At 5 p.m. on September 18, don’t be alarmed if you hear a long, low blast of sound resembling a French horn blaring across the D.C. region.

It’s the sound of potentially hundreds of shofars — a ram’s horn used as a musical instrument in Jewish religious practices — simultaneously being blown to usher in the Jewish New Year.

“The Blast” is a coordinated effort from 30 synagogues and Jewish organizations across the D.C. region on the eve of Rosh Hashanah encouraging people to go outside and sound their shofar safely all at the same time.

“It alerts us that something is different. It’s visceral,” says Rabbi Sarah Krinsky of Adas Israel Congregation in Northwest and one of the organizers. “You hear the sound that kinda reverberates through your whole body. It’s meant to wake something up in you.”

Rosh Hashanah is one of the Judaism’s “high holidays” and one of the holiest times of the year. It begins at sundown on September 18 this year and lasts until sundown on September 20. Normally, it’s celebrated by family meals and praying together in synagogues. This year, like everything else in our lives, it will be different due to the pandemic. Services will be conducted virtually and large gatherings will not be happening.

“Part of the grandeur and majesty of the holidays is dressing up and coming [to synagogue],” says Krinsky. “It has a different texture in the air. And that’s so hard to replicate at home.”

So, local religious leaders looked to find a way to bring the community together while keeping everyone safe. The Blast was conceived by three young D.C. rabbis: Rabbi Krinsky, Rabbi Hannah Goldstein of Temple Sinai on Military Road in Northwest, and Rabbi Aaron Potek of Sixth & I.

“This has been a really difficult year and one where a lot of folks have felt pretty isolated and disconnected,” Potek says. “Luckily, Judaism has a lot of very embodied rituals and one of them is the shofar blowing. And it’s meant to be heard in real time.”

The hope, says Potek, is that at 5 p.m., hundreds of people across the city and region will walk outside of their homes and blow. Or simply listen. Potek says just hearing a shofar being blown on Rosh Hashanah is part of Jewish law.

The rabbis are encouraging people to pin their location on the map on the website so others can know where they’ll be able to hear a shofar. With nine days before the start of the event as of publication, about 30 participants have pinned their shofar locations.

“This is a really easy way to bring communities together for a short, easy, hopefully meaningful moment,” says Potek. “And acknowledge that even though all days are blurring together, time actually has passed and we are entering a new Jewish year.”

Though it’s easy to hear the loud rumble of a shofar blast, blowing one effectively is a bit harder.

One of those participating in The Blast is 29-year-old Shana Finkel of Petworth, whom Potek describes as an “all-star” shofar blower. She got her first instrument when she was only eight, and has been sounding her shofar in front of the congregation since she was in ninth grade. Finkel, who’s originally from Fairfax, Virginia, says blowing the shofar is a lot like playing a French horn.

First, take a deep “belly breath,” not a shallow one from the chest, and make a circle with the thumb and fingers as the mouthpiece. Then, get ready to blow.

“Put your lips together and make them vibrate. You don’t want to puff out your cheeks,” says Finkel. “I think that’s something a lot of people do, but it actually makes it harder to blow.”

If you want to hear her sound the shofar, Finkel says that as long as it’s not too crowded and she can maintain safe social distancing, she’s going to go out to Malcolm X Park so all can hear the shofar blast.

Meanwhile, she’s practicing at home. “[The sound] is definitely a little jarring,” she says. “But my neighbors know I do it.”

Krinsky says they have alerted the mayor’s office that this is happening in case the noise of simultaneous horn blasts confuse those who may not know what’s going on. “We are a little bit worried that if there are neighborhoods in which there are several dozen shofar blasts that the non-Jewish public might freak out,” she says with a laugh.

As for health and safety protections, people are actually being encouraged to put a mask at the end of the shofar to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Says Poteck, “As long as the sound is sort of able to travel through the mask, which it is, that’s a kosher shofar blast.”