It is a Jewish custom to blow the shofar throughout the entire month of Elul (except for the eve of Rosh Hashanah) in order to strengthen the concept of Teshuvah (return/repentance), as it is stated:
“Shall a shofar be blown in a city, and the people not tremble?” (Amos 3:6).
Chassidus explains that blowing the shofar generally awakens yirah – awe of Heaven: Blowing the shofar during the month of Elul awakens yirah tata’ah (the lower level of awe), and this serves as the preparation for blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, which awakens yirah ila’ah (the higher level of awe).
The Rebbe explains that according to Chabad custom, we begin practicing the shofar blowing starting from the 30th of Menachem Av – the first day of Rosh Chodesh Elul.
The Rebbe reveals:
– A Chabad custom, revealed and popularized by the Nasi of our generation, is that already on the first day of Rosh Chodesh we begin to practice blowing the shofar – even though the complete shofar blowing is on the second day [of Rosh Chodesh]. This goes to the extent of being “engaged” [in it]… not merely by studying these laws, but also by trying out the shofar and actually blowing it! And this brings about the effect of: “Shall a shofar be blown in a city, and the people not tremble?”…
And this also serves as a reminder of the shofar blowing of the future Redemption – in addition to the shofar blowings of Rosh Hashanah
…which is a ‘great shofar’, the ‘right horn’ that is primary to the ‘left horn’, as explained in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer and elaborated upon in the well-known Maamar sequence of the Rebbe Maharash, “Lechatchila Ariber.”
And immediately there is an awakening and an end to the question “Until when?” (Ad Masai?), because there is the [fulfillment of] “Sound the great shofar for our freedom,” and there is no one to hold it back, and immediately comes the freedom in ultimate perfection, a true and complete freedom, “and He did not delay them even for the blink of an eye.”
May there immediately be the “Sounding of the great shofar for our freedom,” and immediately, without delay, as stated, not even for the blink of an eye [delaying] our freedom, in ultimate perfection:
“With our youth and with our elders, with our sons and with our daughters,” a “great assembly” (in the singular), coming here with the clouds of heaven “in one hour and in one moment,” to our Holy Land, and there to Jerusalem the Holy City, “a city that is bound firmly together”…
From the Rebbe’s explanations (30 Menachem Av, 5747, free translation).
