Of the various ideas of Rosh Hashanah, there is one that consistently and regularly draws me in:  Teshuva. Typically, the word Teshuva will be translated as Repentance.

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, in a more truthful connection to the Hebrew, understands Teshuva to come from the word lashuv, to return. And so, Rav Kook wonders, “Where, or what, are we returning to?”

There’s a story of Rav Kook from the early part of the 20th century that illuminates this idea. Word came to Rav Kook that there were Jewish laborers who continued to work on a construction site on Rosh Hashanah. How did Rav Kook respond?

He sent a messenger to the construction crew.  Shortly thereafter, this person arrived at the construction site with a shofar in hand.  He gathered the workers together and announced that he was a messenger from Rav Kook.  With a shofar in hand, he told them that Rav Kook wished them a Shanah Tovah and that he was there to blow the shofar for them.  

The messenger proceeded to recite the appropriate bracha and then began to blow.
The story goes that with each blast of the shofar, the spark within the souls of each of the workers was awakened.  They set down their tools and gathered around to hear the shofar.  Some were so moved and began to cry as the blasts of the shofar reverberated through the construction site.

As the messenger finished blowing the shofar, unanimously, the workers decided to stop working and many asked if they could return with the messenger to Rav Kook’s shul for the rest of Rosh Hashanah davening.
These workers experienced an acute moment of Teshuva, of Returning.  They were, as Rav Kook explains, returning to themselves, to their souls, and to Nishmat Haneshamot, the Soul of all souls. 

There is a power of the shofar.  With incredible piercing strength, the sounds of the shofar can penetrate into deep inner recesses of our neshamas.  

The shofar is the sound that has continued since Ma’aseh Bereishit.

It is the blasts that were sounded at Mt. Sinai when we were bonded in brit with Hashem at Har Sinai and has accompanied us through our past. It is also the sound of the future, of the ultimate Yom Hadin, the gathering of the exiles of the Jewish people, and the ultimate Techiat Hameitim.

It is the sounds of the shofar that announce to each Jew, of every generation, that you have a special place within Am Yisrael and binds you to the Jewish people of the past and the future.

It is the shofar that reminds us of who we are, where we came from, and that, as individual Jews and as part of Am Yisrael, we have a unique role and destiny in the world.

As we listen to the sounds of the shofar this Rosh Hashanah, may we be blessed that it opens our hearts and penetrates our souls, returning us to . . . ourselves and to the Ribono shel Olam.

Shana Tova.