The Voice You Can See
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Reflections on Shofarot and a Musical Pictogram in The JTS Collection
The Shofar Blasts
Marcus Mordecai Schwartz, Ripps Schnitzer Librarian for Special Collections; Assistant Professor, Talmud and Rabbinics
Aside from the human voice, the shofar is the most ancient sound in Jewish ritual鈥攁nd the most complex. It cries out across meanings: as alarm, as elegy, as anthem, as coronation. The same raw note that thundered at Sinai now trembles in the synagogue. It announces a sovereign. It proclaims a people. And it mourns. On Rosh Hashanah, we gather all those meanings into a single trembling call鈥攁nd we let it speak.
In a 15th-century Spanish siddur preserved at an anonymous scribe tried something extraordinary.
The folios for Rosh Hashanah include the blessings of shofarot鈥攖he final section of the Musaf Amidah, where we recall the shofar of Sinai, the shofar of judgment, the shofar of hope. But in this manuscript, the sounds aren鈥檛 only named, they are pictured. A long, straight line marks the tekiah, the steady unbroken blast. Three short vertical strokes stand for shevarim, the broken sigh. A trembling wavy line marks teruah, the staccato cry.
These aren鈥檛 musical notes鈥攖hey鈥檙e more elemental, a kind of sacred pictogram. The shofar鈥檚 voice is turned into a graphic symbol鈥攏ot to notate pitch or rhythm, but to make sound visible, to let the eye hear what the heart already knows.
The 20th-century linguist Roman Jakobson wrote that certain sounds carry inherent meaning鈥攖hat sound can evoke feeling before words ever begin. He also described the poetic function of language: when the shape of what鈥檚 said becomes part of what it means. This manuscript lives at the intersection of those two ideas. The scribe doesn鈥檛 just describe the shofar, he traces its voice. In black and red ink on parchment, he renders sound as symbol鈥攖hunder, groaning, glory.
And what are we meant to hear?
The answer is ancient. At Mount Sinai, the Torah tells us, 鈥淎ll the people saw the kolot鈥� (Ex. 20:15). Kolot鈥攖hunder, voices, blasts. That paradox鈥攕ound made visible鈥攊s the secret of Revelation. The shofar echoes that thunder. It is not speech. It is not language. It is the voice beneath language鈥攖he sound of truth too vast to say. The voice you can see.
In the manuscript, that voice is simple and stark. Its straight lines and tremors tell us what kind of cry to make. But they also remind us of the cry we are already making. The cry of memory. The cry of longing. The cry of grief. The cry of return.
The shofar is a trumpet, but also a mourner. It crowns God, but it also weeps. It announces a world that could be, even as it grieves the world that is. In this manuscript, the voice of the shofar is made visible so that we do not forget how much is held in a single breath.
