Have shofar — will travel
Pinhas Friedenberg of Teaneck organizes personal shofar services for the homebound
In the summer of 1986, Pinhas Friedenberg’s mother was in Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in White Plains, recovering from a stroke. Rabbi Murray Grauer, who led the Hebrew Institute of White Plains then, used to visit patients there. One day, Rabbi Grauer asked Mr. Friedenberg if he knew how to blow shofar.
“I said, ‘Rabbi Grauer, I really don’t,’” Mr. Friedenberg recalled. “I had played with shofar in the past, but that was the extent of it.
“Rabbi Grauer said, ‘Look, we had a person who blew shofar for many years in shul, and he’s retired and he can’t do it anymore, so he asked us to look for someone else.’
“I said to him, ‘I don’t even own a shofar,’” Mr. Friedenberg said. “And he said, ‘That’s not a problem. We have a lot of shofrot we can lend and you can practice. If you’re ready to practice, we’ll host you at one of the families near Burke, and then you can spend time with your mother and blow shofar for your mother.’
“This was an offer I couldn’t refuse. But I didn’t know where to start.”
Mr. Friedenberg worked at Yeshiva University as an assistant registrar then. Rabbi Solomon Berel, who led the Young Israel of Co-op City, taught in the cantorial school at YU, and one of the courses he taught was blowing shofar. So Mr. Friedenberg reached out to him. Rabbi Berel told him that he would not have time to take the course, which was not being offered during the summer, but he suggested that Mr. Friedenberg come to the Young Israel.
“He said, ‘I’ll show you a whole bunch of shofrot. You can try a couple of them, and I will lend you one so you will have something to practice with and to blow.’” Rabbi Berel spent close to three hours with Mr. Friedenberg. “He gave me tips on how to breathe,” Mr. Friedenberg said. “The key to blowing shofar is knowing how to breathe.
“And he tested me on a number of shofars, and he told me which one he thought I would do better with, and he lent it to me.”
After that, Mr. Friedenberg practiced every day. On Rosh Hashanah, he blew shofar at the Hebrew Institute. After services, he went to see his mother. He spent time with her, and he blew shofar for her. She became very emotional when she heard the shofar, and when Mr. Friedenberg saw her reaction, he realized that blowing shofar is something very important. “At that time, I said to myself, if I can help other people by blowing shofar, I want to do it.”
The following year, a friend, then the president of Congregation Anshe Sholom in New Rochelle, asked Mr. Friedenberg to blow shofar there. “I said, ‘On one condition — no pay.’ “Because when I thought about my mother’s reaction, I said, that’s not something that I want to get paid for.”
The shul president told Mr. Friedenberg that he drove a hard bargain, and he would try to get the deal approved by the shul board. He blew shofar at Anshe Sholom for three years.
In 1991, Mr. Friedenberg married Doris Ehrenkranz. Her father, Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, led Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford, Connecticut, for many years. When Rabbi Ehrenkranz was going to blow shofar for people who were not able to make it to shul, Mr. Friedenberg offered to do it instead. The rabbi had received a request from a congregant who was in a local hospital. Mr. Friedenberg blew shofar for the older man, who was filled with joy by the sounds. He did it again that year for an older blind woman who had known Ms. Ehrenkranz since she was a child. A week or two later, he received a check from the woman’s daughter. He took the check, signed it over to the Jewish Guild for the Blind in New York City, and sent it with a letter explaining its provenance, and asked them to send a recognition letter to the family. “The woman was blind, so I thought it was appropriate to send the donation there,” he said.
The Friedenbergs moved to Teaneck in 1992. On their first Rosh Hashanah in town, a neighbor wasn’t feeling well, and Mr. Friedenberg offered to blow shofar for her. “At that point, I wasn’t yet interested in doing it on a wholesale basis,” he said. “When I saw her reaction, and her husband’s reaction, I realized I need to do it.”
The next year, he approached Rabbi Yosef Adler, who led Congregation Rinat Yisrael then and is now its rabbi emeritus, and offered to blow shofar for anyone who could not get to shul.
“I didn’t want to blow shofar in shul during services,” Mr. Friedenberg said. “It was more meaningful to me to help people who were homebound, who couldn’t go to shul. I felt I was doing something special for them.”
Rabbi Adler would get one or two requests, and Mr. Friedenberg would handle them.
Mr. Friedenberg, now 81, still blows shofar for people who can’t get to shul on Rosh Hashanah, but now he has help.
When he started putting notices in the Rinat weekly bulletin and on Teaneckshuls, a local email group, offering his services to the homebound, other shofar blowers started volunteering. Mr. Friedenberg now gets about 12 to 15 requests each year, and a similar number of people volunteer to meet the need.
Every year after Rosh Hashanah, Rabbi Adler used to ask Mr. Friedenberg how many people needed the at-home service. Most years, the answer was in the 12 to 15 range, Mr. Friedenberg said. In 2019, the answer was five. “He was kind of taken aback,” Mr. Friedenberg said. “He said ‘Only five?’ I said, ‘Yes, five,’ and he said, ‘God willing, next year there should be none.’”
The next year was 2020 and Rosh Hashanah was in the middle of covid. Mr. Friedenberg received 18 or 19 requests that year. There were likely a lot more people who did not go to shul, he said, “but there were outdoor minyanim all over, so many people could hear shofar just by walking outside their door.”
The Rabbinical Council of America came out with a statement that year that it was halachically permissible to blow shofar with the end of the shofar covered,” Mr. Friedenberg said. “I tried it, I covered the shofar, and it works.” He covered the opening with a mask and secured it with a rubber band. “I sent a picture of the covered shofar to my volunteers, so whoever wanted to use it, could use it. Some of them used it, some did not. But I insisted that everyone blow only outside.”
Sometimes, volunteers bring their children with them. Some of those children have grown up and are now blowing shofar themselves.
Mr. Friedenberg always likes to give high school students the opportunity to try. He feels it benefits the students, and that homebound people often appreciate visits from young people. He tries to assign two different volunteers to blow for each person who can’t get to shul, one on each of the two days of the holiday, so the families see that it’s a community effort.
And he encourages volunteers to spend a little time talking to the homebound afterward. “Have a conversation with them, do bikur cholim,” the mitzvah of visiting the sick. “It’s a doubleheader, a win-win situation, especially when they bring their kids with them. From an educational perspective, it’s phenomenal for the kids.”
Sometimes he gets requests in advance, sometimes they come in right before Rosh Hashanah or on the holiday itself. On occasion, people will find him in shul on Rosh Hashanah morning and ask if he can blow after services for a relative who at the last minute was not able to get to shul. Sometimes people knock on his door on Rosh Hashanah afternoon.
Requests are mostly from people who are ill, but sometimes he gets requests to blow for a new mother.
“Sometimes families call and say, ‘We only celebrate one day of Rosh Hashanah, can you send someone to blow for one day,’” Mr. Friedenberg said. “I don’t question; if someone wants shofar blowing, I provide it. I don’t question how religious you are.” In those situations, he’ll ask the volunteer to offer to come back the next day. “Every time, the person has said that they would love to have him come back and blow again the next day.”
In shuls, the shofar is sounded 100 times on each day of Rosh Hashanah. But the halachic requirement is only to hear 30 blows, Mr. Friedenberg said. He normally asks volunteers not to blow more than 30 for each person they visit. “You don’t want to have people expect to hear 100,” he said. “Not every ba’al tokea” — shofar blower — “can do more than 30.”
One year, a Rinat congregant reached out to Mr. Friedenberg. Her aunt would be visiting for the holiday, and she asked for a volunteer to come to her house to blow shofar. “She told me her aunt was celebrating her 100th birthday two days before the holiday,” he said. He suggested to the volunteer that he offer to blow 100 times in honor of her 100th birthday.
The volunteer called Mr. Friedenberg later. The visiting aunt was very appreciative of the offer, and he had indeed blown 100 times.
“This was a special instance,” Mr. Friedenberg said.
Last year, a man who lives in Pennsylvania reached out to Mr. Friedenberg a couple of weeks before Rosh Hashanah. His mother was living in Arbor Terrace, a senior residence in Teaneck, and he asked if Mr. Friedenberg could send someone to blow shofar for her.
“I said to him, ‘I have an idea. She’s living in a facility. I’m glad to send someone just for her, but maybe you can be a partner of mine.’” Mr. Friedenberg suggested that the son approach the facility and see if it would be interested in having shofar blowing available for other residents. “‘No charge,’” he said. “‘Just tell them that we have volunteers that are ready to come, and they will come at a time that’s suitable to the facility. The facility will distribute flyers about the activity taking place, and whoever comes, comes.’”
The facility agreed and publicized the event. “I didn’t have much expectation,” Mr. Friedenberg said. “I figured it’s a long shot.”
After Rosh Hashanah, he got emails from both the volunteer and the son. Close to 50 residents had come to hear the shofar. The facility is interested in having a volunteer blow again this year.
Blowing shofar can make a real impact, Mr. Friedenberg said. “You never know what you can do.”
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