I remember the first time heard the word “conscience” was when I was a kid and I discovered one of my favorite characters, “Jiminy Cricket”, Pinocchio’s conscience. Jiminy tried to keep Pinocchio out of trouble, and especially protected him from falling into the wrong influences. While listening to Jiminy, everything was fine for Pinocchio. The problems began for the wooden boy when he chose to ignore the desperate calls of warning from his cricket ….
The conscience is an integral part of our neshama (human soul). Its mission is to warn us when we are doing something wrong. It is the mental and spiritual mechanism that God gave us to protect ourselves from ourselves.
Our conscience (= yetser hatob) is the inner voice, that when, for example, we are about to say something negative about someone (lashon hara) shouts from inside: “Do not do it, it is bad to speak critically of another person. Would you like people to say that about you? “
But what happens when we ignore the first call of our conscience? How many times our conscience warns us about bad things we are about to do?
Our conscience shouts loud and clear the first time we are about to do something wrong. The Tsadiqim (= completely righteous people) hear and obey the first call of their conscience. Therefore, they maintain a permanently “active” and alert conscience that speaks with a strong and loud voice.
But what if, like Pinocchio, we decided to ignore the warning of our conscience?
When we ignore the first call of our conscience, that inner voice becomes increasingly lower and weaker … The conscience becomes virtually “mute”. And if we persist in our wrongdoing, and conscience are anesthetized, or in the words of Maimonides, “asleep”.
According to Maimonides the shofar is like an alarm clock. Consciences that have not been heard for the first time, have fallen asleep. The Shofar helps us to recover the original voice of our sleeping consciences.
In this sense, when we hear the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, we are starting the deepest step of the Teshuba process. We awaken our moral lethargy and reexamine our conduct in the light of a renewed conscience, awake and alert, which will call our attention like the first time.
The Shofar is the Divine alarm clock that calls us to reflect, reassess our behavior and ask ourselves: Is it possible that we are doing things wrong, and we did not even realize it? We speak critically of others, we proceed with dishonesty, we hurt people, we do not appreciate how much Hashem gives us, we lose our time in material vanities, etc, etc, etc …. and we have become so used to this routine, that our consciences no longer shout at us….
In the words of Maimonides (MT, Teshuba 3: 4) the shofar of Rosh Hashanah sends a powerful message:
“Awaken from your slumber, all those asleep! Those who are sleeping, stand up to review your deeds. Repent of what you have done wrong and remember your Creator … Examine your souls. Improve your behavior. Abandon your evil ways and your evil thoughts “
