blow THIS!

today my roommate, a rabbinical student, purchased a shofar. it's an instrument made from a ram's horn that rabbis blow on the high holidays. after looking up more resources about the instrument, i learned that it had many uses in biblical times including:

As an early warning siren.

"When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord you God, and you will be saved from your enemies." (Numbers 10:9 NKJV)

To assemble the people.

"Then all the Midianites and Amalekites, the people of the East, gathered together; and they crossed over and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon; then he blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him."

To assemble the troops.

"Therefore, whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us." (Nehemiah 4:20 NKJV)

In the midst of battle.

"Then the Lord will be seen over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning. The Lord God will blow the trumpet, and go with whirlwinds from the south." (Zechariah 9:14 NKJV)

it turns out it was, among other things, an instrument with militaristic origins to be used to rally the people against oppressive enemies. HMMMM.

so i suggested she take her class down to madison square garden and blow some mad shofar at the bush camp. she thought it was a great idea. she also told me that it is now blown on the high holidays to ask for forgiveness for sins, apologize for them, and to "open one's eyes." this is a quote from her: "hey, we should blow it to apologize for sending our kids to be killed and ruining people's houses."

and now some scary stuff from russia: looks like the two downed russian jets were the act of terrorists. i wonder why this story hasn't made front page headlines yet. come on, is the asshole who stole 50,000 beers truly more newsworthy? get real. i hope to see both candidates for president make this a priority. who dunnit? the chechen rebels? al qaeda? both working together? and lest you are confused about the apparent difference between this paragraph and the previous ones: the iraq war has been confused with the war against terror. i cannot stress this enough. the enemy is a loosely connected network of extremists determined to bring down civilized nations, not just the united states, but all over the world. they are not all hiding in iraq; in fact, there is still as of yet, no evidence of al qaeda working with saddam hussein's regime. i know this might seem elementary to some people, but sometimes i feel like i'm screaming at a wall. iraq has been an unfortunate diversion that has wasted money and resources, but hopefully we will get back on track to fighting the real and more pressing war.

let's rally all the countries that have been affected by terrorists and kick some butt! (where's that shofar?)