Every year before the Days of Awe, the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidic Judaism, held a competition to see who would blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. Now if you wanted to blow the shofar for the Baal Shem Tov, not only did you have to blow the shofar like a virtuoso, but you also had to learn an elaborate system of kavanot -- secret prayers that were said just before you blew the shofar to direct the shofar blasts and to see that they had the proper effect in the supernal realms.

All the prospective shofar blowers practiced these kavanot for months. They were difficult and complex. There was one fellow who wanted to blow the shofar for the Baal Shem Tov so badly that he had been practicing these kavanot for years. But when his time came to audition before the Baal Shem, he realized that nothing he had done had prepared him adequately for the experience of standing before this great and holy man, and he choked. His mind froze completely. He couldn't remember one of the kavanot he had practiced for all those years. He couldn't even remember what he was supposed to be doing at all. He just stood before the Baal Shem in utter silence, and then, when he realized how egregiously -- how utterly -- he had failed this great test, his heart just broke in two and he began to weep, sobbing loudly, his shoulders heaving and his whole body wracking as he wept. Read more...