If thrones have been seated in heaven: For Rosh Hashanah

This poem expresses the idea that since today is the day when seats are set up [for judgment], since the Jewish people has declared the New Month,¹ therefore we need to run to God and prostrate ourselves in front of him; we should not be afraid of the accuser [Satan], who travels around to accuse, with his eyes looking forward to have his accusations penetrate the celestial courtroom with especially strong force, because the dross on the silver and gold—Ishmael and Esau,² the sons of Abraham and Isaac, who are associated with the south and the north, the side of Mercy and the side of Judgment; his whole intention is to use his accusation to block off the wellsprings of Mercy and fire up the Judgment. And because we have the sound of the shofar, by which he can be astounded, and his arguments can be blocked off, [the poem] says that we need the shofar—not musical instruments—in order to silence the Judgment.

[The poem] then tells of its power and might: in a Jubilee year, the shofar is sounded in order to proclaim liberty to the land and send the oppressed free (Isaiah 58:6); at Mount Sinai, its sound was heard, and similarly, when judgment day comes, it will cry out and make fanfare (Isaiah 42:13).

Then it says that the sound that passes through [the shofar] is called the Spirit of the Lord, as known to experts in mysticism, and it is filled with three lines,³ which build three sequences, as stated in the Zohar, on the Torah portion Emor: “The first sequence . . . the second sequence . . . the third sequence . . . ”; through them, they weaken the forces of the prosecutors [i.e., Satan], which are called “mountains” when coming from Samael, and “boulders” when coming from Lilith. It says further that since the day of the Binding of Isaac, this instrument has been designated to do good for us forever, because the ram’s left horn was set aside for the day when the Torah was given, and the right horn for the day of the [future] redemption.

Moreover, [the blowing of the shofar] sweetens the mystery⁴ of the numerical value of the word shofar, which alludes three times to the name “Elohim”: the first time, [the name “Elohim”] is spelled thus: aleph (aleph, lamed, peh) lamed (lamed, mem, dalet) heh (heh, yod) yod (yod, vav, dalet) mem (mem, mem), for the numerical value 300; then “Elohim” written normally, for the numerical value 86; then spelled out progressively with one letter, two letters, three letters, four letters, [and the full word of five letters], thus: aleph, aleph lamed, aleph lamed heh, aleph lamed heh yod, aleph lamed heh yod mem, for the numerical value 200. The total is [586, the numerical value of] “shofar.” The intention is to sweeten all of this with the word kol (“sound”), which is [numerically] equivalent to the tetragrammaton, “Ehyeh,” “Adonai,” and “Yah.”⁵

[All this is] in accordance with the words of R. Isaac Luria, of blessed, saintly memory, and can be seen in the booklets about the [mystical] intentions of blowing the shofar.

[Finally, at the end of the poem, the speaker] pours out his speech to God, to rebuke Satan and his hosts, and to tear him up by the force of [God’s] great name, so that [Satan] will no longer be able to fight against the progeny of Jacob, who is called “small,” as it is written: How shall Jacob stand? For he is small (Amos 7:5). And [God] will overpower sin, and purify their soul, through the merit and power of the sound of the shofar.

Each stanza ends with a different biblical verse, ending in the word shofar. The meter of the poem is two syllables, then a yated,⁶ then four more syllables; then, in the second half of each line: a yated, a syllable, another yated, and three more syllables.