Auction 050 Part 2 Special Chabad Auction in Honor of Chag HaGeulah Yud-Tes Kislev – Rosh Hashana of Chassidut – Marking the Date in which Rebbe Shneur Zalman of Liadi was Released from Czarist Imprisonment
Shofar of the Rebbe Rashab of Lubavitch
Shofar of Rebbe Shalom Dov Ber Schneerson, the Rebbe Rashab of Lubavitch.
Large, narrow, curved shofar. The shofar's wide opening is carved with a wave pattern, and its exterior with a serrated pattern.
Enclosed is a letter of authenticity (handwritten note in English), signed in Hebrew by his granddaughter Rebbetzin Chana Gurary (1899-1991), eldest daughter of the Rebbe Rayatz: "I hereby gift… a Shofar of my grandfather the Rashab. He bought it while he was in Germany." The letter is dated March 4, 1990.
The custom of Chabad rebbes was to blow the shofar themselves for the community to thereby fulfill their obligation. The Rebbe Rayatz recounts how three different shofars were set on the table of his father, the Rebbe Rashab, before and after the blowing of the shofar. "Every Rosh Hashanah, my father the Rebbe would line up the shofars before the blowing. On the reading table were set three shofars. One was very long; this was the shofar of the Maharal of Prague…" [Sefer HaSichot, Hebrew translation, p. 14].
The Lubavitcher Rebbe was known to have possessed three different shofars: one light-colored one from his grandfather the Tzemach Tzedek, one black one from his father R. Levi Yitzchak attributed to the Rebbe Maharash, and one from his father-in-law the Rebbe Rayatz.
In an article in HaTamim (IV, p. 87), the author describes the tremulous emotion at the Rebbe Rashab's shofar blowing: "…His holy face and head were wrapped in his Tallit, and a small, still, quiet voice could be heard in a stanza of the well-known Chabad melody in intense devotion, when the call of 'Lamnatzeach' breaks out from the innermost part of his holy heart in powerful excitement and terrible crying, in such a way as to melt even a heart of stone, and the entire congregation broke out in tears of repentance and internal regret…”.
Length of shofar: Approx. 29 cm. Good condition. Cracks and damage.
Included is a small leather-lined suitcase that may have also been used by the rebbe or his family (the suitcase was given along with the shofar, but it is not mentioned in the letter of authenticity).