Daniel Katzen

One of the last conversations I had with Dick was about shofar "playing" (remember the mitzvah is to hear the shofar, not to "play" or "blow" it). He told me that, for the first 10 or so years that I had shofar duty at RH, I sounded like a horn player "playing" the shofar. This past year (5760) I, for the first time, I apparently sounded to him like I was a shofar-blower, not a horn player trying to sound like a shofar-blower. He said he couldn't exactly define the difference, but he had heard it in my shofar. He was very concerned that this difference be explained, taught or spread throughout the minyan so that other shofar blowers would hopefully come to hear or feel the difference. I assured him I would do my best to spread the word. This was while he lay in his hospital bed at Beth Israel after his accident.