Rosh Hashana Day 2 2006/5767
God as King
One of the most popular images of God is of an old man with a long white beard and flowing white robe sitting on a throne in the clouds above in heaven. From this perch God is able to see and control everything in the world. It is an image of a distant yet powerful God. It is the image that all of us learned in childhood and for some it still endures today.
In fact, every page of the machzor reinforces that image. We refer to God as king and even prayers that are recited throughout the year are changed during this season to reflect God’s sovereignty. Added to the picture of God sitting on the throne is the book of life that is before Him. God is deciding now who gets written into the book of life for another year.
Two thousand years ago the rabbis created the observance of Rosh Hashana as we know it. In the Torah this day was simply the first day of the seventh month. It was a celebratory occasion – because seven in Biblical society was a sacred number – marked by the blowing of the Shofar. The rabbis, in the attempt to make Judaism prayer oriented instead of sacrifice oriented, and in their attempt to make Judaism more accessible to the average Jew, embellished the holidays and rituals from the Torah.
The first day of the seventh month became the first day of the new year. Society was becoming less agriculturally oriented and therefore the year could be oriented differently. Instead of starting in the spring when the new growth began, the rabbis made the new year in the Fall. And now that it became the new year, the rabbis added a spiritual focus as a time to reflect on our actions and to turn back to God.
The rabbis wanted to make the holiday have enough meaning so that the people would be motivated to follow through on religious transformation. They needed to use imagery that had meaning for the people, imagery that would be relevant and awe inspiring; imagery that would even arouse fear so that people would be forced to change their ways.
For the rabbis there would have been no better image than that of the Roman emperor. The Roman empire itself was hated and reviled. It had ravaged the land of Israel, forced high taxation, installed their own puppets as kohanim in the Temple, and ensured that Israel’s king – Herod – would be loyal to the empire. It was not a good time to be a Jew. The empire in the body of the emperor thus was greatly feared. The people knew that if they attempted to argue against Roman rule the recriminations would be harsh and unforgiving. We just have to witness the destruction of the Temple and the further destruction of Jerusalem 60 years later (in the Bar Kochba revolt) to understand the awesome and unforgiving power of the Empire. The arch of Titus stands today in Rome as an everlasting reminder of that great victory over Judah.
The emperor was able to execute that power over a great distance. The average Jew lived his or her life in a village or town in Judea. But that Jew knew that everything in his or her life was controlled by an emperor far away. The only connection that Jew had to the emperor was his image on the coins.
So, in rabbinic times the emperor instilled fear and awe in his realm with an overwhelming force of power. That is exactly what the rabbis wanted the Jews to understand God to be. Because that image, they felt, would cause the people to quake in their boots. It would cause the people to change their ways quickly and to become subservient to the all powerful God. By reinforcing that image in every prayer on Rosh Hashana the rabbis hoped the message would sink in.
But, let’s reflect for a minute about the image of God that would be most powerful for us today. If we think about the meaning of this holiday season we need to connect to a picture of God that would be most helpful to us. God is infinite and all powerful. God is eternal. There are 70 names of God according to the rabbis, each one reflecting a different aspect of the indescribable, limitless God. As human beings, we are by nature, limited in our abilities. Some of us are able to multi-task, but we can’t possibly imagine and describe every possible aspect of God. It’s hard enough to just understand the infinity of space; it’s doubly hard to describe the infinite God.
So I wonder if the image of God as king is the one that is most helpful to us? I would imagine that at a time of trepidation, as we think about our lives and our future, that we would want an image of God that is close and personal. When we are in crisis we want someone we love to be close by and ready to help. We want someone to listen to our cries of anguish and be there to hug us and to comfort us. We want a shoulder to cry on and most of all we want to know that we are not alone. An image of a distant king I would argue would not be helpful.
At this season of forgiveness when we bare our souls as we recognize our faults, we want to know that we will be taken seriously and that we will be forgiven. We want to know that if we seriously attempt to change our ways, if we seriously recognize where we have gone wrong, and we seriously attempt to make amends, that God will recognize us and forgive us. I would argue that the image of the king that executes decrees from the throne without regard for the acts of the individual citizen is not an image that is helpful to us.
At this season when we are in crisis, when we seek forgiveness, some of us also come to services wounded. A member of our family may have died this year, a serious problem may have arisen in our family relationships, we may have a problem at work. We need to begin to be healed and we need to know that God will help us in that process. We need an image of God as healer of wounds in order to comfort us and strengthen us in the year ahead. A king such as the Roman emperor who acts only to instill fear does not help us heal. It only hurts us even more.
If we step back for a moment some might argue, “What right do we have to seek a personal image of God?” “If this is the traditional picture of God”, they might continue, “then we have to accommodate ourselves to that picture. How dare we change anything about the traditional imagery.”
However, I argue, prayer is a deeply personal experience. We shouldn’t have to accommodate ourselves to someone else’s image of God. Our imagery should certainly be informed by the tradition, but our image is purely our own. The image has to be meaningful; it has to be enriching, and it has to be inspirational. If the image of God as king leaves us empty, or even angry, then we need to react.
We live in an age in which personal choice reigns supreme. Long gone are the novels of the late 19th and early 20th century which glorify people who didn’t give in to love but rather did what was best for others. So many novels glorify those characters and yet also try to lend a voice to personal emotions. The rise of modernity caused a clash of values between those who would suppress individuality and those who would idealize it.
That clash causes conflict for us with the machzor as well. The king imagery is a challenge for us. When we expect an image to respond to our fears, our wounds, and our faults and we find a traditional image of distance, fear, and might then we have a problem. When we expect an image of God to be close, personal, and gender-neutral and we find a powerful, supreme, male image then we have a problem.
So how can we reconcile our personal needs with the traditional imagery of the machzor? That question in and of itself is a reason for having the traditional king imagery in the liturgy. In other words, it would be much simpler to just rewrite the liturgy. We could have a machzor that would be unique to us and would respond to our personal needs of the moment. For some of us that would be ideal. But I would argue that the benefit would not outweigh the loss. By changing the words we would lose the sense of history in the text. Reciting the words connects us to our ancestors who gathered secretly in the concentration camps and recited the words by heart. Reciting the words connects us to our ancestors who recited the machzor in the shtetl in Europe. Reciting the words connects us to the hidden Jews of Spain who risked execution if their Jewish lives were revealed. Reciting these words bring our history to life. If we have a problem with the imagery then that is good. It means we are reading the text and struggling with it. That struggle is a form of prayer because it helps us understand to whom we are praying and why we are praying.
The king imagery challenges us to think about our theology and it also challenges to think about the nature of our relationship with God. In today’s day and age we like to think that we are in total control of our destiny. Life is about us and revolves around us. We want the best education for our children, we want the best material goods for us. We want things done our way on our terms when we are ready to do them. The king imagery helps us step back from the “me, me, me” and think about our place in the community and in the world. The king image implies that we are subservient to him. We do what he wants and we answer to his beck and call. Though that isn’t necessarily how we would want to imagine our relationship to God at least it helps us recognize that there is a supreme being in the universe. It helps us understand that we aren’t in control of our lives; that we can’t control our destiny; and that we can’t determine the course of events. The king imagery forces us to look at ourselves and as we look at ourselves we look at our place in the community. The king imagery brings us down to earth and helps us regain the proper sense of humility.
The king imagery focuses our attention on our theology and it adds the perspective of humility that we need. The image also provides a sense of comfort in eternity. Every year we recognize that we are a year older. The older we get the more we recognize our own mortality. That is very frightening. We recognize that we are here for just a short time on earth. Will we accomplish everything we want to in this life? What will our legacy be? Will we have seen and done everything we wanted to? Will our lives be as virtuous as they should be? Will we have loved as we should? These are the questions we should be asking ourselves and they are daunting to say the least. How can we hope to do everything as good as possible without the help of God? And the image of God as king – Supreme Being – is one of majesty and eternity. God has been there and will be there long after we are gone. If we recognize the eternity of God then we can find comfort in our immortality. Generations have struggled with these questions before and generations long into the future will continue to do so. But God will always be there to support us, to comfort us, and to strengthen us.
The beauty of the machzor is that if taken seriously it can provide deep, spiritual guidance. At first glance it can seem outdated and irrelevant. It can seem as if it were written for another age and for a different theology. But the point of the machzor is not to be read just once. It doesn’t deserve just one glance. We need to examine it. We need think about the images that are projected and figure out how we can internalize them. The music of the service and the poetry of the liturgy lend a sense of majesty to the New Year. The words and the images challenge us to reflect upon our lives and what we are going to do for the better this coming year. Hopefully, thinking about God and our image of God will help lead us in the right direction. May the kingship of God help us find a personal relationship with God. May the kingship of God help us become more humble. And may the kingship of God help us find comfort and solace in eternity. Amen.
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