We are in the 7th pasuk of Shofarot, in the unit of the shofarot of the future. As we mentioned, Shofarot is broken into 3 sections- the shofar of Matan Torah at Har Sinai is what the first three Pesukim are about. The next three are about the shofar that we blow on Rosh Hashana, and the final three talk about the shofar of Mashiach's times.
Here we quote a pasuk in Yeshaya 27,13
וְהָיָ֣ה ׀ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֗וּא יִתָּקַע֮ בְּשׁוֹפָ֣ר גָּדוֹל֒ וּבָ֗אוּ הָאֹֽבְדִים֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ אַשּׁ֔וּר וְהַנִּדָּחִ֖ים בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וְהִשְׁתַּחֲו֧וּ לַֽיהֹוָ֛ה בְּהַ֥ר הַקֹּ֖דֶשׁ בִּירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם
It will be on that day, he will blow on a large shofar. And that shofar will cause all the people that are lost in distance to come back and to bow to Hashem on His holy mountain in Yerushalayim.
What is this Shofar Gadol?
The Yalkut Shimoni tells us in Bereshit 22, that no part of the ram that Avraham Avinu slaughtered instead of Yitzhak went to waste. The right horn will be blown at Mashiach's time, and the left horn was blown at Har Sinai. The right horn is the larger of the two.
So we have these three units of pesukim, that we blow our shofar down here, and it arouses the two shofarot of the ram of Abraham Avinu, one of them for the horn of Har Sinai, and one of them for the horn of Mashiach. And it's not a coincidence, the rabbis tell us, the Ramchal especially, that when we blow the shofar down here, it arouses the forces of those other Shofarot, the tremendous revelation of Har Sinai, of the past. And it brings in the great revelation of the future of Mashiach, where this shofar will cause the evil to be suppressed and the good to come out and to return us back to the situation of Adam HaRishon before he sinned. Rosh Hashanah is the day Adam HaRishon sinned, and eventually we're going to come back to the perfect world.
We were almost there at Har Sinai, but we sinned the sin of the golden calf. And we will get there when Mashiach comes. And we get there through the shofar that we blow every year on Rosh Hashanah. When the shofar blows, we are suppressing the evil inside of us and strengthening the good inside of us.
There is a famous Tosafot on the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah 16B, that when the Satan hears the shofar, he gets scared because he thinks it's the shofar of Mashiach's time. Of course everyone thinks, Come on, do you really mean that every year he falls for the same mistake? The answer is that we don't realize how real the shofar is and how when our shofar blows down here, he's not scared by our shofar that he hears, he's scared of the forces that are going on in the heavens, that are almost identical to what was going on at Har Sinai and will be going on at Mashiach. It's like someone who was in a war zone and has PTSD. When he hears a shot, he suddenly jumps because he thinks he's back at war, or like someone that went through some kind of other traumatic experience, and when he hears or smells something that reminds him of that trauma, he's back there. That's what happens to the Satan. He smells the smell of Har Sinai and he knows that's the smell of Mashiach, and it's real. And every year he gets scared because it is going to happen. He knows better than we do what's going to happen. Rav Yitzchak Hutner, in Sefer Pachad Yitzchak on Rosh Hashanah (essay 20) says something beautiful. He says, why is it called a large shofar? It's not a new shofar. It's a bigger Shofar. Where does this big shofar come from? Sometimes you go to the Kotel and you see these very long shofarot that blow for the Bar mitzvahs. But what's this Big Shofar?
He says that every year when we blow the shofar, we create a certain energy of holiness that goes up to the heavens and creates this big shofar. The shofar of Mashiach is going to be the cumulation of all of those blowings of the shofars of every year. Don't think that if Mashiach didn't come last year, that we wasted our time. No. Every single time that we blow the shofar, it's joining that shofar in Shamayim, and we're creating a bigger and bigger shofar.
The Satan is scared on Rosh Hashanah because he sees the shofar growing. He sees the shofar getting bigger and bigger. Eventually it's going to reach the tipping point where it hits the size that it's supposed to be. We don't know what that size is, and he doesn't know what size is. But when that shofar becomes the shofar gadol, then we're ready for Mashiach. That's how close we are. Depending on how much teshuva we put in, that's how many inches the shofar grows each year. One year might grow a millimeter, one year a foot. We don't know. But we're bringing Mashiach closer every single time we hear the shofar and that is creating the Shofar Gadol.
The Aruch LaNer says that this occurs especially when we read this pasuk,
וְהָיָ֣ה ׀ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֗וּא יִתָּקַע֮ בְּשׁוֹפָ֣ר גָּדוֹל֒ וּבָ֗אוּ הָאֹֽבְדִים֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ אַשּׁ֔וּר וְהַנִּדָּחִ֖ים בְּאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרָ֑יִם וְהִשְׁתַּחֲו֧וּ לַֽיהֹוָ֛ה בְּהַ֥ר הַקֹּ֖דֶשׁ בִּירוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם
When we say that and we pray for that, it gets the Satan scared, as we're praying for Mashiach.
These are great kavanot to have when we say the 7th pasuk of, On that day, we will blow the shofar gadol.
And the truth is, we say it every single day in our prayers. Teka BaShofar Gadol L'Cherutenu
So every day of the year, we're talking about the shofar gadol, but especially on Rosh Hashanah.