Q&A from the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

Full Blast

September 26, 2024

Q If I heard a cough or a sneeze during a shofar blast, was I yotzei?

A There is a general rule that trei kalei lo mishtam’ei (two simultaneous sounds are not discerned). But shofar and other audio mitzvos that recur only annually are different: Because listeners are more attentive to them, they hear the mitzvah sound over competing sounds (Rosh Hashanah 27a). Still, if the noise was loud enough to overwhelm the shofar, you were not yotzei.

Tekiah is frequently blown longer than is required. (The minimum duration is the length of its corresponding shvarim, truah, or shvarim-truah.) If the coughing was brief, and you had already heard a sufficient length of the tekiah, poskim debate whether you fulfilled the mitzvah (Shulchan Aruch O.C. 587:3). The halacha follows the stringent view, that a tekiah cannot be interrupted, but a bracha should not be recited when repeating it (Mishnah Brurah ibid. 15).

This halacha applies to shvarim and truah too, even though they are broken sounds (Ritva cited by Elef Hamagein ibid. 5).

You don’t always have to make up a missing shofar blast after davening. In shul, the shofar is sounded in two stages, before Musaf and during Musaf, one of which is de’Oreisa and the other is deRababan (Rosh Hashanah 16a). A third stage, at the end of davening, fulfills the minhag to complete 100 blasts.

Because one of the first two stages is a takanas tzibur rather than an obligation of the individual, if you missed a blast during the first stage, you can make it up at the second, and vice versa (see Chazon Ish 137:4).

If you missed a shvarim-truah sequence, you may need to hear it again, depending on your shul’s minhag: The Rishonim debate whether shvarim-truah is done in one breath or two, so both variations must be heard (See Rama 590:4 and Sha’ar Hatziyun ibid. 18). In most shuls, the shvarim-truahs of the first stage are done in one breath and those of the second in two. So if you missed a single-breath shvarim-truah, you should hear it again after davening. In some shuls, the shvarim-truahs of the third stage are once again done in one breath, so you can make it up then.