Witch's Shofar

א' תשרי התשס"ט
Blodlessing 2
Erev Rosh Hashanah

After work earlier today, right before Rosh Hashanah, as I was driving home, nearing my house outside of town, a deer lept out of the woods along the road and almost into the street, right into my car's path. Only, it stopped and turned back just moments in time to avoid being struck.

The deer that I didn't hit seemed to look sideways through the windshield at me as it was turning. Right into my eyes. See me, it seemed to say. Our souls connected for that brief instant. Then, the deer sped away back into the woods.

Such was my magical encounter with the deer of Rosh Hashanah. What does a deer have to do with Rosh Hashanah?

Dave at Balashon writes on the etymology of shofar:

"Shofar... Judaism: A trumpet made of a ram's horn, blown by the ancient Hebrews during religious ceremonies and as a signal in battle, now sounded in synagogue during Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Yom Kippur. Etymology: Hebrew shofar, ram's horn; akin to Akkadian sapparu, sappar, fallow deer... from Sumerian segbar, fallow deer." (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.)

Akkadian and Sumerian are two long-extinct languages once spoken, in the millennia before the Common Era, in what is now called Iraq and historically known as Mesopotamia or Babylonia. Akkadian belonged to the Semitic family. Until recently, Sumerian was considered one of those rare tongues, like Basque, for which linguists were unable to find relatives at all. Since the 1970s, however, an impressive body of evidence has accumulated, linking it to the Dravidian languages of southern India, such as Tamil. We are told, then, that our shofar derives its name from the Sumerian word for a fallow deer. This may not seem like much of a problem to you, but having looked into it, I can assure you that it is.

Interesting "coincidence," I think.

I understand the problem. You see, if the etymology of shofar is linked through Sumerian to the Dravidian language, and thereby to the Dravidian religion, then this is indeed a problem for traditional Judaic thinkers. Why? Because the Dravidian religion of the Indus Valley is the source of the Old Religion called Witchcraft. This would make the shofar (a major instrument through which the Jewish people were brought into being) a tool whose origin is sourced in the Old Religion of Witchcraft.

So, while the result of Dave's investigation into the etymology of the word shofar may not seem like much of a problem to you, I assure you, it is. LOL.