וְרָאוּ אוֹתוֹ כָּל הַבְּרִיּוֹת וְנִתְיָרְאוּ מִלְּפָנָיו, סְבוּרִין שֶׁהוּא בּוֹרְאָן, וּבָאוּ לְהִשְׁתַּחֲווֹת לְפָנָיו. אָמַר לָהֶם אָדָם: לָמָּה בָּאתֶם לְהִשְׁתַּחֲווֹת לִי? בּוֹאוּ אֲנִי וְאַתֶּם וְנֵלֵךְ וְנַלְבִּישׁ גֵּאוּת וָעֹז וְנַמְלִיךְ עָלֵינוּ לְמִי שֶׁבְּרָאָנוּ. וְהִלְבִּישׁוּ גֵּאוּת וָעֹז וְהִמְלִיכוּ עֲלֵיהֶן לְיוֹצְרָן, וְאָמְרוּ: ה׳ מָלָךְ גֵּאוּת לָבֵשׁ.
A beautiful Midrash in Pirke deRabbi Eliezer tells that on the sixth day of creation, the first of Tishri, the animals approached Adam haRishon, the first man. They saw him make fire, build weapons and tools, and his intelligence frightened them. They thought Adam was their creator. They knelt before him and wanted to crown him their king. In a remarkable gesture of humility and greatness, Adam said to them: “Why have you come to bow before me? Let us go together and crown the true King, the Creator.” And so they all proclaimed that HaShem is the King, the Creator who gives life and takes it back at will.
Rosh Hashana, the first of Tishri, the day that commemorates the creation of the first man, is a reenactment of that glorious event, when humanity proclaims God as its King, or, in Hebrew, MELEKH.
On Rosh Hashana we change one key word in the Amida, the central prayer. All year long we say “haEl haQadosh”: HaShem is the holy God. But from Rosh Hashana until Yom Kippur we say “haMelekh haQadosh”: we address Him as the holy “King.” Let us be clear that in this context “holy” means “hidden”: present everywhere, and at the same time out of reach of our senses. We cannot see God or touch Him. The tools we have for reaching God are not our eyes or our hands. They are our mind and our thinking.
But what does it mean to say that God is the King? Why does it matter that we acknowledge it? And why do we have to stress it on Rosh Hashana?
To understand Rosh Hashana, and how on this first day of the year we should reorient our lives, we will look at a beautiful parable by Maimonides in Moreh Nebukhim, the “Guide for the Perplexed,” Part Three, Chapter 51. Perhaps the most important parable in his entire work. There he explains, with clarity and depth, the relationship between the King, God, and us, His subjects.
THE PARABLE
This parable explains how to relate to God: where to look for Him, how we move away from Him, and how we come closer to Him. For Maimonides this search is not one subject among many. It is our mission in life. If we make progress, even partial progress, our life has meaning. And the reverse is also true.
For Maimonides, “knowing” God is not a “mystical” experience in which you imagine yourself talking to God or something of the sort. God remains hidden. Invisible. In Maimonides’ parable, “haMelekh haQadosh,” the King resides in His palace, in the royal chamber, and we are the ones who must go and look for Him. The goal is not to find Him or to see Him. The goal is to come closer.
The King dwells in the innermost chamber of His palace. The palace stands in a particular city. Some subjects live in that city; others prefer to live outside it.
- Those who live outside the city have cut themselves off from the King on purpose. Nothing about the King interests them. They do not want to be considered subjects of this King or to submit to His laws. They have no interest in looking for a palace; on the contrary, the very idea of a king bothers them.
- Then there are the subjects who live in the city but stand with their backs to the palace and walk in the opposite direction. They say, or think, that they are looking for the King, but since they are headed the other way, they move further from Him all the time.
- A third group knows the palace exists but has never seen it. They have not been able to find the road, and they wander the city without knowing how to get to the palace.
- Others have found the palace and want to get in. They circle the palace walls, but they cannot find the entrance.
- Then there are those who have already entered the palace, but it is so complex that they have not been able to locate the inner chamber where the King is. They walk the corridors as if in a maze, looking for signs.
- And finally there are those who know where the King’s chamber is. They cannot enter, but they see a glimmer of light slipping out from under the door.
Now let us see who the subjects are. Maimonides is referring here to the only people that declares God its king: the Jews.
OUTSIDE THE CITY
In the first group, those who live outside the royal city, Maimonides places those who have no interest in knowing God. They deny Him; they call themselves atheists. And they give their minds to other things: material goals, physical pleasures, wealth, prestige. Looking for God never crosses their minds; it would only distract them from what they really want. It is not that they have failed to find the palace. It is that they have no interest in looking for it.
BACKS TO THE PALACE
In the second category are those who do know the King exists and has a palace, but who look for Him in the wrong direction. Maimonides describes them harshly: these are people who observe the Torah, believe in God, and are intelligent, but who hold mistaken ideas about Him. Either because they reason poorly or because they follow someone who led them astray. The result is the same: they walk with conviction, but away from the palace. The further they go, the further they get.
An example. Picture an observant Jew who keeps the Mitsvot out of superstition or self-interest. Someone who figures that every time he does a Mitsva he will get more money, more health, or more luck in business. Every time he performs a commandment, he thinks more about the payoff than about serving God. In this extreme case, this person is not serving God. He is using God for his own benefit. He belongs to the group that moves away from the Creator because it holds a false, “utilitarian” image of God. Such people exploit the Torah, or use it for their own gain. They invoke God, but what they are after is their own interests, and so they move away from the palace.
Maimonides adds something very hard. These people are worse than those who live outside the city. The ones outside drag no one down with them. These, on the other hand, can be influential “in God’s name,” and so they confuse others.
(It is worth noting that many ba’ale teshuba, many Jews who have returned to Torah, may have begun their way back out of self-interest or emotional need, mitokh shelo lishma, until one day, B”H, they discover the right direction and set out toward the King’s palace.)
LOOKING FOR THE PALACE
In the third category are those who know the palace exists but have not yet seen it. Maimonides gives as an illustration observant Jews who are busy with the Mitsvot, who are neither superstitious nor self-interested, but who never stop to think about what they do or what they say. They know the palace exists, that is, that one must come closer to God. They are headed in the right direction. But they have never seen it.
For example: someone who says blessings every day and has prayed the Amida three times a day for thirty or forty years, but has never stopped to think about what he is saying. Or someone who says Shema Israel every morning and every night, but has never seriously asked himself what it means to “love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might,” or how to do it. Or someone who reads Tehilim without trying to understand the words, as if pronouncing them were enough for them to produce some magical effect.
The words of Tehilim and of the Tefila are precious pearls that, when we understand them, lift us up and inspire us. They are words that must be understood, reflected on, and absorbed, so that they shape and improve our ideas and our character.
Maimonides does not criticize this group. They are in the city, they are walking toward the palace, and that is already a lot. But they still need to understand how the Mitsvot act on us. Reciting Shema Israel without understanding what we are saying means wasting (almost slighting, even if unintentionally) the message and the effect the Tefila is meant to have on us. The Mitsvot are meant to bring us to Yediat HaShem, to “knowing God,” that is, to coming closer to Him with our minds.
For Maimonides, Yediat HaShem means focusing on God and turning our thoughts away from the material. Not abandoning the material! But no longer treating it as the goal.
Only when a person understands that his priority in life is “to come closer to HaShem” does he suddenly see the palace! He has not entered yet. But he has seen it. That is, he has discovered it. And from that point on he no longer walks blind. He walks toward something.
LOOKING FOR THE WAY IN
The fourth category includes those who have seen the palace but do not know how to get in. They keep the Mitsvot out of love for HaShem. They know their goal is to come closer to Bore Olam. But they do not know how to connect with Him.
For this group Maimonides proposes a very concrete plan. Start by concentrating intensely on Shema Israel and the Amida. While we say these tefilot, we learn to control our thoughts and to keep out distractions, and that is the key to everything. Understand, pay attention, and pause on every word. Push away every thought that is not God. This is the way to find the entrance to the palace. Nothing more. And nothing less. And you have to master this level before moving on to the next. It can take years.
IN THE HALLS OF THE PALACE
In the fifth group are those who have already entered the palace. When they pray the Shema and the Amida, their mind is where it should be. Now they walk the corridors in search of the royal chamber. They are very well oriented.
Searching for the royal chamber means extending my “awareness of God’s presence” beyond the moments of the Amida and Shema Israel: to Torah study, and then to the other Mitsvot, so that each one is done with the mind on the One who commanded it. The mind fixed on Bore Olam as much of the time as possible, as the pasuq in Tehilim (16:8) says: שִׁוִּ֬יתִי ה׳ לְנֶגְדִּ֣י תָמִ֑יד, “I keep God before me, [in my mind], always.”
AT THE DOOR
In the sixth group are those who have reached the door of the Royal Chamber, the closest point a human being can get to. Their mind is on Him not only when they pray or study, but also when they eat, work, or talk with another person. Maimonides quotes Shir haShirim: “I am asleep, but my heart is awake.” This was the spiritual level of Moshe Rabbenu, of the Patriarchs, of David haMelekh: they herded sheep, did business, raised families, but their mind never left God.
THE EXERCISE
An exercise I plan to do this Rosh Hashana. When I say “haMelekh haQadosh,” I will stop for a few seconds and ask myself honestly: what level am I at? Not the one I would like to be at. Which one am I at? And then one more question: what is my next step toward the King?
For most of us, I think, that step is the recipe Maimonides offers without hedging: that when I say the Shema and the Amida, I think about the meaning of each word, reflect on it for a few seconds, and absorb what it teaches me about God and about myself.
Rosh Hashana is a good day to begin this project. It is the day we proclaim God as the King who sits in His palace. Let us go look for Him!
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