A Vort On Rosh Hashana: Isn't Hashem The King Of The World Even If We Don't Make Him King?

00:17 Good Yontif and a good year, kindalech. Rosh Hashanah is coming. Well, you all know what Rosh Hashanah is. Rosh Hashanah is a time when we, the Jewish people in general, and each one of us is making Hashem the king over the entire world. Hashem is the king of everything. The Jewish people and the non-Jewish people, the animals and every plant, every blade of grass, and even rocks and, uh, a grain of sand, the air, the planets, the stars, the sun, the moon, everything. He's the king over everything. Not only that, he's the king over the Malachim, and the endless, endless Malachim in the heavens, in Shamayim. Hashem is the king over everything, and we are the ones who are making him king on Rosh Hashanah. The question is, are we really making him king? What if we do not tell him that he's the king? What if Rosh Hashanah comes and none of the Jewish people, Chas v'Shalom, will go to shul and say to Hashem, "You are the king." ♪ HaMelech ♪ Nobody would say that. Would Hashem not be the king? What does it mean Hashem is the king? Hashem is the king when he's in control of everything. He controls everything. He's-- He, he does everything with everything what he wants. Why? Because he created it. Now, in a human king, when people appoint a king, they say, "You're gonna be our king," then that person would not be king unless the people made him king. He can't be a king over

02:03 people unless the people say, "We want you to be our king." They have to make you the king. But with Hashem, it's very hard to say that Hashem is not king if we don't tell him to be king. He's the king anyways. He creates everything from nothingness all the time. So he's obviously is a king no matter what. But the point is that Hashem says, "Of course, I'm a king. I'm not just a king, I'm a ruler." A ruler means that you rule over things, whether these things want you to rule over them or not. Let's say you own a, a toy, or you own a, a little car. Uh, you do with the car what you want. The car can't tell you, "No, I don't want you to do this to me," because a car doesn't have a mind and doesn't have a, a... It's not a person, and, and you can do with it what you want. You're also ruling over that toy that you have. But that's not a king. A king is a different thing. There's a ruler and there's a king. A king means somebody who's a king over people. What is the difference? Because objects like cars and toys, and even animals, they can't make you say, "We want you to be a king." But humans can say to someone, "You know what? We really want you to be our king." So the same with Hashem. Hashem doesn't wanna be a ruler. He wants to be our king because

03:35 we love Him, 'cause we want Him to be our king. What does it mean to be our king? That we wanna do what He wants, because we know what He wants is really good. So that's what Rosh Hashanah is. Rosh Hashanah is for us to say to Hashem, "We want so much to be Your people and Your servants, and You will be our king." And Hashem is waiting for that day when people will say that to Him. Of course, He controls over everything all the time, regardless of what we say. But that's not what Hashem wants, and that's not why He created the world. He created the world that we should want Him to be king. And when we want Him to king-- to be king, then He wants to be our king, and He wants us to be His nation, His people. And this is what Rosh Hashanah is really about. But here's the other question. Malachim do this all the time. Malachim, there are endless Malachim. You know, there are billions, trillions, trillions... Much more than there are people. Endlessly more than there are people. There are a lot, lot more Malachim. There are trillion, trillions Malachim. Endless. It's endless. Can't even put a number on it. And they say Kodesh, Kodesh, Kodesh. They, they serve Hashem every moment, nonstop. They're not interested in ice cream. They're not interested in all the physical things that we get all excited about. For them, this is silly, petty. 'Cause they feel how great Hashem is,

05:08 so they want to serve Hashem every moment. So obviously, they wanna be the servants of Hashem, and they want Hashem to be the king. But why is Hashem then turning to us? What does He need from us? That we should tell Him that He should be king. Why is that so important to Him? He is all the Malachim. And the answer is with a mashal. It's a mashal the Rebbe said to someone. You know, when you come home and you get a picture of the Rebbe in class as a present, and you say to your mommy and tati, "Listen, here's a picture of the Rebbe." They say, "Yes, wonderful. It's nice." But let's say you come home and you drew a picture of the Rebbe, and you tried very hard to do a nice picture, a picture that looks very similar to the Rebbe. You bring it home, there'll be more excitement. "Wow, you drew this with your own hands?" Now, which one is much more exactly like the Rebbe, the picture or the one that you drew? Right? Obviously, the picture's the most exact, because a picture is a camera, it's a machine that, that just takes a ph- picture of the Rebbe. This is literally the way the Rebbe looked like. But when you dra- draw with your own hands, this is what you did with your own hands. It's much harder to make exactly like the Rebbe looked. But it's amazing that you could draw with your own hand and to make

06:42 a picture that looks so similar to the Rebbe. But of course, when you go to a store and you see two pictures, one is a picture from a camera of the Rebbe, another one is a piece of art, an artist drew the Rebbe, and he did a great job. But which one is more exactly like the Rebbe? Much more the true picture of the Rebbe, looks truly like the Rebbe looked like. Of course, the camera's picture, much more than the artist, even the best artist. So why does the artist's, uh, uh, painting of the Rebbe cost so much more than a camera picture? The answer is because when an artist makes it with his own hands, it's so much harder to do, and it takes him months to do. A camera takes one second. You just, you know, push the button, and flash the button, and that's it, and you have the Rebbe's picture. It costs a lot more to buy a picture that's made by an artist, 'cause he does it with his own hands. Even though it's not perfect, exactly the way the Rebbe looked, like a f- like a picture of the Rebbe from a camera, but it's amazing. People will pay a lot more money for this because it's made by a person's hand, even though it's imperfect, and a camera is perfect. But for a camera to make a perfect picture of the Rebbe is no big deal. But for a person with his own hands to make a, a,

08:03 a painting of the Rebbe that looks so closely like the Rebbe is an amazing deal. It's a big deal. Costs a lot more money. Same thing. Hashem says, "In Shamayim, I have endless malachim, trillions and trillions of malachim, and they say to me that I'm the king. But, you know, it's not a big deal. They, of course they say I'm the king, 'cause they don't know of anything else. They feel my presence all the time, and they realize, they see the truth that Hashem is the king of everything. He gives life to every single being, every moment. They feel it. So of course, they're living all the time with that feeling of awe of Hashem and love of Hashem, and they wanna do what Hashem wants. But I want the Jewish people, which is a neshamah that came down into the world in a physical body, and I added to that physical body a yetzer hara that tries to distract the neshamah from serving Hashem and tries to get him distracted into other things, ice cream, and toys, and being jealous, and being this, and being that." All kinds of things that the Torah does, tells us not to, not to have and not to do. And yet comes Rosh Hashanah, you come to shul and say, "Okay, you know what? Hashem, I want you to be our king. I'm excited about you being our king. It's a new year. Now you're gonna be our king again for the new year. And I promise that

09:30 I will not allow my yetzer hara to distract me. I will get up in the morning, and I will daven, and I will try to think about you. Everything and I, in everything I do, in everything I do, I'll think about you." And then Hashem says, "It's much more special to me than what the malachim do. The trillions of malachim is not as important to me, but this one child saying to me, 'I love you. I want you to be my king, and I want you to, I want you to be excited about being, me being me, your servant. I wanna do what you want. I'm gonna try to make everything I do only for you, because you're my king.'" When a Jew does this, Hashem loves this, and he says, "From now, I wanna be the king of the world, give life to everything again, 'cause it's exciting. Look, the Jewish people, even though they have a yetzer hara, they choose me as their king. They want me to be their king." Good Yom Tov.