Shofars

After a highly amusing conversation with a non-Jewish friend of mine, I realized that not everyone knows what a shofar looks like. And if you don't, my entry from last week must seem very, very weird. So here are a few pictures of shofars, in all their glory:

They're usually made of ram's horn, and they're always blown on Rosh Hashanah, plus other times, especially during the month of Elul (Sept/Oct) in order to call the Jews to worship. There are four different types of sounds you make, ranging from one long note to nine little spurts of sound. Here's another:

This one is the type that most people bought the other day - strange as it may seem, the bigger the shofar, the easier it is to produce a sound.

And here is a random internet picture of someone blowing a shofar. I picked a picture of a woman in response to the conservative religious sexism here - Orthodox Jews say that only men can blow the shofar, even though it's specifically mentioned in the Talmud that women can do it too. The woman here is also wearing a kippah (beanie-like head covering), tallit (prayer shawl), and tefillin (straps with boxes containing Hebrew prayers on the arm and head). Yeah, I admit it may look funny... but then again, Catholics have that wafer and wine bit and monks who swing incense, so I guess none of us religious-types can really complain. :)