תקע בשופר... ושא נס לקבץ ...וקבצנו יחד
Sound the shofar…and raise a banner to gather…and gather us together. This prayer includes three expressions that imply ingathering: sound the shofar for our freedom; raise a banner to gather in our exiles; gather us together from the four corners of the earth. Ten tribes were exiled prior to the tribes of Yehudah and Binyamin. We refer to them as the Ten Lost Tribes. These Ten Tribes were split in their exile, with some exiled somewhere in “the dark mountains,” and the rest going even further to a place that was “beyond the Sambatyon River.” The Gaon, zl, m’Vilna explains…
