Img. ID: 40939
Fol. 40: A pen-drawn illustration by Scribe A next to the musaf prayers for the first day of the New Year, namely
the blessings and instructions for blowing the shofar: a man blowing a horn with the help of his right hand while holding it in his left. The man is wearing a prayer shawl (tallith) and a pointed Jewish hat. His left foot rests on a stool with three pairs of legs, while his other is firmly on the ground, marked by a line. Small wavy lines rising up from the horn denote the sounds.
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Fig. 1: Blowing the shofar, Munich High Holidays and Sukkot Mahzor, Munich, BSB Cod.hebr. 86, fol. 40. |
Fig. 2: Blowing the shofar, Alliance Israélite Mahzor, Constance (?), first quarter of the 14th century. Paris, Bibliothèque de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle' MS 24 H, fol. 84v. (Sed-Rajna 1994:211, 212) |
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Fig. 3: Blowing the shofar, First Kaufmann Mahzor, Germany, c.1270-1290. Budapest, MTAK, A 388, fol. II:12v. (Jerusalem, CJA Documentation) |
Fig. 4: Blowing the shofar, Vienna High Holidays and Sukkot Mahzor' Franconia, first-half of the 14th century. Vienna, Cod. hebr. 174, fol. 20v. (Jerusalem, CJA Documentetion) |
The image of a man blowing the horn appears in several other manuscripts produced in Germany in the second half of the 13thand the 14th centuries, such as in the Alliance Israélite Mahzor (fig. 2) from the third quarter of the 13th century (Sed-Rajna 1994:211, 212); and in the First Kaufmann Mahzor, produced in Germany,
1270-1290 (fig. 3; and fol. II:163v).
These mostly represent a three-legged stool, not one with three pairs of legs as in our manuscript. A four-legged stool appears in the Vienna High Holidays and Sukkot Mahzor (fig. 4). The custom of placing one foot on a stool while blowing the shofar was common inGermanyin the Middle Ages. It is mentioned in a book of customs written by Rabbi Isaac Tyrnau (1380/5-1450?), who describes the shofar blower placing one foot on a stool (Sperber 2003, VII:242-6). The reasons for this custom are unclear. Róth suggested that the purpose of raising the foot was to separate the man blowing the shofar from the ground he stands on, which is where Satan draws his power from (fig. 3; Róth 1962:4). Sperber argues that the custom is symbolic of the wish to project the sound of the shofar as high as possible in order to reach heaven. He refers to a similar symbolic custom of early German pagans in which, in a ceremony meant to help the harvest grow taller, a tall girl would stand with one foot on a bench while performing certain rituals without wobbling.