The Silence Of The Shofar | Short Mystery Story 

The desert air of Nevada was thin and sharp, carrying the scent of sun-baked creosote and the distant, sweet smell of the lulav bundle in my hand. Inside the temporary shelter, the sukkah, the roof of palm fronds and willow branches cast a dappled, dancing shadow on the faces of my family. It was Sukkot. The Feast of Tabernacles. 

A time of commanded joy, of remembering the fragility of our ancestors' journey and the solid, unmovable faithfulness of the God who dwelt with them in a tent of meeting.

My wife, Chava, hummed a melody from the Hallel psalms as she set a plate of dates and figs on the rustic table. Our son, Avi, eight years old with eyes that held the seriousness of a much older soul, was carefully hanging paper chains and drawings of the Temple next to the citrusy etrog in its protective box.

“V'samachta b'chagecha,” I recited softly, the words from Deuteronomy feeling like a warm, heavy blanket. “And you shall rejoice in your feast.” (Deuteronomy 16:14).

But the blanket had holes, and a cold dread seeped through. I tried to focus on the joy, on the symbolism of this temporary dwelling pointing to God’s eternal protection. 

Yet my mind was a battlefield, haunted by the ghosts of other feasts, other Sabbaths, where the command to rest was met not with peace, but with the sword.

I looked at Avi, his small fingers gently stroking the etrog, and I was transported.

I saw the news footage from the Yom Kippur War, not the one in 1973, but the attack in Manchester, UK 2025. The holiest day of the year, a day of afflicting one’s soul, of white garments and pure repentance. The synagogue doors were supposed to be a gateway to heaven, but they became a gateway to terror. 

Jews, wrapped in their tallitot, their prayers ascending for one final Ne'ilah service, were cut down. The shofar that was meant to herald redemption instead fell silent, choked by the smoke of violence. Why, Adonai? On the day You command us to cease from all work, why did You allow the work of death to proceed?

The memory shifted, sharpened.

Rosh Hashanah. The Head of the Year. The Day of the Blasting, the coronation of the King. In the holy land itself, the sound of the shofar was drowned out by the scream of sirens and the staccato rhythm of hatred. Families gathered for apples and honey, praying for a sweet year, and instead received a cup of bitterness. The promise of “On this day it is decreed…” felt like a cruel joke. What was decreed? A year of mourning?

“Abba?” Avi’s voice pulled me back to the Nevada sukkah. “Why does the roof have to have holes? So we can see the stars?”

“Yes, Avi,” I said, my voice thick. “To remember that our true protection comes from above, not from the walls of a house.”

But do You, Adonai? Do You protect? The question was a scream in my soul, a tear in the fabric of my faith. The very days You set apart as sacred, as a sign between You and Your people forever (Exodus 31:17), have become a target on our backs. 

Our obedience to Your command to rest feels like a strategic vulnerability that You, in Your sovereignty, permit our enemies to exploit.

The sun began its descent, painting the desert sky in brilliant strokes of orange and purple. The beauty felt like an insult. We lit the holiday candles, the flames wavering in the gentle evening breeze that whispered through the sukkah walls. We sang “HaMa’avir Banav,” the hymn about God who brought His children between the parted walls of water and saved them from Pharaoh. The words tasted like ash.

It was after the blessing over the wine, the Kiddush, that the peace shattered.

Not with a siren, but with the sound of crunching gravel under heavy, purposeful boots. Then, voices—rough, slurred with drink and venom.

“Well, look at this. Playing house in the desert.”

Three men emerged from the deepening twilight, their silhouettes menacing against the dying sun. They stood at the edge of our property, just beyond the circle of light from our sukkah.

“Nice little shack you got there, Jews.” The largest one took a step forward. “Celebrating your little holiday?”

My blood ran cold. Chava instinctively pulled Avi closer, her arm a protective bar across his chest. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, terrified drum. This was it. This was the pattern repeating itself. Not on a national scale, but here, in my own backyard, on this holy day.

“This is private property,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Please leave us in peace.”

“Peace?” one of them laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “You people don’t get peace. You steal land and play the victim.”

They began to advance. One of them held a tire iron, casually slapping it against his palm. The command from Leviticus echoed in my mind, a divine whisper that now felt like a death sentence: 

“On the first day you shall take for yourselves the fruit of a beautiful tree… and you shall rejoice before Adonai your God for seven days.” (Leviticus 23:40). We had the beautiful fruit. Where was our God?

The leader, a man with a snake tattoo coiling up his neck, kicked over one of the folding chairs at the edge of the sukkah. “I think your little hut needs a renovation.”

Avi began to cry, a soft, terrified whimper. The sound broke something in me. It was the whimper of every Jewish child in every generation, facing down the hatred of the world. 

The rage and the fear and the theological confusion of the last few years boiled over into a single, silent, desperate prayer. It wasn't eloquent. It was the cry of the Psalmist, of Yeshua himself on the stake.

“Eli, Eli, lamah azavtani?” My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? (Psalm 22:1, Matthew 27:46).

The man with the tire iron took another step, his eyes locked on me. He raised the weapon. Chava screamed. Time seemed to slow, to stretch into an eternity. I saw the hatred in his eyes, the twisted pleasure. I saw the flimsy walls of the sukkah, a symbol of divine protection that was about to be violated. I saw my son’s face, pale with terror.

In that suspended moment, a verse from the prophet Zechariah, read on Sukkot, flashed in my mind with blinding clarity: “Then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot, and to celebrate the Feast of Sukkot.” (Zechariah 14:16).

A future where even the enemies keep Sukkot. A future of universal peace. But what about now? What about this moment, in the Nevada desert, where the feast is being defiled?

The tire iron reached its apex. I braced for the impact, my body tensing to shield my family. My faith felt like the sukkah itself—fragile, full of holes, and about to be torn down.

And then, a new sound cut through the night.

It wasn't a siren. It wasn't a shout. It was a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate from the very earth beneath us. It was a sound that didn't belong to the desert, to this neighborhood, to this world. It was primeval, full of a terrifying and immense power.

The man with the tire iron froze. His eyes, previously glazed with hate, widened in pure, unadulterated fear. He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking past me, past the sukkah, into the deep shadows of the desert behind our property.

His two companions had also stopped, their bravado evaporated. One of them pointed a trembling finger, his mouth working but no sound coming out.

I turned, my heart threatening to burst from my chest.

There, at the tree line, just beyond the reach of our sukkah’s light, stood a massive figure. It was indistinct, shrouded in the seemed to be crowned with… something. Light? Antlers? I couldn't tell. 

But from it emanated an aura of such formidable, protective fury that the very air grew heavy. The growl came again, deeper this time, a promise of violence that made the tire iron look like a child’s toy.

The leader of the thugs dropped his weapon. The clang of metal on hardpan was shockingly loud. He didn't speak. He simply backpedaled, his face a mask of terror, then turned and ran. His friends were already fleeing, stumbling over themselves in their panic, disappearing into the darkness as if swallowed whole.

Silence descended, more profound and shocking than the violence that had preceded it. The only sound was the wind rustling the schach and Avi’s quiet sobs.

I looked back towards the trees. The figure was gone. There was nothing there but the familiar, star-dusted darkness.

Trembling, I turned to my family. Chava held Avi tightly, both of them staring at the spot where the… the presence had been. We were safe. Unharmed. The sukkah stood. The lulav and etrog remained on the table, holy objects in a space that had just been both violated and sanctified in a way I could not comprehend.

My mind reeled, trying to process the impossible. The command to rest. The historical attacks. The promise of protection. The terrifying intervention. It was all a tangled knot.

I stumbled to the table, my legs weak, and picked up my Chumash. It fell open, as if by divine guidance, to a verse in Exodus, one I had read a thousand times but never truly seen. It was God’s promise to Israel as they prepared to face Pharaoh’s armies, a verse read in the Passover Haggadah, but now it burned with new meaning for Sukkot:

“Adonai will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” (Exodus 14:14).

Hold your peace. Be silent. Rest.

A shiver, not of fear, but of awe, coursed through me. The command to rest on Shabbat and the Feasts was not a command to be passive. It was the ultimate act of faith. It was the active, defiant choice to believe that the battle belongs to Adonai. 

That our ceasing from work was an invitation for Him to begin His. We were not vulnerable on these days; we were placing ourselves in the posture where His strength was made perfect in our weakness.

The attacks were not a sign of His absence, but a brutal, painful context for the revelation of His deliverance. He didn't promise there would be no enemies. He promised He would be our shield. Sometimes, that shield is invisible, a spiritual protection we cannot see. And sometimes…

I looked again into the dark, empty desert.

Sometimes, the shield has a voice.

I fell to my knees there in the sukkah, amidst the symbols of our temporary dwelling, and I wept. I wept for the lost in Manchester and in Israel. I wept from the terror and the relief. And I began, for the first time, to understand the terrifying, thrilling, and mysterious truth of what it means to keep the Feast.

But as I knelt there, a final, chilling thought gripped me, a mystery deeper than the first. That presence i

n the darkness… it had saved us, yes. Its fury was on our behalf. But the growl I heard, the raw, untamed power I felt… it wasn't just protective.

It was the same.