OU HOLIDAYS NAALEH.COM and YU TORAH Silencing the Satan By Shira Smiles

We all know that Hashem commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The basic number of sounds that need need to be blown is thirty, yet we blow the shofar at a minimum of two cycles of thirty, one cycle immediately before the Mussaf Amidah and another cycle, the shofar of record, during the repetition of the Mussaf Amidah included in each section, in Malchuyot/Kingship, Zichronot/Remembrance and Shofrot. (Customs vary as to additional times the shofar is blown.) If we fulfill the mitzvah with one cycle of thirty sounds, why do we all sound the shofar an additional cycle, asks the Gemarra, and the Gemarra responds, “In order to confound the Satan.”