access. It’s a simple way for you ...