Rosh Hashanah: The Crown, with Rabbi Menachem Lehrfield

for example while other cultures are drinking and partying on their new year we spend our new year rosh hashanah deep in prayer we spend most of the time in synagogue or eating our festive meals where are the noise makers where's the drinking and partying imagine the ball dropping in times square and contrast that with rosh hashanah why don't we celebrate our new year the same way what do we know about rosh hashanah rosh hashanah is known as the yom had din the day of judgment why what is it about the new year that necessitates judgment if you think about it it's kind of backwards i would understand if it was the last day of the year the last day of the year might be a good time to be judged a good time for assessment understanding all the ways that we maybe didn't live up to the person we could have been so that way when we start the first day of the year we can start with a fresh clean new slate but rosh hashanah is the first day of the year that is probably if you think about it the worst time to be judged imagine you just started a new job and your new boss walks into your office on day one and begins an assessment you say to him come on what are you assessing i haven't even started yet why do we get judged on rosh hashanah it seems so judgy just a couple days after rosh hashanah we have yom kippur and for jews who only come to shoal twice a year you look around and you say come on we were just here we just did this we were in the same building with the same people doing the same thing but if you look carefully there's a difference between rosh hashanah and yom kippur services a glaring difference on yom kippur throughout the whole day we're constantly saying vidoy the confession we're acknowledging all the ways we have fallen short all of the mistakes that we've made wouldn't it make more sense to do that on rosh hashanah wouldn't it make more sense on our day of judgment to come to god and say listen i made all these mistakes i have fallen short i have not lived up to the potential that you know i have i haven't been the person that you know i can be but i can change i can do better wouldn't it make sense to do that on rosh hashanah and yet we don't do the confession at all in rosh hashanah in fact you look through the service we don't mention judgment at all we never mention judgment perhaps in one or two sections which were added much later but you would think if the prime theme of rosh hashanah is judgment and being judged shouldn't that be front and center why don't we find mention of judgment or any of the vidoi any of the confession in the rosh hashanah service we have a lot we have to unpack the rosh hashanah service in general and the way we celebrate rosh hashanah seems to conflict with what we know about how we celebrate new year we sit and show we're told that it's a day of judgment even though judgment doesn't seem to be mentioned at all in the service we blow the chauffeur i mean how odd is that if you didn't know any better you've never been to a restaurant service and you walk in and they start blowing this ram's horn what can seem more archaic and pagan than that let's begin our discussion by an overview and understanding of jewish holidays in general you see jewish holidays are not just sentimental times to get together with our families although that maybe for some people a wonderful side benefit that's not at the essence of what a jewish holiday is jewish holidays also are not just nostalgic times that we remember something that happened in our past take thanksgiving for example so on thanksgiving we remember the gratitude that the original colonists had when they received their very first yield of produce and we as well remember that every year on thanksgiving and we too feel grateful and thankful as we remember what happened to our ancestors back when that very first thanksgiving jewish holidays are very different they're not just about getting together with our families they're not just about remembering something that happened in our past a jewish holiday is meant to make us aware of a spiritual reality that is most prominent at this time of year my favorite example is pesach passover we left egypt on passover and passover is the time of freedom but it's not the time of freedom because that's when we left egypt it's exactly the opposite we left egypt at that time of year because it's a time of renewal a time of freedom and that's why the torah tells us that we must celebrate pesach we must celebrate passover specifically in the spring because it's a time of freedom when i look around at the world and i see the physical world becoming free i see the spring i see things that leave the dormancy of winter behind and begin to embrace renewal i am meant to do that myself so pesach is not just a celebration of the fact that we left egypt 3 300 years ago rather we acknowledge and remember the exodus from egypt as it is a time of freedom and renewal and the point is that today in 2020 when i celebrate pesach i am tapping into a spiritual energy that is present right now i'm not just remembering something that happened to my ancestors i myself have the opportunity to become free from whatever it is that's holding me back whatever my shackles look like pesach is a time to become free from that whether it's societal pressure whether it's my own preconceived ideas and notions of how the world ought to be whether it's my phone or my job pesach is a time i can become free from that so what's rosh hashanah what happened on the very first rosh hashanah what is the spiritual energy that we are tapping into what is the spiritual reality that we are reliving if you ask most people what does rosh hashanah celebrate what happened on the very first rosh hashanah they would say rosh hashanah celebrates the creation of the world and that is the perfect wrong answer rosh hashanah does not celebrate the creation of the world it celebrates the creation of adam harishan adam the first man and god said let us make man in our image after our likeliness if one of the most basic tenants of judaism is the unity of god the idea that we believe that god is one in every sense of the word and term and concept of oneness why does it say let us create man who's god talking to the mattress explains that before god created the worlds he consulted with the angels and he asked them adam shall we create man and this mattress is often quoted because of the important lesson and value it teaches us if god himself consults with others before a major undertaking how much more so should we consult with others before we do something god obviously doesn't need anyone else's input there is nothing that they can give or add to this process and yet he consults to teach us that we too should consult with others beautiful idea what's not so well known is the outcome of that consultation god comes to the angels he asks them shall we create man well what was their response the message explains based on a source in psalms that reads love and truth met justice and peace kissed the majestic explains that the angels didn't say oh yeah go create man but rather different angels which represent different character traits of man came before god with reasons why man should be created and reasons why man should not be created and they went back and forth arguing and while they were arguing god went ahead and he created man essentially allowing mankind to answer that question allowing man to answer the question of not them shall we create man let's let man prove for himself whether he should or should not be created and so mankind comes on the scene man is created in a state of doubt a state where we have the ability to choose through our lives whether or not we should be created and so just as man was initially judged on that very first day just as man was judged as he was being created so to every rosh hashanah we are judged every rosh hashanah we are being recreated being created anew and as we are given a new year of life as we are created as a complete and total new being we go through that same process of judgment just as the first man was created every single one of us on rosh hashanah the question is asked adam shall we create this person and if so what does that new year of life look like take a look at source number four i place before you life and death blessing and curse and you shall choose life so that you and your children shall live the torah is teaching us that life is a choice we choose through our actions and when we make those choices we're granted life we're granted the type of life that we want but the choice is ours and the choice is made primarily on rosh hashanah the day that we're being recreated we blow the chauffeur among other reasons because it symbolizes that initial breath that we take it symbolizes that recreation just as god blew into man's nostrils the soul of life he gave mankind life through that initial breath we exhale as a way of continuing that first breath we exhale through the chauffeur and we blow that breath as if to say we are a continuing that first breath that god breathed into mankind and today we are getting that new breath of life the talmud in brachas 58 b says that after 12 months of not seeing your friend you make the blessing mason thinking and praising god who revives the dead that seems like a strange blessing to be making after all the person wasn't dead you just haven't seen him in a long time so the marsha explains that if you haven't seen someone in 12 months that means that they've experienced a rosh hashanah and if they've experienced the rosh hashanah that means that they are now a brand new person the person standing before you is not the same person you saw 12 months ago you're looking at someone who was completely recreated so that's why rosh hashanah is a day of judgment just as man was created and was judged on that very first day so too on rosh hashanah every one of us is being recreated every one of us is given a new year of life and we are judged in that same way but a lot is still unclear what are we being judged on like we said it's the first day of the year we're starting a new slate we're being recreated as this new created being what could we possibly be judged on what could we possibly do on rosh hashanah itself to merit a year of life how can we answer that question of nasa adam shall we create man how do we answer that question affirmatively we pointed out that if you look at the rosh hashanah service there's no mention of this judgment there's no hate there's no confessing for all the things that we've done wrong what does the rosh hashanah service talk about so if you take a look one of the primary themes that we mention over and over again in the rosh hashanah service is the concept of kingship the idea of making god king but what does that mean what does mahjos mean mouthless is the central theme of every blessing every blessing we make must contain the expression that god is king of the universe if we don't mention that saying we don't mention the concept of malchus of kingship the blessing is invalid because it's the essence of a blessing in fact take a look now at our next source from toastpost's commentary on the talmud attractive brachus 40b right at the beginning it says any blessing without mention of mahushamayam again this idea of making god king is not a blessing and therefore our yehuda said that if someone skips the maufus part of the blessing hamotzi which is the blessing we make on bread he needs to go back and repeat the blessing because again it's the essence of a blessing declaring that god is king but what does that even mean for god to be king many people say they believe in god in fact most americans believe in god and yet when it comes to the way we live our lives it's not so clear when do we turn to god when we're stuck like the guy who's looking for the parking spot he's in manhattan he's late for a meeting and he's circling over and over and over again going around and around the block and we've all been there and in a moment of desperation he looks up and he turns to god and he says god please i need to make this meeting i need to find a parking spot if you've helped me find a parking spot i will be the best jew on earth i will come to synagogue every single day i will pray i will give charity and i'll help the needy and i'll and mid-sentence he sees a parking spot he turns to god and he says never mind i got it for a guy like that god is not king he's a backup plan what does it mean to truly make god our king let's continue now in toastpost he points out an interesting question if in fact it's essential for a blessing to contain the phrase malchus how is it possible that the shmona esra the amidah the silent prayer perhaps the most important blessing we make the entire day does not contain the phrase melancholam it doesn't say king of the universe so tosos answers it says something even better it says eloque avraham the god of abraham last i checked that's not the same as saying god is king of the universe how is saying that god is the god of abraham the same as saying that god is melancholum king of the universe take a look inside the words alokay avraham the god of abraham is like malthus because avraham our father may hashem king on the entire world what does that mean what was avraham's unique contribution to the jewish people what was his contribution to the world i asked that question often in classes and the most consistent answer i get which i believe is wrong but consistent nonetheless is that avraham introduced the idea of monotheism that he was the first person to believe in one god if you think about that for just a second you realize how preposterous that claim is avraham could not possibly have been the very first person to believe in one god adam believed in one god noah believed in one god noah's sons believed in one god and noah's son shame was alive at the same time as avraham so clearly avram was not the first person to believe in one god yes the majority tells us that avraham intuited on his own the idea of a creator and the idea of one god and yes perhaps avraham taught it to others in a way that nobody did before he went out of his way to share what he knew with other people but what was his unique contribution what did he teach us that no one taught us before avraham taught us and intuited on his own this concept of protest personal divine providence what we call hp or hashem power the idea that god is intimately involved in my life that he cares about me avraham looked up and he saw the stars and the moon and the sun all of the zodiac signs above him and we believe in astrology we believe it's true but he looked up and he saw these powers and said you do not have any power by yourself the sun the moon the stars none of them have any power they are merely a form of communication god speaks to me through the sun and the moon and the stars by manipulating those powers and causing them to affect the seasons and the way the world interacts on earth those are ways that god speaks to me but none of them have any power on their own god is intimately involved in my life he cares about me that is the concept that avraham introduced to the jewish people he introduced to the world and that is the essence of every blessing when i make abraham and i make a blessing on an apple i'm not just thanking god in general for apples i'm not just thanking god for creating a system on a world where there are trees and apples and seeds and i can plant those seeds and create a tree and that tree has infinite power to create apples which then could create trees which no when i make a blessing on when i make a blessing on an apple when i pick that apple up and i make the blessing of eights i'm thanking god for making this apple for me i am declaring that god created the world and he created that tree and he created that apple specifically so i can enjoy it right now that's the concept of practice that's what rosh hashanah is all about rosh hashanah is a day where i make god king where i let god into my world where i choose to have a relationship with him and just like any relationship if it's truly a relationship it's a choice this comes from genesis 3 they heard the sound of hashem god manifesting itself in the garden towards evening and the man and his wife hid from hashem god among the trees of the garden what is going on with this cosmic game of hide and seek adam is afraid and he hides from god as if hashem doesn't know where he is it's like the child playing hide and seek he covers his eyes and he says oh you can't see me yeah we can you're just covering your eyes it doesn't make you disappear god knows where he is even more puzzling is the next verse hashem called out to the man and said to him where are you god plays along hashem begins looking for him can man hide from god surprisingly the answer seems to be yes hashem begins to look for him hashem says where are you obviously god knows where he is and obviously man cannot actually hide from god but what we see from this episode is hashem relates to us the way we relate to him adam sins and he creates at least in his own mind this distance between he and hashem between he and his creator and god plays the part god acts as if he is hidden hashem relates to us the way we relate to him anila dodie dee lee i am to my beloved and my beloved is to me i am to my beloved thus my beloved is to me the way i am to my beloved is the way my beloved is to me each and every one of us lives in a world that we create if we choose a world with hashgraph we choose to make god king and let him in our world then you know what he will be but if i believe that i made money because of government regulations and i lost money because of kovid so then you know what my fate so to speak is up in the wind if statistically it's most probable if this is what's going to happen to me and that's what's going to happen but if instead i choose to live in a world where god is my king i choose to let god in then to the extent to which i let god in is the extent that he will be we live in the reality that we create the talmud tells a story of a man named mendoza he comes home one friday evening and he sees his daughter is in tears she's crying and he turns her and he says what's wrong and she says instead of using oil for the shabbos candles i used vinegar and now we don't have anything to light the shabbos candles with and hanina mendoza turned to his daughter and he said my dear he who says that oil shall burn shall make vinegar burn and she lit the vinegar and it burned but what's remarkable about that story is it wasn't a miracle it was a reality it was hanina mendoza's reality he lived in a reality where the only reason why oil burned is not because of the physical chemical properties of oil oil burned because he understood that there is a spiritual script that causes everything in our physical reality to act and react in a specific way and if god who wrote the script that causes oil to burn chooses to let vinegar burn then so be it vinegar will burn and therefore in his reality there was no difference between vinegar burning and oil burning both were equally miraculous now you and i are no hanina mendoza and if we lit vinegar it's not going to burn because we don't truly believe in that we don't truly create that reality but it's not all or nothing there was a pious woman and i forget the specific person who the story is told about and if you do know and you're watching please let me know but she was being wheeled into surgery and she looks up at the surgeon as they're going into the or and she says doctor i just want to let you know if anything goes wrong in there i won't blame you i won't hold you accountable now as a surgeon no matter how many times you've done this particular surgery you go into surgery with a certain sense of trepidation just the weight of everything on your shoulders what if things go wrong and to hear this patient say that was so touching but before he could even say anything to this woman in response she says to him but doctor if everything goes right i'm not going to give you the full credit either here is a woman who understood that ultimately whether or not the surgery was successful was not up to the doctor alone she lived in a world with hashikaka protest with hp with hashem power where the ultimate determiner as to whether or not the surgery will be successful with god himself the extent to which we let him into our world is the extent to which we will begin to see him when i choose to live in a world of ashkaja practice i see god all around me a couple years ago i dropped my daughter off at preschool and on the way home i witnessed a horrific accident a huge 18-wheeler had knocked the car directly in front of me like a ball in a ping-pong machine it was changing lanes didn't see the car smacked this white little car into the side of the highway it went into the side of the highway and then ricocheted the other direction i was inches away from that and i remember as i saw my life flashing in front of me i called in the accident i don't know what happened to the car i imagine it was a fatal accident there's no way somebody could have walked away and survived and the whole day i was shaken up if i was a split second faster that would have been me why wasn't it me and throughout that day i just couldn't shake it off i couldn't stop thinking about it and then it occurred to me i kept on asking myself why you know why wasn't that me why wasn't i a second quicker a second closer smacked into the side of the highway by that truck but then again and it was an unusual day that day my daughter atara who i dropped off usually went right into school with no problem that day she cried and she for some reason i decided to stay in the classroom and i stayed there for 10 minutes and i did puzzles with her and i stayed and comforted her until she was okay and then i left which is not something i would normally do normally even if she was crying i would say you know i'm sorry daddy has to go and i'll go but i stayed and i kept on thinking about that throughout the day and i dropped her off had she not cried at all or if she had cried and i wouldn't have stayed with her i would have gone home as if nothing happened so aside from just asking the question you know why that was not me now i began to ask the question why did i have to see that why did i have to experience that why did i have to live through the trauma and go through the day completely shaken up and i think the answer is that god is talking to us he was talking to me i kept the piece of metal from the accident when it was all over i pulled over and i had a flat tire because this piece of metal i guess from either the truck or the car was embedded into my tire when i went to get the tire fixed and the man showed me what was stuck inside the tire i asked him to keep it for me as a memento as a sign a symbol an oath as a way of remembering that day forever remembering the fact that hashem talks to us that god is in our life one thanksgiving day every thanksgiving we have a little community-wide custom where we play football it's usually most of the guys who accompanied me on the several israel trips that we've taken and on the thursday of thanksgiving we get together we play football and after football is over we've started hanging out by starbucks it's the only place really that's open and we go after the game and have a couple of drinks so we finished playing football and a bunch of guys get in their cars and we all start driving towards starbucks i'm sitting in the car giving a ride to one of these guys and let's call him daniel because his name is daniel and we start driving from the football field to starbucks it's about a minute drive and we get out of the parking lot and we get this light and everyone else is ahead of us and they all go on and we're stuck at this light and daniel lets out a noticeable sigh he's like can't believe that's stuck at this light what can we do we begin going we get to the starbucks parking lot and being the only place open on thanksgiving it's pretty crowded and as we're looking for a spot we look it's pretty full there aren't very many spots the spot directly opposite the front door of starbucks begins you know the person in that spot pulls out and we pull right into that spot meanwhile all the other guys in all the other cars are circling looking for a parking spot and daniel who's been around me for quite some time and has heard me talk about hashikaka practice hp looks at me and he says so rabbi you're going to tell me that this is hp and he said it you know jokingly but i said yes absolutely you don't think that the reason why we get the parking spot or the reason why we get the light or don't get the light is because of oshkosh practice because god is running the world of course it is begin to look for hashem in the small things in the parking spaces when the bread lands the right direction when it falls on the table instead of falling jelly side up it falls jelly side up you know jelly side down and falls jelly side up begin to see hashem in those small moments and when you do your life will change forever when you lose money in the market it's not because of the market it's because all of the money on men to have in a given year is decided on rosh hashanah it's decided when i make that decision to let hashem into my life the talmud institution says that there's no such thing as reward and punishment in this world that's a difficult concept to understand when we have open verses in the torah that say imbecile if you do what you're supposed to do to and faithfully observe my commandments it doesn't say you'll get reward in the world to come it says i will grant you reigns in their seasons that the earth shall yield its produce in the trees of the field their fruit how are we meant to reconcile the rambam who says that there is no reward in the physical world with open verses that seem to promise exactly that they say if we do what we're supposed to do we'll be rewarded in the physical world how are we supposed to make sense of this the answer is that there is no reward in the physical world because the physical world lacks the currency to reward us for even a single mitzvah the reward for a mitzvah is so infinite it's so incredible that the physical world lacks anything that could possibly reward us for that when hashem says that if you do what you're supposed to do you'll have rain in the proper time you'll be blessed with physical prosperity that's not the reward that is the means in order to achieve and receive real reward in the world to come it's a concept we have in judaism mitzvot guerrero smiths for that one mitzvah drags along another mitzvah or even more specifically another expression we have which is mitzvah the reward of a mitzvah is another mitzvah hashem says if you do what you're supposed to do i will reward you with the opportunity to do more mitzvos but as we know from maslow if your basic needs are not taken care of you can't focus on doing more mitzvos so hashem says you do what you're supposed to do i'll give you rain in the proper time i'll make sure you're taken care of physically so that you can do more mitzvos and get more reward that's the reward you get for doing a mitzvah saar mitzvah mitzvah the reward of a mitzvah is literally another mitzvah if we choose to make hashem king we choose to let hashem be in our lives and that's exactly what he will do if we come on rosh hashanah the day where we have the ability to make god king this is hashem's coronation and we say hashem i want to make you king i want you to be my king i'm working for you and if i'm working for god i have access to the most limitless corporate account on earth if somebody works for a company and they go to their employer and say listen if i upgrade my computer if i upgrade the machinery that i'm using i will have and be so much more profitable for you i'll be so much more productive the employer if he has the means to give you what you want he would be insane not to give it to you if we come to hashem when we say listen i want to make this a more godly world if i'm sick i can't do it hashem please give me health give me a year of health so that i can dedicate my life to making this world more godly if i say hashem i need parnassa i need to be able to be taken care of i need to have physical prosperity not because i want to buy myself another porsche not because i want to make an addition on to my house hashem give me what i need so that i can take care of your children so i can make the world a better place he's limitless there's nothing he can't give you so if i'm on hashem's team i'm here to make the world a more godly place then of course he will give me exactly what it is that i need that's what rosh hashanah is about it's not a time where i'm just being judged it's not a time where i'm facing this big scary king it's a time that i make a choice to let god into my life to let god into my world and when i do that i'll begin to see him in my life i'll begin to see protests i'll see that hp we are living through one of the most unique moments in world history where all of us no matter where we live all across the world are experiencing the same challenge we may be experiencing it differently but the challenge is there and it's present for all of us every single human being throughout the world is facing a challenge that's unifying us and the more i hear people talking about it whether they're talking to me personally as their rabbi whether i see them posting on social media the same thing over and over again that i keep on hearing is the fear of the unknown the anxiety that's being caused by simply being out of control we are living through a time where we are constantly hearing different things from different people where the experts say one thing one day and the next day it's all wrong and out the window who do we listen to and we feel so helpless because we don't know what to do we feel out of control that same feeling that can make us feel fear and anxiety can also be one of the most comforting things at least i know for myself and i can speak for myself alone i have felt so comforted over the past few months because since i know i'm not in control i realize that hashem is in control and the truth is we were never in control we were living with the illusion of control and what covet has taught us i think more than anything else is that we've never been in control we've had to let go we've had to acknowledge that we don't know necessarily what tomorrow will bring we've had to embrace the unknown and charter forth into that next moment that next day that next week that next year knowing that we don't know exactly what that's going to look like and we as we start to send our kids off to school those of us who are sending our kids off to school we don't know what tomorrow will be we don't know what tomorrow will bring but if we understand and recognize that god is in control that the almighty has a plan it can be so comforting my brother has a song that he wrote called the wheel and it describes this young child who's sitting in the back seat sitting in his car seat playing with this toy steering wheel and he follows his mother's movements and as she turns left he turns left and she turns right he turns right until there's a moment where he sees something in his eye out the window that he wants to go to and he turns the wheel left and yet the car turns right and he's so aggravated and frustrated because he realizes in that moment that he is not really driving covet has taught us that god thankfully is in the driver's seat and he knows where we're going even if we don't in the rosh hashanah service we say zakharti lachha sadnu i remember the kindness says god of your youth where laith acharai by mid-barba it's loads of how you were willing to follow me into the unknown every single moment we are faced with the unknown unknowable future a future we can't possibly know sometimes we convince ourselves that we do know what tomorrow will bring but we never do no matter what we can know about this world we never know what the future will bring we never know what tomorrow will be rosh hashanah is the day that i choose to relinquish control and let hashem be my king it's the day where i let him into my world and into my life the extent to which i let him in is the extent to which he will be there the extent to which i'll begin to see him constantly in my