Rosh Hashanah in Light of Chassidus – The Jewish People Are Children of Kings

00:00 For many people, this happens when the great days of the year arrive—especially Rosh Hashanah. We ask ourselves: What exactly is the point? What are we supposed to do? What is the purpose of this day? Precisely because these are such great days, with so many Midrashim, teachings of our Sages, and explanations, we want to observe them in the best possible way. But sometimes, with all the things we learn, know, and hear about them, we get a little confused. Today I want to bring some order to this and take one central, essential point. We’ll talk about what Chassidus focuses on: the innermost point of Rosh Hashanah. That will open our eyes a little and give us direction—what we need to focus on, and what our main avodah should be on Rosh Hashanah, and of course already during the days of preparation for it. When a person knows what he’s preparing for, he also knows how to prepare, what is expected of him, and what his avodah should be. So today we’ll discuss the essence of the avodah of Rosh Hashanah, focusing on the central point explained in Chassidus about the day. But I also wanted to address a particularly interesting, novel, and remarkable point that the Rebbe spoke about in one year—exactly seventy years ago, on Rosh Hashanah 5717. He spoke then about a surprising new insight into this very subject of Rosh Hashanah. The Rebbe also expanded on it throughout Tishrei that year, 5717, returning to it at farbrengens and adding further details and explanations. It gives us a new direction, a revolutionary way of looking at everything connected with our avodah on these great days—not what we’re used to hearing. So when we speak about Rosh Hashanah, we notice

02:17 that Chassidus places the emphasis not so much on Rosh Hashanah being the Day of Judgment, although of course that is true. Rosh Hashanah is the Day of Judgment, as we say in the prayers and as the Gemara says in tractate Rosh Hashanah: “All people... uh, pass... all the inhabitants of the world pass before Him like sheep.” In other words, there is the aspect of judgment. Nevertheless, Chassidus emphasizes Rosh Hashanah as the day of crowning the King, the day of accepting His kingship. This, too, is based on a teaching of our Sages. The Gemara in tractate Rosh Hashanah—I believe on the same page—says: “Rav Yitzchak said: Hakadosh Boruch Hu said, ‘Recite verses of kingship before Me on Rosh Hashanah so that you will make Me King over you; verses of remembrance so that your remembrance will come before Me for good. And through what? Through the shofar.’” That is why, in the Musaf prayer on Rosh Hashanah, we recite the three blessings of Malchuyos, Zichronos, and Shofaros. When a Jew recites the verses of kingship on Rosh Hashanah, he crowns Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King. That is the essential point of coming to Rosh Hashanah. Kabbalistic works in particular speak a great deal about “building malchus.” On Rosh Hashanah, we build, so to speak, the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Each year, His kingship needs to be built, revealed, and awakened anew. This is done by the Jewish people: by a Jew praying, sounding the shofar, and doing teshuvah. Everything we do on Rosh Hashanah is directed toward the goal and purpose of crowning Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King—accepting His kingship. What does that mean in practical terms in our service of Hashem? What is its inner point? The Rebbe once said at a Rosh Hashanah farbrengen

04:32 —actually, on Rosh Hashanah 5716—that since people like to say things briefly, and the Rebbe said this was true of the Chabad Rebbeim as well, who liked brevity: alongside the lengthy explanations in Chabad teachings, we also see our Rebbeim writing abridgments of maamarim, summaries, and so on. So the Rebbe said: Let’s state briefly what the point of Rosh Hashanah really is. The Rebbe said there are two things on Rosh Hashanah: a point below and a point above. The point below is that on Rosh Hashanah, a Jew commits himself and accepts upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, to serve Hashem throughout the year. The point above is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, commits Himself to the Jewish people. He tells them: I will give you a good and blessed year—“I will give your rains in their proper time,” and so on. With all the verses of blessing in the Torah, Hakadosh Boruch Hu commits Himself to the Jewish people. A point below and a point above. And so we also see in maamarim and sichos that discuss exactly what a Jew needs to do on Rosh Hashanah, beginning already with the days of preparation. The main inner avodah is to accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven—in other words, to devote ourselves completely. That should be the inner point of everything we do. Every action, every thought, every word, and every deed should be directed toward that devotion. We devote ourselves and accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. That is also why it says that on those days, especially Rosh Hashanah, we must be careful to make use of every moment and speak less. Among chassidim, the custom was to speak hardly at all on Rosh Hashanah. Our Rebbeim, the leaders of Chabad, did not speak at all, especially on the first day and the first night—not even words of Torah. They only

06:48 made a point of saying a great deal of Tehillim, besides the prayers and the like. But an obvious question arises here: If so, what is so new and essential about Rosh Hashanah? If the avodah is to accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, that should happen all year long, every day. Every day a Jew accepts the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. We all know the Mishnah in tractate Berachos. It asks: “Why does Shema precede Vehayah im shamoa?” Why do we recite the passage of Shema before Vehayah im shamoa each day? “So that one first accepts the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, and afterward accepts the yoke of the mitzvos.” In other words, every day, morning and evening, when we recite Shema, we are supposed to accept the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven and then the yoke of the mitzvos. So what is special about Rosh Hashanah? More than that: when we study Tanya, we see that the Alter Rebbe says in chapter 41—a famous and foundational chapter—that this is “the beginning of service, its essence and its root.” Although a Jew needs to serve Hashem through the 613 mitzvos, doing so with love and awe, and although the Alter Rebbe explains all this throughout the first forty chapters of Tanya, he comes to chapter 41 and says: Know that the beginning of service, its essence and its root, is accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. He explains there, in eighteen foundational lines that the Rebbe said everyone should know by heart and review, think about, and contemplate every day, how Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King of all the worlds, yet He sets all the worlds aside and focuses, so to speak, all His kingship on the Jewish people as a whole and on each individual Jew in particular. “A person is obligated to say: For my sake the world was created.” To know that the inner purpose is me and the connection

09:05 my relationship with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And so he says: “And he, too, accepts His kingship upon himself, that He be King over him, to serve Him and do His will in every kind of service a servant performs.” So this is really daily work. It is the beginning, the essence, and the root of a Jew’s service, and every day it is the foundation of his entire life, of his whole reality. So what is special about Rosh Hashanah? There are two points here. The first is the basic point explained everywhere, and the second is the new insight we’ll discuss today—what the Rebbe spoke about in a maamar from Rosh Hashanah 5717, and in the sichos and maamarim of that Tishrei. First, then, the simple, basic point. It’s true that every day we are meant to begin with the foundation of kabbolas ol, accepting the yoke of Heaven’s kingship. The first thing a Jew needs to internalize is that there is a King and he is a servant—the King’s servant. But everything in the year has its time of beginning, the gateway through which we enter that work for the whole year. It’s very simple. Take Torah study, for example. We certainly have to study Torah every single day; it is a positive commandment of the Torah. A Jew must study Torah day and night, at least one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening. We know Torah study is a constant obligation. Nevertheless, there is one day in the year, Shavuos, the festival of the Giving of the Torah. That doesn’t mean we receive the Torah only on Shavuos and then go to sleep. On the contrary, it means there is a day in the year when the strength and energy are renewed, when we receive anew. Especially according to Chassidus and the teachings of Kabbalah, when that day comes around each year, a new light shines in connection with the Giving of the Torah. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives the Torah anew on Shavuos. That is when a Jew especially needs to awaken, renew and refresh himself, and make resolutions. And from there

11:22 I draw strength to study Torah throughout the year. The same is true of Pesach and the Exodus from Egypt. Every day there is a mitzvah to remember the Exodus from Egypt. Every day there is an exodus from Egypt within a person’s soul. But when does it begin? On Pesach. On Rosh Hashanah there is a new light for everything connected with the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As explained at length in the Kabbalistic works, and even more in the works of Chassidus, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah there is a withdrawal: Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, conceals Himself. “I no longer want to be King.” He withdraws the desire for kingship, the desire to rule over the world, the delight in ruling over the world. So to speak, everything returns to zero, everything returns to nothingness. In the language of Chassidus, everything returns to its original state. That is why Rosh Hashanah is the time of year when a Jew renews kabbolas ol, accepting the yoke of Heaven’s kingship anew. On Rosh Hashanah, a Jew says Avinu Malkeinu, and in the prayers says, “Our G-d and G-d of our fathers, reign over the entire world in Your glory.” The Rosh Hashanah prayers are full of requests concerning kingship, as we said earlier: “Recite verses of kingship before Me.” This is when we renew it, when a new light is revealed and drawn down. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, Igeres Hakodesh, section 14, every year on Rosh Hashanah a new light is drawn down, a light that has never existed since the creation of the world. Kingship is renewed, with new delight and new desire. And here, in our prayers, our hope is that this year the revelation of the kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu over the Jewish people will be in its most perfect form—the form we are truly awaiting, when the kingship of King Moshiach will “perfect the world under the kingship of the Almighty.” The kingship of Hakadosh Boruch Hu will be revealed in the fullest, most perfect way: “The kingship will belong to Hashem,” and “Hashem will be King over

13:36 the entire earth; on that day Hashem will be One and His name One.” So that is the first point. Yes, every single day we need to accept the yoke of Heaven’s kingship upon ourselves. But which day of the year is the gateway through which we enter this work and from which we draw strength for it? That is why it is called Rosh Hashanah—the “head” of the year. The rest of the year is the body, receiving from the head. The beginning of accepting Heaven’s kingship—which, as we said, is itself the beginning, essence, and root of our service—is on Rosh Hashanah. And here we come to the deeper point the Rebbe spoke about, which we’ll discuss today: What, in fact, is new about accepting His kingship on Rosh Hashanah compared with the rest of the year? When we speak of Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King, we usually speak of it as it is explained in most places, throughout the maamarim of Chassidus. There is a saying of our Sages: “There is no king without a people.” In other words, for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to be King, it is like kingship down here below. In the language of our Sages, “The kingship of Heaven is like the kingship on earth,” and “the kingship on earth is like the kingship of Heaven.” That is, the kingship of Heaven resembles earthly kingship. What can it be compared to? A king of flesh and blood. Throughout the Midrash we find the kingship of Heaven compared to the kingship of flesh and blood. We all know the story of the Alter Rebbe when he was imprisoned. Czar Nicholas came in disguised, dressed like an ordinary person, because he didn’t want anyone to know who he was. He entered, and the Alter Rebbe stood up before him. He was startled: why had the Alter Rebbe stood up? He even said the blessing recited upon seeing a ruler. The czar asked, “How do you know who I am?” The Alter Rebbe said, “The moment you entered the room, I felt the yoke of Heaven’s kingship. And since earthly kingship is like the kingship of Heaven, I knew you were a member of the royal house.” So from earthly kingship we learn about the kingship of the King of kings,

15:54 Hakadosh Boruch Hu. We see, then, that a king needs a people. A king needs servants. As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, a king cannot be king over animals and beasts. You can rule over animals and beasts, exercise dominion over them—“And they shall rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky”—but that is dominion, control, not kingship. Kingship cannot exist over someone who is not a human being and cannot willingly devote himself: “They willingly accepted His kingship upon themselves.” There have to be people who willingly devote themselves to the king. That is what makes the king want to be king. And among people, they need to be people who are not his children. It is not fitting to be a king over your children, either. To children, you can be a father. That is a different kind of relationship. A king’s relationship must be with people who are in the position of servants. Servants are simple people, people far removed from the king’s stature, as Tanya says. They do not really understand the depth of these matters, but they devote themselves to him. That is precisely what is needed: they have the ability to devote themselves, to accept the yoke of the king’s rule. From then on, the king commands them, gives them orders, tells them what he wants, and they willingly carry it out. That is the connection, the relationship, the way a king and a people function. “There is no king without a people.” If we are speaking of the kingship of Heaven, it is clear that this is the central point of Rosh Hashanah. We say it many times in the Rosh Hashanah prayers: we speak about being servants. We say to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, “We want to be Your servants”—“Who acquires His servants in judgment.” We are the King’s servants, and we devote ourselves to being servants of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to accepting upon ourselves

17:54 Accepting the yoke of Heaven for the entire year, observing the mitzvos, learning Torah—and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, as King, also bestows upon us all good, material and spiritual, so that we can truly do what we need to do in the world. But there is another kind of relationship. There is a wonderful Midrash on Parshas Beshalach that speaks about the Song at the Sea. The Midrash says there is another kind of king: not a king over servants or over a people, but a king over kings—the King of kings. The Midrash calls this an “Augustus.” Apparently, in ancient Rome there was a ruler who was called that; that is how the commentators explain it. Augustus—we even have a month of the year called August, from Latin, so that probably comes from this name. The Midrash calls him an Augustus. It says this is a king of kings, a mighty king: he doesn’t just have a people; he has a number of kings, rulers beneath him, and he is the king of those kings. The Midrash says, “A king stands; an Augustus sits,” and cites the verse, “Your throne has been established from of old.” What happened at the Song at the Sea? “Then Moshe sang.” The Midrash says that until the Song at the Sea, Hakadosh Boruch Hu had been King in various ways. But when the sea was split and the Jewish people sang, Hakadosh Boruch Hu became an Augustus, the King of kings. We need to understand this Midrash. We’re talking now about Rosh Hashanah. The Rebbe cites one of the maamarim of the Rebbe Rashab on this subject of Rosh Hashanah. He says that the kingship we speak of on Rosh Hashanah is not only about Hakadosh Boruch Hu being a king over a people, a king over servants. Rather, Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King over kings—because we are speaking about the Jewish people, the souls of the Jewish people.

20:16 Now, it’s true that on one level we are called servants: “For the children of Israel are servants to Me; they are My servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu calls the Jewish people servants in various places in the Torah and Tanach. We are servants of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Hashem’s people, the Jewish people. But there is also a deeper level. The Jewish people are called children of kings: “All Jews are children of kings.” The Gemara in Shabbos and elsewhere says that the Jewish people are called children of kings. We also find these expressions in Tanach: “All the glory of the king’s daughter is within.” That is in chapter 45 of Tehillim, which, according to the Zohar and the Midrashim, speaks about the Jewish people, who are called kings and children of kings. Tikkunei Zohar says: The Jewish people are actual kings. In fact, the source is in the Ten Commandments, at the giving of the Torah: “And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests.” The Jewish people are called kings. And if the souls of the Jewish people—the Jewish people, us—are kings, then on Rosh Hashanah it is kings who crown the King. It is not just servants crowning the King; it is kings crowning the King. When kings crown the King, that is a completely different kind of kingship. This is what the maamar explains at length: there are two kinds of kingship. There is a king in relation to a people; that is one level of kingship. It is kingship over a people who, as we said, are ordinary, lowly and distant, and the king tells them what to do. That is one kind of relationship between king and people. When we speak of a king over kings, we’re speaking of another kind of relationship. After all, they themselves are kings. The relationship of kings to that great, mighty king, that Augustus, is of a different kind. Even when they devote themselves to him, it is not a limited, simple devotion; it comes from an entirely different place. An exalted devotion—the devotion of a king. After all, for a king, everything

22:33 is expansive, lofty and grand. So when a king gives himself over to the king above him, to the King of kings, to the Augustus, his devotion is certainly of an entirely different kind. It is absolute devotion, but deeper and more elevated, coming from a much deeper place in the soul. And that is the kingship of Rosh Hashanah for a Jew. On Rosh Hashanah, a Jew stands before Hakadosh Boruch Hu not only like a servant who bows his head: “Like the poor and destitute, we knock at Your door.” There is that level in serving Hashem too, and at certain moments it is needed. But the deeper meaning of Rosh Hashanah is that a Jew must know that he is, in fact, a king. He is a king, and he crowns Hakadosh Boruch Hu as the King of kings. So even when I speak of kabbolas ol and devotion, of giving ourselves over, there are two things here: the devotion itself comes from a far more elevated and sublime place. It is a much more inward and elevated devotion, accompanied by great delight and great joy. And at the same time, we are not devoting ourselves merely to a king; we are devoting ourselves to something far higher. Through this, as the maamar says, we reveal in the world not only the level on which Hakadosh Boruch Hu is King over the people—a lower level within the attribute of malchus, within kingship. We also reveal in the world the majesty, the essential exaltedness, the exaltedness that comes from His very essence—this aspect of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is exalted and elevated in His essence, beyond any connection to the worlds. The infinite dimension of kingship, kingship as it is rooted in the deepest place—that is what we reveal here in the world. That is the power of Rosh Hashanah. It is a kind of relationship, connection and coronation of the King that touches a much deeper place, both in our own souls and in the revelation of G-dliness in the world.

24:53 This is essentially the essence of the yechidah of the soul. On Rosh Hashanah, the power of the yechidah awakens in a Jew—the essential, innermost bond of a Jew with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, coming from a place where the Jew is not a servant. A Jew is a king who gives himself over to the King of kings. And this is connected to King Moshiach. That is why we speak about it so much in the Rosh Hashanah prayers and ask for it. We say, “Reign over the entire world in Your glory.” We are not asking merely for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to be King as He was last year. We want Hakadosh Boruch Hu to be King with the kingship we all await: “And every being will know that You made it, and every creature will understand that You formed it. And all that has breath in its nostrils will say: Hashem, the G-d of Israel, is King, and His kingship rules over all.” That is the kingship we await—a kingship in which everything, all existence, the whole of creation, every detail of creation together, will cry out: “Hashem, the G-d of Israel, is King.” This is the exalted and sublime kingship that comes specifically through this self-nullification of Rosh Hashanah, as kings crown the King. Then kingship will be revealed in its complete form through King Moshiach, who will awaken the yechidah within the Jewish people, as it is written. Then kingship will be at its very strongest. And so, when these days arrive—the days of preparation for Rosh Hashanah, and especially the days of Rosh Hashanah—every Jew, each and every one of us, needs to know what our work is and where we need to be: to rise higher, to know and remember who we are. We are not only servants of the King; we are, in fact, children of kings. In the Rosh Hashanah prayers we say, “Whether as children or as servants.” Avinu Malkeinu—we are both children of the King and servants of the King. So servitude is kabbolas ol: observing the mitzvos, doing what needs to be done. But alongside that there must also be the exaltedness, the dignity, the joy and the delight that a Jew needs to

27:05 To know that you are, in essence, a king—that lifts you up and gives you the strength to serve Hashem in a completely different way. The difference is very, very simple. If I’m only a servant, I’m constricted. I do what I have to do, but I’m tense and limited. I’m afraid; I’m in awe. I serve Hashem, but I lack a sense of expansiveness. If you also have kingship, then you are, in essence, a king. You are the child of a king. You are connected from a place of kingship, and so you serve differently. Kabbolas ol then comes with pleasure, with joy, with an uplifted spirit. Your devotion comes from a completely different place. So what you do, too, is done with much more expansiveness and much more joy. That is the kabbolas ol of Rosh Hashanah, and it gives us the strength to be servants of the King each and every day, to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu in everyday life. That is the point of these days: may we have the strength and the wisdom to make use of these great days and accept the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven upon ourselves already in Elul. As we know, that is what the parable teaches us. The king is in the field, and each person can approach him and accept his kingship. He receives everyone graciously and shows everyone a smiling face. This begins already in Elul, and it prepares us for the great day of the King’s coronation. May we truly merit, this Rosh Hashanah, to crown Hakadosh Boruch Hu as King—as we said, as the King of kings. And as the Rebbe said at that farbrengen: Regarding the coming of Moshiach, it is written, “Kings will be your foster fathers, and their princesses your nursing mothers.” In other words, the kings of the nations will be the ones who serve us. So we, the Jewish people, are the kings of the kings, because the kings will be your foster fathers.

29:13 The kings are the kings of the nations, and the Jewish people are the kings of those kings, while Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King of the kings of kings. That is what the expression “King of the kings of kings” means. I believe Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev also gives an explanation of that expression in Kedushas Levi. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King; the Jewish people are the kings of the kings; and the kings are the nations… What does “King of the kings of kings” mean? Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the King of the kings of kings. May we merit to see it with our own eyes. May we merit that, by the time this year is over, we will already have the Geulah, and may we all merit to see the revelation of the King of the kings of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “Sovereignty will belong to Hashem,” and “Hashem will be King over all the earth. On that day Hashem will be One and His Name One.” A year of light, a year of blessing, a year of Geulah, and a year of Torah, tefillah and teshuvah—with all the letters of the alef-beis—and the complete Geulah with Moshiach Tzidkeinu.