We request three steps to the dawn of the Messianic Age in Shemoneh Esrei:

• תְּקַע בְּשׁוֹפָר גָּדוֹל לְחֵרוּתֵֽנוּ – “Sound the great shofar for our freedom” about our return from exile,
• וְלִירוּשָׁלַֽיִם עִירְ֒ךָ בְּרַחֲמִים תָּשׁוּב – That the Shechinah “return compassionately to Yerushalayim your city”, and
• אֶת־צֶֽמַח דָּוִד עַבְדְּ֒ךָ מְהֵרָה תַצְמִֽיחַ – “Cause the sprout / offspring of Your servant David to speedily sprout”, with the return of Jewish sovereignty.

But the first one is divided off. In the framework we’ve been using to understand these requests, the latter two are where you would expect, in a set of three berakhos (again: setting the stage, restoration, and fulfillment) of the ultimate Ge’ulah. But Teqa beShofar and the ingathering of the exiles is the first berakhah, the setting the stage request, of a set that ask for a chance to experience the world as fair and just.

Why do we describe Hashem’s ingathering of the exiles as a “Great Shofar”? (I promise you it’s not referring to a Yemenite kudzu horn shofar.)

Rav Kook, in a sermon in 1933, points out that the gemara classifies three categories of Shofar. The ram’s horn is ideal, because it reminds us of the ram whose horn got stuck in the bushes that replaced Yitzchaq as a sacrifice. But any kosher animal that has a single layered horn (not bovines) are equally kosher. Last, only if one cannot find the right kind of horn of a kosher animal, one should blow the shofar of a non-kosher one without a berakhah.* Such a horn may be used as shofar according to some authorities, non-kosher according to others (including the Rama), so we allow blowing it despite it being a holiday, but do not risk the berakhah levatalah.

Rav Kook identifies each kind of shofar with a motive for leaving exile: The ideal is the ram’s horn, returning to Israel out of a religious calling. But also kosher is to return to Israel because of a calling to return to one’s homeland that any nation would feel. Then there are those who return, but only because the nation of the place they were living forced them out.

We ask Hashem to return us to Israel with the “shofar gadol“, we ask that Hashem awaken within us the spirituality to come to Israel with dignity, rather than because we a fleeing somewhere else.

Similarly, in the second of birkhos Qeri’as Shema, we ask “וַהֲבִיאֵֽנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָֽרֶץ וְתוֹלִיכֵֽנוּ קוֹמְ֒מִיּוּת לְאַרְצֵֽנוּ – And bring us to peace from the four corners of the earth and lead us upright to our land.” The Siach Yitzchaq (ad loc) explains that we ask to return “qomemiyus – upright”, with our heads held high, with self-respect.

After all, this would be the revelation of Divine Justice in the world. Not through unfairly being persecuted.

A side note: After the kind of acoustic metaphor of the Shofar Gadol, we also ask Hashem “וְשָׂא נֵס לְקַבֵּץ גָּלֻיּוֹתֵֽינוּ – and may You raise a standard* to gather our exiles.” I think this also fits Rav Kook’s point. After all, one hears a shofar as long as they are close enough to hear it. But something you look at requires turning to far the right way.

In this berakhah we ask Hashem to give us the wake-up call, the opportunity and the inspiration to return to our homes. Not to force us to come.

And with that, we can continue the project of building a society that is fair and just, and ready for the Shechinah to bring with her the mashiach.

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* The Chavos Ya’ir asks a very legitimate question: There aren’t any non-kosher animals that grow hollow horns of only one layer! (See Niddah 51b)

** No, neis here is not “miracle”, although the reason why neis means “miracle” is because like a standard or a flag, it is there to draw our attention to something more encompassing than itself.