Extra Large Polished Ram’s Horn Shofar — Handcrafted in Israel

Description

A full-size ram’s horn shofar with a smooth polished finish, crafted in Israel and inspected piece by piece before it ships. Every horn is natural, so no two are identical in curve, coloring, or grain — yours will be one of a kind.

Made by the Ribak family of Tel Aviv

The Ribak family arrived in Israel from Poland roughly seventy years ago, among the early residents of Tel Aviv, and brought their shofar-making equipment with them. Three generations later they still shape each horn by the traditional process, refined with modern tooling for consistency and finish. Every shofar is checked for cracks, blemishes, and imperfections before it leaves the workshop — a damaged horn won’t produce a proper sound.

Why a ram’s horn

Shofarot are made from ram’s horn rather than the horn of a cow or calf, since those carry the association of the Golden Calf from the book of Exodus. The extra length of an XL horn produces a deeper, fuller, more resonant tone that carries across a sanctuary — the reason larger shofarot are favored for congregational use.

The three sounds

The person who sounds the shofar is called a tokea. Three blasts make up the traditional sequence:

• Tekiah — one long, unbroken blast
• Shevarim — three medium blasts
• Teru’ah — nine short, staccato notes

On Rosh Hashanah the shofar is sounded one hundred times. It is heard again at the close of Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur, marking the end of the season of repentance. Its purpose is to wake the listener — a call to spiritual attention that words don’t reach.

Learning to blow it

The technique is close to a trumpet or bugle: the horn rests against the side of the mouth and the lips vibrate to produce the tone. It takes practice, but most people can learn to sound a clean tekiah with some patience. A larger horn takes slightly more breath but rewards it with a stronger sound.

Care: wipe the interior dry after use and store it somewhere cool and out of direct sunlight. Kept properly, a shofar lasts generations.

Please note: every shofar is a natural horn. Size, curve, and coloring vary from piece to piece — the shofar you receive will not look exactly like the photograph.