If we blow into the narrow end of the shofar, we will be heard far. But if we choose to be Mankind rather than Jewish and blow into the wider part, we will not be heard at all; for us America will have been in vain.

Ozick’s image turns the shofar—a ritual horn associated with Jewish memory, warning, and summons—into a metaphor for cultural voice. Blowing into the “narrow end” suggests speaking from a particular, inherited identity rather than diluting it into a generic universalism. The paradox is that specificity carries farther: a distinct tradition can project meaning and moral urgency more powerfully than an abstract appeal to “Mankind.” The final clause (“for us America will have been in vain”) frames the United States as a place that makes minority particularity possible; to surrender that distinctiveness would waste the freedoms and opportunities that allow Jewish life to flourish openly.