Q&A from the Bais HaVaad Halacha Hotline

Missed Call

August 21, 2025

Q I had to daven bichidus one day during Elul. Was I required to go to a minyan afterward to hear the tekios after davening?

A The practice of sounding the shofar during Elul is one of our earliest traditions. Moshe Rabeinu ascended Har Sinai for the third time on Rosh Chodesh Elul and received the second set of luchos forty days later, on Yom Kippur. On that day, the shofar was blown throughout the camp as a warning for the nation not to repeat the sin they committed the first time Moshe was on the mountain, when they served the Eigel Hazahav.

To commemorate that shofar blast, Chazal instituted the sounding of the shofar during Elul. It is also meant to serve as a wake-up call for the approaching yemei hadin, as expressed in the pasuk (Amos 3:6), “If the shofar would sound in the city, would the people not tremble?” (Pirkei DeRabi Eliezer 46, as expounded by the Tur and nos’ei keilim in O.C. 581).

R’ Eliezer Waldenberg was asked by R’ Tzvi Pesach Frank whether each individual incurs the shofar obligation of Elul (similar to that of Rosh Hashanah) or only the community (Tzitz Eliezer 12:48). Rav Waldenberg concluded that since Chazal instituted it in a manner similar to the practice in the midbar—which was communal—it is an obligation of the tzibur, not the yachid. Therefore, if someone missed it, he does not need to make it up. Rivevos Efraim (1:395) cites several contemporaries who ruled this way as well.

If the tzibur did not blow shofar after Shacharis, it should do so at Mincha. It should not blow at Ma’ariv (Igros Moshe O.C. 4:21), as nighttime is not an eis ratzon (time of grace).