Marblehead, MA - Great Shofar Blowout, Everyone Gets to Toot Their Own Horns

Marblehead, MA - A gathering at the Marblehead Jewish Community Center will try to blow the ram's horn known as a shofar in just the right way. They are on a mission to reclaim a Guinness World Record that was topped last year.

Traditionally, the instrument has been entrusted to selected hands, blown by clergy or specific members of congregations on Rosh Hashana. But not so north of Boston, where more than 400 Jews from the area, including these 100 trainees, will attempt to form the largest gathering of shofar blowers at 3 p.m. Sunday at Phillips Beach in Swampscott.

The idea of bringing hundreds of people together to set a record for shofar blowing came from Robert Lappin, a Salem-based philanthropist and real estate developer who says, "There is some magic to it that reaches very deeply into the Jewish psyche."