Rabbi Gil Nativ
R.H. Musaf 5775 (Sep.25, 2014)
The Shofar served two different functions in ancient times: It served as the siren warning of an approaching danger: war, flood, wild beasts… It also served as the trumpet calling all to rejoice with a new king or with a new year…
All these different purposes are still imbedded in the Shofar-blows that we hear today, on Rosh Hashanah! RaMBaM says (Hilchot Teshuva) that even though blowing the Shofar is “Gzeirat haKatuv” –a scriptural decree without specific reason or purpose, there is reason to believe that the blowing sounds of the shofar should wake up our sleeping consciousness and conscience! (I think that RaMBaM’s ‘hint’ or ‘clue’ is the alliteration common to the words ‘Shofar’ =ram’s horn, with the verb ‘sh.f.r.’ =to improve, to make better’)
The shofar on Rosh HaShana must remind us to do ‘soul-searching’, to account for all our bad and good deeds during the past year, and at the same time it should make us jubilant at God’s coronation! Today is the day that God was proclaimed as ‘MELECH HA’OLAM =King of the Universe. It happened only 5775 years ago –How come?
In the mind of our ancestors a leader must earn the right to put a crown on his head only after demonstrating his power to win a war or to build and fortify the capital-city. Likewise, God “earned” the right of universal kingdom only after creating the entire Universe. Since creation of the universe and the first human beings were completed on the eve of the first day of Tishrei –this is also the date in which God is acknowledged for the first time as KING of the UNIVERSE.
There are two obstacles for us, modern people, to proclaim God as King of the universe ‘melech haOlam’ and as “Our King” as Jewish tradition expects us to do.
Most of us live in societies that abolished Monarchy entirely. In the few countries in which there is still a King or a Queen, the authority and the influence of the Crown are very limited usually subordinate to the authority of an elected government, in contrast to the classic definition of the King, who was above all others. Human civilization had bad experiences with kings… The very term ‘King’ reminds us of tyranny, of arbitrary laws, decrees and decisions… Human Kings could be capricious, e.g. King David saying to Mephiboshet [2 Sam. 19:29] ‘You and Tziba split the field (estate)’ without checking who of them told the truth and who was a liar… This is not the only case in which the behavior of the annointed King (=Messiah), David, was arbitrary and even immoral…
I have a surprise for you: I think that our ancestors described God as a “King” knowing full well that some Divine decisions seem arbitrary, unexplained and painful. The Mishna rules that if a ‘Shliach Tzibbur’ who leads a congregation in the Amida prayer, describes God as full of mercy, even toward a bird in its nest, this Sha”tz should be silenced and step down Why? The Talmud [Brachot 33b, Megila 25a] explains: “Since he portrays God’s commands as (expressions of) mercy, but they are like (king’s) decrees”. Apparently our Sages believed that we have no right to say that all Divine commandments emanate from mercy and compassion. Moreover, we are aware that when God sends earthquakes, storms, floods and other natural disasters, He does not seem to discriminate between sinful adults and babies who could not have done (yet) anything wrong… Facing the many tragedies in our world, the only honest explanation we can offer is that there is no explanation…
The other obstacle: Why only a male king? Our history remembers queen Salome (Shlomit) as the BEST in the entire Hasmonean dynasty, Why always refer to God as male, and imply that only males are destined to rule and govern, and females are to be ruled and governed?
While struggling to make our society egalitarian, which is probably the best achievement of human civilization in the past 50 years, we began confusing human biological gender with grammatical gender. In Hebrew the word for peace, Shalom, is a masculine noun, and the word for war, Milchamah, is a feminine noun. Does Hebrew imply that war was created by women, and peace is the ‘business’ of men? Nonsense! We should educate ourselves and the younger generation that just like Judaism objected to portray God in any form or image (10 Commandments) it likewise objects to portraying God with any human organs –neither male nor female … The religious stereotype of God as a ‘Father’ and a ‘King’ is deeply rooted in our language and in our minds… Similarily, we keep saying ‘The sun rises’ ‘Sunset’ even though Kopernikus convinced us a few centuries ago that it is our planet, not the sun, which rises and sets…
I will continue to call the God of Israel, the Hebrew speaking God ‘Avinu Malkenu’ (=Our Father, our king). As far as I am concerned these names balance the compassionate parent –mother and father, with the powerful, yet seemingly arbitrary King/Queen. Such is Life! Such is God!
R.G.N.
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