The Rambam grounds the shofar's call on Rosh Hashanah in both positive commandment and moral awakening: Mishneh Torah, Shofar 1:1 derives the obligation to hear the shofar's blast from the pasuk *yom teru'ah yihyeh lachem* (Bamidbar 29:1), and Mishneh Torah, Repentance 3:4 explains that beyond the scriptural decree, the shofar carries the inner message of rousing those who have forgotten the truth amid the vanities of time to search their deeds and return in repentance.
The Sefat Emet deepens this into a teaching about the shofar as the vehicle for remembering Matan Torah: Sefat Emet, Devarim, Rosh HaShanah 17 teaches that the essence of the shofar is the *zechiras yom Matan Torah*, linking the blast to the day Israel stood before God at Chorev, and that on Rosh Hashanah, when creation itself is renewed, the power of Israel is renewed all the more.
This renewal through the shofar is not a one-time event but recurs annually: Sefat Emet, Devarim, Rosh HaShanah 18 states explicitly that all of this is renewed each year, and that on Rosh Hashanah — when the day is still hidden (*b'kheseh*) — the shofar's sounding is needed to arouse the merit of the Torah.
The shofar's power is further illustrated through Yehoshua's conquest of Yericho: Sefat Emet, Devarim, Rosh HaShanah 15 reads the Midrash on *teru'as melech bo* (Bamidbar 23:21) as showing that the seven days of shofar-blasts brought down the walls of Yericho — the foundation of Eretz Yisrael — representing the dimension of Oral Torah, which operates in hiddenness just as the life of eternity is planted within us.
In the derasha of תרמ"א specifically, the Sefat Emet frames Rosh Hashanah's dynamic around the two modes of divine judgment and mercy: Sefat Emet, Devarim, Rosh HaShanah 10 teaches that just as creation began with the attribute of strict justice and required mercy to be joined to it, so too on every Rosh Hashanah judgment comes first, and through the shofar blasts the throne of judgment is transformed into a throne of mercy — because a good thought, when aroused from below, is joined by God to action.
The Sefat Emet's teaching from תרמ"א on Shabbat Shuva illuminates the same structure from the angle of repentance: Sefat Emet, Devarim, Shabbat Shuva 8 opens with the pasuk *hashivenu Hashem eilecha v'nashuva* and distinguishes two modes of return — one born of fear and one of love — teaching that a person steeped in sin cannot initially return from love but only from fear, and that heaven must therefore assist the penitent.
Later Hasidic teaching in the Lubavitch tradition extends the Sefat Emet's insight on the shofar's transcendent cry: Maamarim Melukatim, Rosh HaShanah 5728 explains that the shofar's blast on Rosh Hashanah is a cry from the innermost heart that surpasses intellect, drawing down the supernal will from above wisdom, and that while an ordinary shofar reveals divine inwardness that encompasses all worlds, the great shofar of the future will reveal a yet deeper hiddenness — which is why the future blast is described simply as *yitaka*, sounding of itself, with no named sounder.
Maamarim Melukatim, Erev Rosh HaShanah 5743 addresses the paradox that shofar is sounded in the Temple even when Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat yet is suspended elsewhere by rabbinic decree, and resolves it through the principle that Israel's sounding below effects a corresponding sounding above — so that the human performance of the mitzvah draws down a divine response.
Revavos Ephraim (Ravavos Ephraim III:292) addresses whether one should intend during the Shabbat meal to fulfill simultaneously the obligation of melavah malkah when a festival falls on Shabbat, raising the question of whether the extra soul — which departs on Shabbat — is even present on a festival, and presenting competing views on whether the melavah malkah obligation depends on that extra soul at all.
