Background to the following section:
This section explains a debate in an earlier part of the sugya. The debate is regarding the meaning of the word "Teruah."
The Gemara proves elsewhere that a straight sound (known as Tekiah) comes before and after the Teruah.
The question is how a "Teruah" sounds. One Tannaitic source suggests that "Teruah" is what is known today as Shevarim, three brief blasts. Another source suggests that "Teruah" is 9 or so tiny blasts (known as Teruah).
The following passage explains the reasoning for these two positions.
The translation in the passage refers to the Aramaic translation of the Torah (as Aramaic was the vernacular of the Jewish people in the days of the Mishnah and Gemara).
Background to the following source:
Sisera is the general of the Cannanite army. The Canaanites oppress the people of Israel in the time of the Judges (who come between Joshua and the kings of Israel). God sends Deborah the prophetess and Barak to lead the people of Israel against them. With God's help, the people of Israel are victorious and Sisera fleas. Sisera comes upon the tent of a woman named Yael. Yael pretends to take Sisera in but instead she kills him with a tent peg while he is sleeping.
Soon after the victory, Deborah sings a long poem to God praising Him and thanking Him for their victory. The verse below is taken from Deborah's song.
Behind the lattice she whined:
“Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why so late the clatter of his wheels?”
Does it resemble the wailing with which the women cry when they moan, or the sighs which a person who is distressed about a major matter will release repeatedly? Perhaps a combination of the two - sighing and the crying which will follow it - is called teru'ah, because a distressed person will sigh and then cry? Therefore, we fulfill all [these possibilities].
Rosh Hashanah is a day of prayer. And the Holy One gave us the mitzvah of shofar to elevate our prayers. For that reason, there is a tekiah before and after [the central sound of teruah], analogous to the three blessings that open the amidah when we stand before G-d as a servant praising the King, and the last three blessings where we receive the generous gifts of the Monarch. Thus, the teruah, is analogous to the middle section of the amidah, where we ask for our needs. The Talmud teaches that Rabbi Elazar would blow tash"rat ta"shat ta"rat because he was doubtful [about the actual sound of teruah]. This practice is certainly profound and true because all of us have different teruah sounds ourselves, depending on our unique situation and experience of exile. Therefore, given [that tradition that this] is the final exile, we have all of the sounds in our shofar music. Our shofar blowing consists of three shevarim, three teruot, and three combinations of shevarim/teruah, altogether twelve sounds, corresponding to the twelve middle blessings of the amidah, encapsulating all of our needs, our trials and tribulations.
The liturgy states, 'if as children or as servants'. The shofar alludes to receiving Torah [where shofarot werre blown] and this corresponds to the aspect of children. The shofar also alludes to the service in the Holy Temple where there were shofarot blown. And both of these interpretations are one, in that shofar is associated with messianic era as it's written, 'on that day a great shofar will be blown'. And in the Holy Temple, there was an awakening each day of Torah, that was given with a shofar blast, the same shofar that holds the energy of a new world. And now we have but one day annullly where we awaken that sound. That is truly a Divine gift, as is written, 'let that day be a yom teruah, a day of shofar'. Happy are those who know teruah!!
Orah Le-Hayyim
On Rosh Hashanah the entire world is judged. Is it worthy enough to stand? The judgement is about whether creation fulfills its purpose, that of revealing divine kingship, the awesomeness of God. Therefore: the blessed Holy One said: "...recite before me kingship verses... that you make me King over you," thus fulfilling the intent of creation. Remembrance verses so that memory of you arise before me: even if we are entirely undeserving, we remind God of the original love in which God created all the worlds. God sought to do good for Israel, not in response to their worthiness, but just out of a generous desire to bless. By reminding God of this primal love, we call forth that desire for goodness today as well, the will to shower blessing up us, even if we have no merit.
How? Through the Shofar. We arise this primal love through the means of the shofar.
This follows what I heard in the name of that holy lamp (an honorific-SK) Dov Baer, who interpreted "raise up your voice like a Shofar (Isaiah 58:1)" this way. You have to consider yourself as nothing, having no merit, having done nothing good at all. Even though you have performed some good deeds and commandments, it was really only by the power of God that you were able to do so. It was the intellect, the love, and goodness that God bestowed upon you...
You are just like a shofar, having no sound except that which someone blows through you...
In this way we awaken and draw down upon ourselves that first love. How?
Through the shofar: by considering ourselves to be a mere trumpet, having no merits that might obligate God to be good to us. It all comes from God...
ולהיות קול שופר זה שאנו עושים על פי מצות השם יתברך הוא עצמו קול השופר דהשם יתברך המעורר אותנו מתרדמתינו כלעתיד וכנודע דברי הרמב"ם (פרק ג מהלכות תשובה הלכה ד) בטעם שופר כפשטיה עורו כו'
That we blow the shofar as it is commanded by G-d, that itself it the sound of the shofar, as G-d Herself awakens us from our sleep as She will do in the future redemption, as Maimonides famously wrote, the shofar as it were comes to wake us up from our unconsciousness.
Once the Baal Shem Tov commanded Rabbi Zev Kitzes to learn the secret meanings behind the blasts of the ram's-horn, because Rabbi Zev was to be his caller on Rosh Ha-Shanah. So Rabbi Zev learned the secret meanings and wrote them down on a slip of paper to look at during the service, and laid the slip of paper in his bosom. When the time came for the blowing of the ram’s-horn, he began to search everywhere for the slip of paper, but it was gone; and he did not know on what meanings to concentrate. He was greatly saddened. Broken-hearted, he wept bitter tears, and called the blasts of the ram's-horn without concentrating on the secret meanings behind them.
Afterward, the Baal Shem Tov said to him: "Lo, in the habitation of the king are to be found many rooms and apartments, and there are different keys for every lock, but the master key of all is the axe, whith which it is possible to open all the locks on all the gates. So it is with the ram's-horn: the secret meanings are the keys; every gate has another meaning, but the master key is the broken heart. When a man truthfully breaks his heart before God, he can enter into all the gates of the apartments of the King above all Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He." (-- Or Yesharim)