This is my dad playing alpine horn outside a Chabad house in Utah

A Jewish Rabbi who plays the Alphorn and Blows the Shofar

My father some years ago had the inspiration to go to Switzerland, buy an alphorn and learn to play it.  An ‘alphorn,’ or ‘alpenhorn,’ or perhaps ‘alpine horn,’ if you prefer, is a long wooden horn used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland. Similar horns have been used in many mountainous regions across Europe as a form of communication.

He has been playing trumpet for decades and perhaps thought it was time for a new challenge, or that the trumpet was no longer loud enough to irritate the neighbours.

My father’s shtick is to play the alphorn at weddings to give joy to the bride and groom. It is a great mitzvah to be ‘misameach chatan v’kalah.’ I guess as a novelty a couple of Jewish tunes played on the alphorn will bring happiness. After a while, it will bring a migraine headache.

I, and other family members, have become familiar with the sound of wind instruments; it’s not only my dad who plays them. My mother is a pro at the Oboe, clarinet, and flute.  If growing up with ten siblings was not cause for enough noise, throw in a few wind instruments and…

Though I carry some of the blame. When I’m traveling and find a strange wind instrument, I’ll sometimes buy it for my parents. I do this more now that I no longer live at home and so I don’t have to hear the thing being played. For example; I got my mother some pan pipe bamboo flutes from Peru, and for my dad a large Tibetan horn in Nepal. My dad still reminds me that I should have gotten him a water buffalo horn, which were for sale in Cambodia… “Dad, you know how much a water buffalo horn weighs in a backpack!”

Anyway, speaking of wind instruments and horns, now we are in the month of Elul and it’s a custom to blow the Shofar everyday leading up to Rosh Hashanah. This is to inspire us to do tshuvah and get ready for Rosh Hashana.

It should not come as a surprise that my dad is the shofar blower at his synagogue, and the best I’ve ever heard.  Okay he’s got strong lungs, but it takes more than just a bit of wind to blow the shofar. There are many halachot to follow and kabalistic thoughts to have when sounding the shofar.

Please G-d may we hear the sound of the great shofar this Rosh Hashanah in the Beit Hamikdash.

…and a water buffalo horn is not kosher to use as a shofar…

Shana Tova

Rabbi Chiam playing Alphorn at the Alpinehorn convention in the United States...Can you guess who the Rabbi is?