It is customary during the entire month of Elul to sound the shofar daily, except on Shabbat. The shofar is not sounded on the eve of Rosh Hashana but it is sounded on both days of Rosh Hashana. The shofar is also sounded during the final service of Yom Kippur.
What is so special about the sound of the shofar? The sound of the shofar gives us two distinct messages: It is the sound of a trumpet announcing the coronation of the king and it is a signal, like an alarm, reminding us to consider our past deeds and return to G-d in sincere teshuva (repentance).
Why was the shofar, a rather crude musical instrument, specifically chosen to give us these two messages? Even in ancient times, finer musical instruments producing more refined sounds existed.
What is unique about the shofar is that it is made from an animal, a ram's horn. Even when the horn has been hollowed out, cleaned and polished, it is still more similar to a horn than a fine musical instrument.
The preparation for Rosh Hashana, and its inauguration through the sounding of the horn of an animal, teaches us a profound lesson. Although people are intelligent creatures and our intellect is one of the things that separates us from other living creatures, intellect cannot be the be-all and end-all. When it comes to accepting G-d as our Ruler, we must do so with the submissiveness of an animal. Our return to G-d, too, is more easily accomplished by setting aside our cold, calculating intellect and relying, instead, on our warm, simple, more primitive emotive qualities.
