My birthday post: Netivot Shalom, Tshuvah 3:3

Here's a lovely bit from the Netivot Shalom on the Shofar and divine mercy.  It's my reverse birthday gift to all of you.  Wishing you an easy meaningful fast and gemar tov chatimah (a complete sealing for a good new year.)  

If a person has a a small bit of evil within them... that he isn't able to remove this evil root from within him, whether it be matters of lusts, that his eyes are too free or his mouth is too free or anything similar, or that he has a bad character trait that devours him, whether it be jealousy, pride, anger, or over excitement or anything similar, then this flows through him like a serpent's poison, and is a (Deuteronomy 29:17, JPS translation) 'Stock sprouting poison weed and wormwood.'  (Hebrew is shoresh poreh rosh v'lanah).  As the Beit Avraham says, the best counsel in this situation is evoked by the fact that an acronym for SHoreh Poreh Rosh is SHoFaR.  By means of the shofar one is able to succeed in uprooting whatever evil sprouts within him.  

There are two means for uprooting evil within oneself.  One is a 'mighty hand', as it is written, (Exodus 13) 'For with a mighty hand I brought you out of Egypt.'  A Jew accepts upon himself with complete devotion that the same situations will come upon him and he will not repeat them.  The other method is by asking for mercy and imploring the Holy One Praised be G-d at an appropriate time of favor; these methods relate to the blowing of the shofar.  The tekiahs (one kind of shofar note) at the beginning and the end instruct us about firm decisions, as our sages say (Isaiah 23:25) 'The peg fixed in a firm place (HaTekoah) will give way.'  [Simon's note - this is self transformation through discipline.  The hebrew for 'firmly set' is like the word for Tekiah.]  Teruahs (another kind of shofar note) are (Rosh HaShanah 33b) 'Cries and wailing,' requests for mercy to uproot the evil that sprouts within us.  

These kinds of prayers are ready-made for acceptance by G-d.  Prayers made throughout the year all have adversaries above.   However, shofar notes are simple deep voices that encompass all prayer and outcries to his Father in heaven.  Angels and seraphs can't understand the meaning of this sound, they are comprehended only by G-d who examines the heart.  As the Me'or v'Shemesh wrote, in the oppression in Egypt terms like 'cry' and 'agony' were used, simple voices without words, that no adversary can delay.  Thus those voices (the cries of our ancestors in Egypt) split great mountains and went directly to the Lord of Hosts.