The People Who Know How to Win Over Their Maker With the Shofar Blast

Rabbi Josiah opened: "Happy is the people that knows the joyful sound [teruah]" (Psalms 89:16). Rabbi Abahu interpreted the verse as referring to the five elders who would enter to intercalate the year. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He sets aside His council on high and descends and draws His Presence near below. The ministering angels say, "Here is the Mighty One, here is the Mighty One; here is God, here is God" — He of whom it is written, "a God dreaded in the great council of the holy ones" (Psalms 89:8) sets aside His council on high, descends, and draws His Presence near among them below. Why all this? So that if they err in a matter, the Holy One, blessed be He, enlightens their faces in the law, as it says, "O LORD, in the light of Your countenance they walk" (Psalms 89:16). Rabbi Josiah said: it is written, "Happy is the people that knows the joyful sound" (ibid.). But do the nations of the world not know how to make a blast? How many horns they have, how many trumpets they have, how many bugles they have! Yet you say, "Happy is the people that knows the teruah"? Rather, happy is the people that knows how to coax their Creator with the teruah. When? "In the seventh month" (Leviticus 23:24).