The following sermon was delivered by Rabbi Avi Garson on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashana 5787.
Imagine Polymarket was around 2000 years ago. The website would look something like this: Julius Caesar to be killed within 7 days? Buy yes $0.66. Buy no $0.35.
What odds do you think you would have got on us sitting in this room today?
Rabbi Yaakov Emden, who lived in the 18th century, asked a similar question: What is the greatest miracle in Jewish history? We have so many to choose from! It could be any of the 10 plagues in Egypt, or how about the splitting of the sea! Rav Emden declared that the greatest miracle ever performed by God is the Miracle of Jewish Survival.
Our enemies tried almost every conceivable way to destroy us through the ages… They burnt our Temple TWICE… they exiled us from our homeland… they fed us to the lions in the Colosseum…the Crusaders butchered Jewish towns and villages… the Nazis attempted to systematically wipe us out… and our enemies broke into our homeland with depraved cruelty and slaughtered everyone they could find. Remarkably, whatever our oppressors did to us we always survived.
We all come from different backgrounds, from Poland, Germany, Russia, France, Morocco, to name just a few. We have holocaust survivors with us today who survived the killing machine that the Nazis built. They outlived the Reich that was meant to reign supreme for 1000 years and heroically rebuilt their lives.
Some of you are descendants of Soviet Jews, who held on to their Jewish identity while the Soviet regime did all they could to eliminate Jewish life. Personally, when doing some research a few months ago, I found out that one of my great-great-uncles was burnt at the stake in Toledo around 1501.
Yet incredibly all the villains that sought to destroy us are gone. Most recently, Ayatollah Khamenei, who joins the long list of our enemies that exist no more but we are still here.
After almost 2000 years, we returned to our homeland. Prophecies that were uttered over 2500 years ago by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, hundreds of verses in the scriptures have come true in front of our eyes. Take Zechariah Chapter 8: ‘and the streets of Jerusalem will be filled with young boys and girls playing’.
Almost 8 million Jews live in Israel. Close to 140000 Jewish babies were born in Israel in the last year. When you think of the magnitude of hate we have endured as a people, and where we are today, it’s clear that Jewish Survival is a colossal miracle. Because Am Yisrael Chai isn’t just a cute song… it’s part of our DNA. WE WILL ALWAYS SURVIVE.
I believe we need to ask ourselves what have we survived for? Was the whole purpose of the Jewish Story up to now, with all its pain and hardship just there so that we could be alive today and enjoy Yiddish shows like Fiddler On The Roof, or get behind the New England Patriots simply because they are owned by Jews? I don’t think this is the miracle of Survival that Rabbi Emden was discussing.
Because the miracle isn’t just the survival of Jews, It’s the survival of Judaism.
The same Torah that Moshe received from heaven and taught the generation that lived in the wilderness who took it into the Promised Land, that very Torah with all its laws and ideas that has been carried as a guide to life by our people for thousands of years.
And this idea sits right at the heart of Rosh Hashanah.
We are about to read the Rosh Hashanah Musaf prayer. It is split into 3 sections: Malchiyot – Kingship of God, Zichronot – Remembrances, and Shofarot. Each section contains 10 verses on the theme.
The Talmud explains why we read the first section of Kingship… כדי שתמליכוני עליכם. God says read the section of Kingship so you will make Me your King. Now here is the obvious question – God is King regardless. The world is His, and each moment we are sustained by Him. So what exactly is the purpose of this coronation? God is King with or without us saying these verses?
There is a verse that we read each day: כי לה’ המלוכה
ומושל בגויים – Sovereignty or Kingship is God’s and He rules the nations. The commentators point out that in this verse we see the two different forms of authority: a melech (king) and a Moshel, ruler.
Moshel rules whether the people accept his authority or not. Joseph is described as a Moshel – ruling Egypt, because his authority didn’t depend on the Egyptians choosing him. He was a Moshel, a ruler.
Today we still have dictators that govern with an iron fist, and citizens of those countries suffer. We pray they should be able to experience the freedom to express their opinions and to travel as they please. But even in Western Society where we have a say in who governs us, there are aspects to elected officials that to some are ‘Moshel’ like.
You may not agree with the elimination of daylight-saving time in British Columbia, but you accept because if you want to live here you really have no alternative!
Personally, with sunrise being an hour later this really messed up our weekday Shacharit start time, but when working on the calendar times for the Shul, I was forced to work with the new reality that the sun will rise after 9 am during some weeks in January. I don’t buy into the wisdom, I was compelled to work with it.
The contrast to this is the idea of Melech, Kingship. Rabbi Rosenblatt and I had a lengthy discussion about how to relate to Kingship, especially given the poor record of kings and queens throughout history.
True Malchut, doesn’t simply compel people to follow the rules. His people accept his authority because they believe in what he stands for. They buy into the values, wisdom and ideology he represents and willingly choose to side with them.
There is a famous Jewish saying that is first recorded almost 1000 years ago: ‘Ein Melech Belo Am’. There cannot be a King without a nation. A true King doesn’t impose authority, his people willingly accept it on themselves.
Think of Nelson Mandela, after coming out of a lengthy prison sentence, he advocated for reconciliation and democracy. His influence wasn’t just that he was the president of South Africa, and he could pass laws. Millions identified with what he represented and got behind his message.
When we think of Hashem as a Melech, the idea goes much deeper. He created the World, He created all that fills it, and He created you and me. To help us live our best lives, He gave us the Torah, which contains His Wisdom and vision for how he wants us to live. Accepting Hashem as Melech means recognizing that His wisdom is greater than my own.
And I think the word that helps us understand this is alignment. When something is aligned, all its different parts are pointing in the same direction. On a battleship, you have thousands of staff, working different tasks that to an outsider seem unrelated. Workers in the engine room, manning the artillery, the bridge, navigators, … but they are aligned, working towards their destination.
Malchut asks us to bring our lives, our choices and priorities into alignment with Hashem. We don’t do this out of fear of retribution and punishment, or fire and brimstone. That would be a ‘Moshel’ relationship.
Rather We get behind Hashem and His values because we trust his wisdom.
Rabbi Sacks put it best: Judaism is the religion of the free human being freely responding to the God of freedom.
Rosh Hashana is that day that asks us to make that choice. Do you see God and Torah the same way as you see your tax bill… something that is imposed on you, and something you look for legal loopholes to find ways to pay as little as possible? Or is there alignment? Does the Torah and its values shape the way you live and the decisions you make?
In my discussion with Rabbi Rosenblatt, he challenged me… ‘During your time in Israel, when you studied for the Rabbinate at the Jerusalem Kollel, what was the moment that you really felt Malchut, an alignment to Hashem and his Torah’?
That answer was clear to me: Each year the kolel, the study centre hosts a gala where all those getting ordained as Rabbis get recognized.
The year I got ordained the gala was on Chanuka. Surrounded by my wife, my in-laws, my friends and study partners, people who I had spent thousands of hours studying with. The party went on late into the night, the dancing was electric.
And when I thought about it later, I realized it wasn’t one thing in particular that made that night so powerful. It was that everything had come together. The hard work, those who had helped me get there, friends, family and mentors, all celebrating the same thing. There was an incredible sense of alignment. Everyone and everything had come together for a shared purpose.
That night I experienced an alignment in my own life. But in the 3 months I have been working at Schara Tzedeck, I have begun to see what alignment looks like in the life of a community.
Every morning people get out of bed to be in Shul at 6:45 am to help make up a daily minyan. They could be sleeping in a bit more, enjoying the early morning quiet time with a beach walk, or getting a gym workout in early. Instead, they come to shul to help make up a minyan so that those who have had a bereavement can say a kaddish for their loved ones.
The amount of Chessed done here is staggering; people give generously to support the shul. Just yesterday I walked into the Silber Hall and saw over 400 ‘Rosh Hashana In A Box’ packages being packed by volunteers ready to be driven to those in need. 400!
And all this stems from a recognition, perhaps one that is buried in the subconscious for many, but nonetheless an acknowledgment that Hashem created the world with a purpose. Chessed, charity, prayer, Torah study these aren’t simply rules and regulations imposed on us by a dominant ruler. These are part of God’s vision for what he wants the world to look like.
If God were just a ruler to us, and we felt disengaged, we would spend our lives doing the bare minimum for our community and for others. Why go beyond what the rest of society does? Why sacrifice for someone else if the world has no greater purpose?
But here at Schara Tzedeck, a place pulsating with so much chesed, I see a community that doesn’t just call itself Jewish but lives with a Jewish consciousness aligned with Hashem and His values.
However, on Rosh Hashana it is appropriate for each of us to ask what’s next.
Where in my life is my relationship with Hashem one of disengagement, and what is the next area I can bring into greater alignment. Because true alignment means implementing the value not just believing it.
It’s uncanny, but as Rosh Hashanah began, the world was commemorating a day that changed humanity forever. 9/11.
For those who are old enough to remember it, you all recall with clarity where you were and what you were doing when you heard what happened. Two symbols of might that embodied the American Dream came crashing down.
I was too young to remember it, but I have read a lot of testimonies and watched many videos of the events and chaos that unfolded. One of the most haunting things preserved from that morning are the phone calls. Phone calls to loved ones made by people trapped inside the towers, phone calls made by passengers on board United flight 93.
Shimmy Beigelisen was the Vice President of Fiduciary Trust on the 97th floor inside the South Tower. He called his wife Miriam to let her know there had been an explosion in the tower next door. Then the plane hit the South Tower 20 floors below, leaving Shimmy trapped.
He called Miriam and told her how he loved her. He then spoke to his friend David. He told David to take care of Miriam and the kids.
Then he spoke to his friend David once again and told him the following. As you know I am a Hasidic Jew, a Chasid of the Belzer dynasty. I actually have a flight booked to go and spend Rosh Hashana with the Rebbi in Jerusalem. One highlight for me is when the Rebbi recites psalm 24, the psalm that is sung on Rosh Hashana night. Please David say the Psalm with me now one last time.
And in a hoarse voice, coughing through the smoke, Shimmy proceeded to sing the psalm on the phone with his friend David.
Mizmor Ledavid … Lashem Haaretz Umeloah… the Earth and all that fills it is Gods…
Seu Shearim Rasheichem Lift up your heads oh gates, Veyavo Melech Hakavod… so that the Glorius King may enter. Mi Zeh Melech Hakavod… Who is the Glorius King? Hashem Izuz Vegibor… Hashem the Strong and Mighty. He finished the psalm. Soon after the line went dead. Shimmy never made it home.
During Shimmy’s final terrifying moments, the things he believed in didn’t remain abstract ideas. His love for his family shaped the decisions he made, by keeping a cool head and making sure his family would be taken care of.
And the words Melech Hakavod – Glorious King on his lips as he struggled to breathe reflected a life committed to aligning himself with Hashem’s Values. This is true alignment. What you believe shapes what you do, even in terrible moments.
Rav Emden taught that the biggest miracle is the fact that we are sitting here today. Survival was never the destination. A Judaism with purpose was.
So When we hear the Shofar today, it is time to dig deep and ask ourselves; what is the next area in my life that I will align with Hashem and his Torah.
Turn the Jewish pride that lives in your heart into action.
Because the greatest tribute we can pay to all our ancestors who sacrificed so much to ensure we are here today, is to make sure that Torah Values survive through us.
