Realizing the Distance

 

Rosh ha-Shanah means, literally, “the beginning of the year.” But it’s an interesting fact that this name never occurs in the Torah, in fact, this name for the New Year’s festival never occurs anywhere in the whole Bible. Rather, the Torah refers to this day somewhat obliquely as the “day when the horn is sounded” (Num 29:1, see also Lev 23:24), as if that was all that was needed to be said.

 

Perhaps it was. After all, when is the horn sounded? In ancient Israel, as in a great many other places even today, a horn blast announces the arrival of a monarch: he or she steps into the hall and: Ta-de-de-dah! So we sound the shofar as a way of announcing that the divine King has just now entered. In fact, God’s kingship is what this holy day is all about.

 

In the synagogue service, the musaf prayer is devoted to three themes: God’s kingship, His remembrance, and the shofar. But in fact, all three are about God’s kingship: the shofar symbolized the King’s entrance, and God’s “remembrance” refers to our collective request for the divine King to keep us in mind for another year.

 

Who’s “us”? The Mishnah (RhSh 1:2) states clearly that the fate of each of us hangs in the balance. “On Rosh ha-Shanah, all human beings pass before Him like soldiers in a regiment,” that is, on this day the divine King reviews His troops. So all in all, it’s not exactly a joyous festival, but a time of reflection and, to some extent, regret.

 

But the main thing to understand about this holy day is that its very existence is predicated on that of another, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which occurs ten days later. If it were not for Yom Kippur, the preceding Rosh ha-Shanah would be, or should be, a time of stark terror, the day when people’s fate is irrevocably fixed. But those ten days have been specially set aside to allow us to change direction (this is what the Hebrew word for repentance, teshuvah, originally meant), to think about the things that should really count in our existence, starting with who is King and who is not.

 

During those ten days, we also make a slight change in one of the fixed prayers recited daily: instead of referring to God as “the holy God,” we refer to him as “the holy King.” This may seem altogether paradoxical. After all, the world abounds in human kings, from King Abdullah of Jordan or Queen Silvia of Sweden to the Falafel King of downtown Jerusalem. But there is only one God. So why exchange a word that applies to One alone, “the holy God,” for “the holy King,” using a word that could apply to many?

 

The point is, once again, the fact of God’s kingship. If a person follows the dictates of Judaism throughout the year—praying every day, indeed, keeping all the commandments—a certain closeness is created. And this is not at all illusory. But at least during the time between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, our prayers are meant to remind us of the distance that nonetheless separates us.

Leshanah tova tikkatevu!