From Time to Time: Journeys in the Jewish Calendar with Dalia Marx

Summary

Jewish time: cycles and change

Rabbi Dalia Marx frames the discussion around the Jewish calendar and the approaching High Holy Days. Jewish life holds several kinds of time together: daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, seven-year sabbatical, and 49-year Jubilee cycles, alongside the linear story of personal and world history. Each moment is unique, even as calendars bring recurring occasions back around; together, repetition and change form a kind of spiral.

Marx also describes Jewish time as a source of continuity. Drawing on Abraham Joshua Heschel’s idea of Shabbat as a “cathedral in time,” she argues that a shared calendar can connect Jews who observe holidays in different ways, even when they disagree on other matters.

The shofar: a wordless, primal sound

The central topic is the shofar, especially its role during the High Holy Days. It stands apart from the long, prescribed prayers: it is not speech and not quite music, but a raw sound that can reach people emotionally without first requiring intellectual interpretation. Its sound can seem like a cry associated with birth, fear, or death. Although the shofar is not a human voice, it requires a person’s breath—neshama—to sound.

The Torah gives little explanation for Rosh Hashanah or for the shofar. It describes the first day of the seventh month as a sacred occasion marked by a blast or sound, but does not fully explain what is sounded or why. In the account of the revelation at Sinai, the shofar’s sound grows louder and is intertwined with thunder, lightning, smoke, and trembling. The people’s fear suggests a close association between the shofar and the voice of God.

Marx presents, without asking the audience to accept it as fact, psychoanalyst Theodore Reik’s theory that the shofar recalls the cry of a slaughtered bull. Reik connects this idea to Freud’s theory of the primal father and the bull as an ancient totem. In this interpretation, the shofar may stir feelings of guilt and fear.

Hearing the shofar and directing the heart

Marx uses passages from the Mishnah to explain both the practical and inward dimensions of hearing the shofar:

• A direct sound counts; an echo does not. The Mishnah distinguishes hearing the shofar’s actual sound from hearing only its echo.
• A person need not be inside the synagogue. Someone passing behind a synagogue or living nearby may fulfill the obligation by hearing the sound.
• Intention matters. The Mishnah says the listener fulfills the obligation if they “direct their heart.” Marx offers three possible readings:
  • Physically turning or pausing to listen.
  • Intending, in the halakhic sense, to fulfill the mitzvah.
  • Listening with deeper inward attention to a sacred act.
• The story of Moses during the battle with Amalek adds a further lesson. The Mishnah rejects the idea that Moses’ raised hands mechanically determined the battle’s outcome. Rather, Israel prevailed when the people looked upward and directed their hearts toward God. In Marx’s reading, this passage emphasizes the importance of genuine intention.

The discussion leaves open whether the shofar’s effect is primarily psychological, spiritual, or both. Marx illustrates its dramatic power with a scene from The Dybbuk, in which the shofar is sounded during an attempt to drive a spirit out of a woman.

Two meanings of the shofar

Marx describes two complementary traditions about what the shofar does:

• It affects God. A midrash says that when Israel sounds the shofar, God moves from the throne of judgment to the throne of mercy.
• It affects the listener. The shofar can awaken people to examine their conduct and change their ways.

The second interpretation connects the shofar with teshuvah, or return and repentance. Marx emphasizes that a mistake need not be final: the Hebrew idea of sin can be understood as missing the mark, and a person can try again and correct course. The host adds that the sequence of shofar blasts—from a whole note, through broken sounds, and back to a whole note—can symbolize this movement from rupture toward restoration; Marx agrees with the image.

Marx’s book and ways to use it

Marx describes From Time to Time: Journeys in the Jewish Calendar as a collection of about 100 short reflections on Jewish time and the calendar, rather than an encyclopedia or a book intended only for cover-to-cover reading. Its monthly structure includes:

• A kavvanah (intention or meditation) for the month.
• An introduction to the month.
• A poem.
• Short essays on selected themes.
• A selection of prayers related to the month.

The book brings together ancient and contemporary material, voices from different Jewish denominations, and Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi traditions. Marx says she made a particular effort to include women’s voices and rituals. She also notes that the book includes references to October 7 and the war.

Suggested ways to engage with the book include using it at Shabbat meals, in study groups, adult education, introductory Judaism classes, congregational settings, or youth programs. A downloadable study guide and a Spotify playlist accompany it.

Speakers and sources featured

Speakers

• Rabbi Dalia Marx — Guest scholar and main presenter.
• Rabbi Corn Gold — Moderator and host; the name’s spelling is uncertain in the auto-generated subtitles.
• Rabbi Harrison — Co-host or event participant.
• Roy — Thanked for organizing the event.

Sources and people mentioned

• The Torah: Genesis 4; Exodus 17 and 19–20; Leviticus 23; Numbers 29.
• The Mishnah: Rosh Hashanah, chapter 3.
• Leviticus Rabbah — Cited for interpretations of the shofar’s effect on God and on human conduct.
• Theodore Reik, The Shofar (1919), and Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo — The psychoanalytic interpretation discussed by Marx.
• S. An-sky, The Dybbuk, and a film adaptation shown during the presentation.
• Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath — The idea of Shabbat as a “cathedral in time.”
• Rabbi David Ellenson — Author of the book’s introduction.
• Julie Mandel — Remembered by Marx as a friend and former member of the Sinai Temple community.