Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1919 — SHOFAR OF GREAT ANTIQUITY [ARTICLE]

SHOFAR OF GREAT ANTIQUITY

- v Oldest Form of Wind Instrumeht That - Haa Been Retained in Use by the World. Dr. Gyrus Adler, writing of .the ahofar, calls it the solitary mu--1 si cal Instrument actually preserved in the Mosaic ritual. “It Is also,” he 1 says, “the oldest £on£of wind lnstrui ment known to be retained in use.-by. the world. Professor Stelnthal pointed out that this was an instrument no doubt used In prehistoric times. Wetzsteln Is of the opinion that the use of the ram’s horn may have been borrowed by the Israelites and goes back to a people who were engaged solely In the care of sheep; by them it was used as a signal of alarm. There can be little doubt that it has been continuously used in the Mosaic service from the time it was established «an til now. The sbofar was not the only horn used by the Israelites as a musical instrument, but no copies or . representations of other musical instruments have come down to us. i From the Talmud we learn that the use of the shofar as a note of alarm, of war, was transferred to Other eeasons of danger and distress. Famine, a plague of locusts, and drought occasioned of this Instrument I The shofar Was employed at the public ceremony of excommunication. A i very curious use of the shofar. in later times was In funeral ceremonies. I i quite agree with Wetzsteln that this use of the instrument Is quite apart from the Semitic custom and that it was probably borrowed. As a signal and an instrument of war It has its various uses; it was a signal for going out to battle, for the announcing of a victory and for the recall of troops.”