There was once a king who was traveling to a village in a far-off corner of his kingdom. When he reached the village, the people came to greet him and called out to him, “give us laws and new decrees!” The king responded to them, “first, accept my sovereignty and kingship, and only then will I give you laws.”
This story, from the midrash, is one way that the rabbis understood Rosh Hashanah. The Malkhiot addition to the Rosh Hashanah Mussaf was placed in the mahzor to be the moment when we, like the villagers, declare our loyalty to God as king. Rosh Hashanah is the day of our coronation of God as king, an act as challenging to understand, as it is audacious.
Why does God need a coronation from us? How is it even possible for human beings to crown God as king? The midrashic story about the king arriving at a village is an answer to those questions. The people in the village live within the kingdom of the visiting king, and they ask their king for gezerot, for rules and ordinances that will bind them to their sovereign. The king, however, understands that the first step for these villagers, who live far from the capital city and do not know their king, is to affirm their loyalty. Only then, when their relationship is established, can they be given rules by which they can express their commitment.
Rosh Hashanah is not the birthday of the world! Although there is an ancient rabbinic tradition that the world was created in Tishrei, Tosafot, point out that the first of Tishrei, Rosh Hashanah, was actually the sixth day of creation, the day when humanity was created. The first day of creation, the birthday of the world, was earlier on the 25th of Elul. That day, the 25th of Elul, is not a day that is commemorated in the Jewish calendar in any way. Rosh Hashanah, the “birthday of the world” the New Year, is the anniversary of the creation of human beings. Rosh Hashanah is not about God’s creation; it’s about human beings and our choices.
To illustrate the significance of this point, consider two lines that I suspect are familiar to many of you from the siddur. Adon Olam, is a beautiful and profound poem. The opening words are: “Adon Olam Asher Malakh B’Terem Kol Y’zir Nivra” – “Lord of the Universe who reigned before the birth of any thing.” This line expresses the truth that God’s unity and reign are dependent on no person since they preceded creation itself. And yet, Zechariah 14, familiar from the Aleinu prayer that is in our siddur three times each day reads, “VeHayah Hashem L’Melekh Al Kol Ha-Aretz, Bayom HaHu, Yiheyeh Hashem Echod U’Shmo Echod.” – Then shall the Lord be King over all the earth. On that day the Lords shall be One and His name One. According to Zechariah, there is a way that God’s sovereignty and unity will be even greater in the future when all people will acknowledge them.
And that is why we recite “Malkhiot” on Rosh Hashanah, listing ten Biblical verses, including the verse from Zechariah that I just quoted, that speak of God’s kingship, and in that way we declare God to be our king and make it so.
Everything I’ve said so far is necessary but not sufficient. Cultivating an awareness of God as king is a theme of these days and cultivating that awareness is no small matter. But, there is another level to accepting God as king that isn’t satisfied by reciting Malkhiot and embracing God’s kingship. A king without a people is not a king.
The very first verse in Malkhiot, which we will hear read again in its own context this coming Shabbat, reads, “Vayehi BiShurun Melekh, B’Hitasef Rashei Am, Yachad Shivtei Yisrael.” And God became King in Yeshurun – the sovereign of the Jewish people- when the heads of the people gathered, all the tribes of Israel together.” There it is – hiding in plain sight – the very first verse quoted in malkhiot calls our attention to the way that God can only be the sovereign of the Jewish people, if there is a Jewish people, and there is only a Jewish people if we take peoplehood seriously and treat each other as fellow citizens of Klal Yisrael.
“Vayehi BiShurun Melekh, B’Hitasef Rashei Am, Yachad Shivtei Yisrael.”
Taking Jewish peoplehood seriously as a fundamental and core religious stance means that our emotional connection to Israel is existential and not political. Israel is not a Jewish theme-park where we visit, take pictures, have a good time and then go home. It’s not an arena where we cheer on our favorite politicians and boo the opposing team like a baseball game. Zionism is the Jewish people’s declaration that we will take responsibility for our fate as a nation. Religious Zionism is the affirmation that this is precisely what God wishes from us at this time. And on Rosh Hashanah we treat each other as fellow-citizens of Klal Yisrael and internalize and affirm that our connection to our brothers and sisters in Israel is as fellow citizens of Klal Yisrael. This means that we should respect the process of Israeli democracy even when we are upset by the outcome. Because citizenship means that after you try to shape policy as best as one can, one accepts defeat at times without lessening one’s identification. In turn, we can expect the State of Israel to respect the integrity of Jewish communal life in the diaspora.
“Vayehi BiShurun Melekh, B’Hitasef Rashei Am, Yachad Shivtei Yisrael”
Taking Jewish peoplehood seriously as a fundamental and core religious stance means that we should seek out opportunities to share Jewish experiences and opportunities for Torah study with non-Orthodox Jews. If we see ourselves as fellow citizens of Klal Yisrael, then we don’t have a choice about whom we will associate with and with whom we will study Torah. All of my personal experiences have lead me to be convinced that never before has Orthodoxy had less to fear and more to gain from open-minded engagement with non-Orthodox Jews. We see some things very differently and those differences are important. But the entire religious leadership of the Jewish people, perhaps for the first time in centuries, now sees our Orthodox textual literacy and ritual fluency as being components of authentic Judaism and that creates a tremendous potential for positive, respectful, sharing of Jewish experiences. If we see ourselves as being citizens of Klal Yisrael, then we can’t choose who our fellow citizens will be.
“Vayehi BiShurun Melekh, B’Hitasef Rashei Am, Yachad Shivtei Yisrael
Within Orthodoxy, seeing each other as fellow citizens of Klal Yisrael is still more challenging. Freud called this dynamic the “narcissism of small differences.” The closer we are, as a group, to another group or ideology, the easier it is for us to elevate the significance of the small differences that divide us. This narcissism of small differences is in full view within the Orthodox community, each year in greater quantity than the year before.
Historians trace the origins of Orthodox Judaism to a re-affirmation and defense of traditional norms, beliefs, and customs in the face of efforts to reform Judaism nearly two hundred years ago. Today the diversity within Orthodoxy is dizzying. Is there any religious common denominator that connects a Lakeview young professional to a Moroccan Shas-voter in Be’er Sheva? What connects a Hassid from Bene Berak to a Modern Orthodox neurologist in Manhattan? Within my own extended family, I see siblings who grew up in the same household, set off on different paths within Orthodoxy, and then raised children and grandchildren with religious lives that are nearly indecipherable to one another.
Contemporary Orthodox Jews disagree with each other about the religious meaning of Zionism. We disagree about the value of secular education. We disagree about gender roles in Jewish society. We disagree about how much flexibility is appropriate in adapting halakhah to modernity. What hope is there for turning things around?
Is it a surprise that the polemics and accusations within Orthodoxy have become far louder, far more shrill, and far more stinging than anything taking place between the denominations? Should we be surprised that each year the volume of these attacks gets louder and louder and they become more and more caustic? There are Orthodox Jews who spend hours scouring the Internet to collect every piece of evidence documenting Liberal Orthodox deviations from tradition. There are Liberal Orthodox Jews who reflexively dismiss the broader Orthodox community and its relevance for our Modern Orthodox lives.
Until it moved about a year ago, our Princeton home was a few blocks away from a hospital. The hospital itself was not very big and not very famous, but it does have a highly regarded eating disorders unit and that unit attracts Orthodox Jewish patients from across North America. On Saturdays some of the patients were permitted out of the hospital on leave and attending Shabbat lunch with our family was considered therapeutically helpful for some of them. In addition, their families often stayed in our home so they could visit their children and attend family therapy programs on Saturday.
Some of the patients came from Modern Orthodox families very similar to our own, but quite a few patients were from Haredi, or Hassidic homes and hosting those families in our house was an eye opening experience for us. The cultural and religious differences between us were substantial and the potential for misunderstanding or mutual disapproval was ever present. Our Haredi guests did not eat our food – although they did use our plates. Profound differences were always apparent.
However, those experiences have become a very inspiring memory. We were aware of our differences but we chose to identify common ground and to focus on that common ground. A commitment to Shabbat, to prayer, to hakhnasat orhim – hospitality, our common hopes that our children would grow to become faithful Jews, allowed us to bridge, at least temporarily, some of the chasms that exist in contemporary Orthodoxy.
Common ground is a choice.
Rosh Hashanah is a day that celebrates our power to choose. We don’t commemorate the creation of the heavens and the earth, but the creation of thinking and feeling human beings with the power to make choices. This Rosh Hashanah, let’s make the choice to identify and highlight the common ground that exists between Jews. By doing this we can treat each other as fellow citizens of Klal Yisrael.
“Vayehi BiShurun Melekh, B’Hitasef Rashei Am, Yachad Shivtei Yisrael
God became King in Yeshurun when the heads of the people gathered, ALL the tribes of Israel together.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 