I have seen in the Ba'alei Musar that we are not resorting as a non-Jewess for a source for blowing 100 blasts. Rather, the Aruch means that when Sisra's mother cried for her son, her heart-rending cries were so deeply felt that they were able to arouse Din (strict justice) against Yisrael throughout the generations. This Din can only by counteracted by the 100 Shofar blasts, which arouse us to repent yearly from the very depths of our hearts.

It could also be that the Aruch simply means to prove from the mother of Sisra that it is common for a person to wail 100 times when the life of someone very dear to them is at stake. (It makes no difference whether the person wailing is a non-Jew or Jew.) We, too, arouse ourselves to wail 100 times for our own and our family's well-being so that we should pray with the utmost of concentration.

In fact, it would appear to me that the Aruch means that Sisra's mother wailed only 99 times. Had she wailed 100 times, perhaps her prayers would have been answered and Sisra would not have been killed. This would be more consistent with the other Midrash that we quoted in the Insights to the Daf (ibid.) about the mother who gives birth. (The Midrash there says that only upon the birthing mother's 100th cry is she saved and granted life.) We want to blow 100 blasts in order to correspond to the 100th, life-redeeming wail, that Sisra's mother could have wailed but did not.

If this is true, I can point out a clever source for the Drasha of the Aruch that Sisra's mother wailed 99 times. (We have no such Midrash, so we cannot know the source for the Aruch's number of wails.) The verse says that Sisra's mother wailed as she peered "Be'ad ha'Chalon." The Gematria of the word "ha'Chalon" is exactly 99.

Be well,

Mordecai Kornfeld