Publication date:
16 October 2015Length of book:
202 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9781442250277
In The Shofar, Jeremy Montagu offers a detailed study of the ram’s horn of the Bible, describing its history and use—both ritual and secular—from biblical times to the present. Because the same person normally blows the shofar each year during the Jewish High Holy Days, few are aware of the wide differences among communities around the world: the varying points in the Jewish liturgical service when the shofar is blown, what sound combinations exist, and the many varieties of the instrument.
This is the first work of its kind to detail the full range of historical, musical, antiquarian, and religious issues surrounding the ancient instrument with all relevant citations from the Bible, the Talmud, and key post-Talmudic sources. Jeremy Montagu carefully examines horn types, sound characteristics, liturgical uses, and community functions to illustrate how the shofar has reflected local custom, regional needs, and religious practice. Chapters provide difficult-to-find information on how shofars are made; advice on how to choose, prepare, and maintain shofars; and instructions for aspiring blowers on a variety of traditions.
With more than sixty photographs from the author’s personal collection, this is an ideal work for Jews and Christians, religious scholars and musicologists, and even practicing musicians seeking to understand the crucial role of this instrument in the life of a people.
This is the first work of its kind to detail the full range of historical, musical, antiquarian, and religious issues surrounding the ancient instrument with all relevant citations from the Bible, the Talmud, and key post-Talmudic sources. Jeremy Montagu carefully examines horn types, sound characteristics, liturgical uses, and community functions to illustrate how the shofar has reflected local custom, regional needs, and religious practice. Chapters provide difficult-to-find information on how shofars are made; advice on how to choose, prepare, and maintain shofars; and instructions for aspiring blowers on a variety of traditions.
With more than sixty photographs from the author’s personal collection, this is an ideal work for Jews and Christians, religious scholars and musicologists, and even practicing musicians seeking to understand the crucial role of this instrument in the life of a people.
A distinguished scholar of musical instruments, Montagu combines, in his inimitable way, minutely researched scholarship with personal anecdotes and humor. Only he could have written this volume on the shofar, the ancient instrument used in Jewish religious practices. Drawing on his own collection of musical instruments, his experience as a blower of the shofar, and his deep knowledge of Jewish thought, Montagu presents a typology of 16 varieties of shofar, plus instructions on how to choose one, how to make one, how to play it, and who may play it. The most important use of the shofar is for Rosh Hashanah—when it is ‘not a musical instrument [but] instead, a voice, a call from heaven’—but Montagu includes a chapter on its secular use, noting its survival as ‘the oldest musical instrument in written history that is still in use.’ More than 30 instruments are described, their inscriptions cataloged, the theological sources plumbed deeply. This little book will become ‘the’ book on the shofar. And praise is due the publisher for laminating the would-be dust jacket to the covers, thus preserving the photos that would have otherwise been lost in shelving the book in a library. All books should be published this way. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.