Blowing the Shofar Into a Container
A person is allowed to rely on the sound of a shofar blown in a pit or into a jar if one hears the sound of the shofar, not the
sound of the - הֲבָרָה. Similarly, one is able to rely on the sound of a Shofar blown inside a house if you are outside. Mishnah RH 3:7 (text below).
Jastrow translates הֲבָרָה as 'a confused sound.' The word is usually translated as 'echo' but the other appearances of this word in Rabbinic literature relate generally to indistinction rather than the specific phenomenon of echo.
The Gemara, 27a, (text below) discusses this Mishnah in the context of a Shofar blown in amongst trumpets and two people reading the Megillah at the same time (Megillah is, of course, a similarly aural Mitzvah to Shofar). The concern of the Gemara is that a person needs to be able to make out the distinct sound of the Shofar amongst the other sounds.
In this light, the concern around the Havarah in the pit seems to be a concern around hearing multiple Shofar-like sounds indistinctly echoing and clashing off one another such as to deprive a person of the ability to work out which the correct sound was amongst the cacophony (a bit like trying to hear a tune when a bunch of people are singing on Zoom!).
This is not the same as a concern about hearing 'an original sound' or a sound that has not reflected off a surface, or transferred from one medium (the air next to the Shofar) to another (the walls of a house) to a third medium (the air next to the ear of the hearer). These things are acceptable. Indeed all sound reflects and transfers.
On that basis, I consider it acceptable to rely on the sound of a Shofar blown into a container that does not echo - perhaps card-lined box, or similar. I also consider it acceptable to rely on the sound of a Shofar where the Shofar is blown outdoors with members of a community praying indoors (that would neatly invert the explicitly stated acceptable position articulated in the Mishnah - thank you Ben Waxman).
Placing a Cover Over The Shofar
As to whether one can rely on the sound of a Shofar blown where a cover was placed over the mouth of the Shofar (one person in a FB group suggested a mask - which amused me), I'm less sure. The preceding Mishnah discusses repairing a broken Shofar by glueing it back together or plugging a puncture and states if the repair does not מעכב את התקיעה - 'prevent the Tekiyah' such a repair is acceptable. But I think a cover for the Shofar that muffled the sound of the Shofar would be exactly that problem. (I'm thinking of the way trumpeters use muffles to play with distorting trumpet sounds - that, I think, is exactly the concern expressed in the Mishnah.) It might be possible to find a cover that is both capable of capturing respiratory particles while not 'preventing the Tekiyah,' but it seems a weaker Halachic position than blowing into a container.
Other Factors Related to Hearing the Shofar in Person
Of course, anyone who might be infected should not blow but this horrid infection can be passed on by those who do not realise they have been infected themselves, and we do not understand the nature of the resistance afforded by having previously been infected and subsequently recovered. Such a 'solution' cannot be relied on as the only protective measure. Similarly, we should clearly observe maximum physical distancing etc.
Electric Transmission of the Sound of a Shofar
The question of relying on a Shofar sound carried over an amplification system, or over a phone line, across the internet, over the radio or similar has received significant Halachic attention; not only the Shofar of Rosh Hashanah (which is a Yom Tov - and therefore not a day on which one would usually be using electrical transmission of anything), but regarding reading the Megillah, amplified Torah reading during large weekday services, responding, 'Amen' to a blessing said over the telephone and other related cases.
The significant Sugya here is in Sukkah 51b which discusses a practice of the Great Synagogue of Alexandria; a Synagogue so large that people at the back couldn't hear what was being said at the front. A flag system was used and when people saw the flag, they would respond Amen. This is called an 'Orphaned Amen,' (see also Brachot 47a). Rashi and Tosafot in Brachot state that this is acceptable since the people knew which blessing was being said, even if they didn't hear the blessing, but the Shulchan Arukh (OH 124:8) states that this only works for general blessings but that the specifically aural Mitzvot (e.g. Shofar and Megillah cannot be performed unless sound is heard.
Then came the invention of electricity and specifically the possibility of using microphones and amplifiers.
The two modern approaches articulated most clearly by Reb Shlomo Zalman Auerbach (Minhat Shlomo 1:9), and Reb Moshe Feinstein (IM OH 2:108).
Reb Auerbach states that Halahcically significant hearing can only happen as a result of a mechanical process where the vibrations caused as a sound is produced are in a direct chain of causation with the vibrations that hit the eardrum. As such, electrical transmission of sound cannot be relied on. Auerbach's position - and he makes this explicit, acknowledging the pain this position may cause - means that hearing aids cannot be used during Shofar / Megillah. If a person needs a hearing aid to hear, says Auerbach, they cannot fulfil these Mitzvot, and should not say the blessing.
In contradistinction, Reb Feinstein argues that sound is essentially a wave pattern, and since that wave pattern can be captured (by a microphone) and relayed (by a speaker), it is possible to say that a transmitted sound is the same sound as the produced sound. This would allow Mitzvot to be performed on the basis of transferred sound. He points out that the vibrating air molecules at the point of the production of a sound are never the same molecules as vibrate against our eardrum as we hear sound. Sound is always being transferred and relayed from one medium to another.
Rav Waldenberg (best known for his work in medical ethics) uses Feinstein's understanding in a position that supportive of a Rabbi who broadcasts the Megillah reading throughout a hospital so as to enable patients to hear it (Tzitz Eliezer 8:11).
I find Feinstein's articulation of the nature of sound, at the very least, reliable in times of a pandemic. In fact, I think you can go further than this. And indeed we should.
I do not accept Rav Waldenberg's analysis of the nature of hearing. Hearing is not a function of the eardrum, it is a function of the nervous system. All hearing arises as a result of electronic signals firing inside out nerves and brain. Feinstein has to be right that the central question is - are the signals that are being fired along our nerves the signals that blowing the shofar would produce if we were indeed standing next to the shofar blower? I find the Auerbach's position - which states that a person with a cochlear implant does not hear! - errant, as well as un-needfully harsh.
Of course, in an ideal world, a person should be in the same room as a Shofar in order that they may rely on the blow, but I hold that this isn't the only way in which one considers Halachically reliable sound, this year, in the context of Covid.
At New London Synagogue we will have a service streamed (using a 'set and forget' system) that streams from before Yom Tov until after Yom Tov. That stream will be embedded in a page on the New London web page which can be loaded and left to run from before Yom Tov until after Yom Tov. That feed will broadcast the blessings and calls of the Shofar from our RH2 service (first day RH is Shabbat this year). This system may be relied upon by anyone not attending the Synagogue in person.
See
Also, Rabbi Jeffrey Fox on the Auerbach position
Mishnah RH 3:7
(ז) הַתּוֹקֵעַ לְתוֹךְ הַבּוֹר אוֹ לְתוֹךְ הַדּוּת אוֹ לְתוֹךְ הַפִּטָּס, אִם קוֹל שׁוֹפָר שָׁמַע, יָצָא. וְאִם קוֹל הֲבָרָה שָׁמַע, לֹא יָצָא. וְכֵן מִי שֶׁהָיָה עוֹבֵר אֲחוֹרֵי בֵית הַכְּנֶסֶת, אוֹ שֶׁהָיָה בֵיתוֹ סָמוּךְ לְבֵית הַכְּנֶסֶת, וְשָׁמַע קוֹל שׁוֹפָר אוֹ קוֹל מְגִלָּה, אִם כִּוֵּן לִבּוֹ, יָצָא, וְאִם לָאו, לֹא יָצָא. אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁזֶּה שָׁמַע וְזֶה שָׁמַע, זֶה כִּוֵּן לִבּוֹ וְזֶה לֹא כִוֵּן לִבּוֹ:
Talmud RH 27a
ת"ש התוקע לתוך הבור או לתוך הדות או לתוך
הפיטס אם קול שופר שמע יצא ואם קול הברה שמע לא יצא אמאי ליפוק בתחילת תקיעה מקמי
דליערבב קלא
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