But Not As You Are

Rosh Hashanah - Enthroning Hashem

2007-09-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

An improved version of something I posted last year:

You shall intone ‘Kingship’, ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Shofar Blasts’ before me on Rosh Hashanah. ‘Kingship’ – So that you should enthrone me as king over yourselves. ‘Remembrance’ – So that you are brought to my mind [only] for good [reasons]. And with what [should you enthrone him]? With the shofar. (BT Rosh Hashanah 34b)

Just as the shofar is sounded at countless coronation services in the Prophets, so too do we use the shofar at Hashem’s ‘coronation’ on Rosh Hashanah. This symbolism is made absolutely explicit by the recital, seven times, of Psalm 47 at the start of the shofar blowing service at Musaf:

God has ascended [to his throne] with a blast; Hashem, with the sound of the shofar…For God has become king over the nations; Hashem is
seated upon his holy throne.

Note how the nature of this ‘enthronement’ is elucidated by the Sifre:

Why did the Sages see fit that ‘Kingship’ should be said first, and that ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Shofar Blasts’ should only be said afterwards? Rather that you should enthrone him over yourselves first and after
that ask mercy of him, in order that you should be remembered [for good] before him. And with what [should you enthrone him]? With the shofar, [because] the shofar signifies freedom, as it says (Isaiah 27:13) “On that day he shall sound the great shofar [and the lost ones will come from the land of Assyria and the rejected ones from the land of Egypt and they shall prostrate themselves to Hashem on his holy mountain in Jerusalem”].

This is not an act performed under duress; the significance of the shofar, as the Sifre notes above, is that it is a symbol in scripture of the free acceptance of Hashem’s sovereignty. In the Sifre’s proof text the dispersed of Israel are not ‘gathered up’ from the four corners of the earth as other texts state, rather the shofar serves as an invitation to the dispersed of Israel to enthrone Hashem willingly and the dispersed ‘come’, apparently of their own accord, to Hashem’s holy mountain. There ‘they will prostrate themselves’; they do so as a collective and voluntary act.

That the community of Israel is able to freely choose to enthrone Hashem as king over themselves, an opportunity the individual does not have, testifies to the power of the community within Jewish thought. The sheer power and audacity of this theological claim is nowhere more evident than in the last verse appended to the Aleinu prayer, the central pillar of the ‘Kingship’ section of the Musaf service. The verse is from Deuteronomy 33:5, part of the blessing with which Moses blesses Israel before his death, and reads as follows, “And there was a king [i.e. Hashem] in Jeshurun [i.e. Israel], when the heads of the people gathered, when the tribes of Israel were together”. It almost seems as if Hashem’s being king was dependant on the actions of Israel. It is precisely this audacious theological claim that the Sifre on Deuteronomy (Piska 346) makes at length:

“And there was a king in Jeshurun” (33:5): When all of Israel is united in their counsel below, His great name is praised above, as it is said, “And there was a king in Jeshurun”…Similarly Scripture says: “This is my
God, and I will glorify Him” (Exodus 15:2) – When I acknowledge Him, He is glorious, but when I do not acknowledge Him, He is [not] glorious, if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol) – “When I proclaim the name of Hashem; ascribe ye greatness unto our God” (32:3) – when I proclaim His Name, He is great, but when I do not, [He is not great,] if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol) – “Therefore ye are My witnesses saith Hashem, and I am God” (Isaiah 43:12), when you are My witnesses, I am God, but when you are not my witnesses, I am not God, if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol) – “Unto thee I lift up min eyes, O Thou that art enthroned in the heavens” (Ps. 123:1) – were it not for me, Thou wouldst not be enthroned in the heavens, if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol). So too in this case [“And there was a king in Jeshurun…]when the tribes of Israel were together” – [He is King] when they form one [unified] group; [He is] not [King] when they form several groups.

It is on Rosh Hashanah that we (re)enthrone Hashem as our king, as the central orientating aspect of our lives; despite “our beginning in dust and our end in dust”, it is only we ourselves, as a community, who have the power to set our priorities and right our ways. The individual human being on Rosh Hashanah may be hopeless and frail, “a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a fleeting breeze, flying dust and a fleeting dream”. Yet the community on Rosh Hashanah can sound the shofar and proclaim:

God has ascended [to his throne] with a blast; Hashem, with the sound of the shofar…For God has become king over the nations; Hashem is seated upon his holy throne. (Psalm 47:6, 9)

Theology and Ecology in Genesis

2007-08-22T00:40:00.000-07:00

The two creation accounts of Genesis present radically different pictures of God alongside radically different pictures of the world and our relationship to it.

The first of the two creation accounts is written from the divine heavenly perspective looking down; it is called the creation of ‘heaven and earth’. God, the distant cosmic architect, masterminds the construction work as his carefully designed blueprint, a marvel of symmetry and patterned order, is brought into existence. The pinnacle of the cosmic mover’s creative enterprise is the human being, ‘male and female’, created ‘in his own image’. ‘Image’ refers to exactly what we have seen of God thus far; he dominates and controls creation, everything has been brought into existence to serve him. Thus man’s role is similar, “fill the earth and master it; and rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on earth”. Man must subdue and master the earth, just as God subdues and masters him.

The second of the two creation accounts is written from the human earthly perspective looking up; it is called the making of ‘earth and heaven’. As such, it describes the ‘nitty-gritty’ of real human experience; the world is not created in an orderly fashion; the creation of light and dark, sun and moon or even the seas is not mentioned. The narrative begins by noting that ‘there was no man to till the soil’, so in order to give the earth a caretaker, Hashem ‘formed man from the dust of the earth’. Hashem is depicted as a doting human parent, strolling through the garden tending to the needs of his creatures; sometimes he makes mistakes and sometimes he succeeds. Man is instructed to ‘till and tend’ the garden; he is assisted by the animals and the woman, who are almost his equals. Unlike in the first creation account, man is discouraged from becoming like Hashem. Like any parent, Hashem wishes to distance his child from too much knowledge and responsibility; man is created from the humble soil and instructed not to eat from the tree that would make him like a god. Man’s transgression inevitably results in the loss of his childhood innocence; he now has the responsibility to provide for himself.

Spielberg's 'Pre-Crime' in the World of the Rabbis

2007-08-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’ depicts a terrifying future in which individuals are arrested and punished for murders they have not (yet) committed (‘pre-crime’). The police believe that they can foresee these terrible crimes with absolute certainty, yet what of free choice? Can the future really be read like a book? Few people realise that this terrifying system forms a central part of Jewish law; while in Spielberg’s world the potential murderers are put in suspended animation, the only rabbinic punishment for pre-crime is death. Our story begins in this week’s parasha of Ki-Teze, with the laws of the ‘Wayward and Defiant Son’,

¹⁸ If a man has a wayward and defiant son (‘ben sorer umoreh’), who does not heed his father or mother and does not obey them even after they discipline him, ¹⁹ his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the public place of his community. ²⁰ They shall say to the elders of his town, "This son of ours is disloyal and defiant; he does not heed us. He is a glutton and a drunkard." ²¹ Thereupon the men of his town shall stone him to death. Thus you will sweep out evil from your midst: all Israel will hear and be afraid. (Deut. 21.18-21)

The first question facing the reader of this shocking text[1] is, what crime precisely has the son committed? At first (v. 18) it seems that the crime is disobeying his parents, whereas when his parents stand before the elders they add that “he’s a glutton and a drunkard” (v. 20). The rabbis, selecting the latter of these two options, conclude that the son is punished specifically for being ‘a glutton and a drunkard’; they reason that it is morally unthinkable that the Torah could allow a son to be put to death for disobeying a simple parental instruction[2]. However, even by dodging the bigger moral problem, the rabbis find the alternative, no less problematic:

Rabbi Jose the Galilean said: Because he ate a Tarteymar of meat and [a mere] 0.17 litres of Italian wine the Torah said he will go out to the court and be stoned!? Rather, the Torah concluded [according] to the future actions of the wayward and rebellious son, for in the end, [once] he finishes off his father’s funds, seeks [resources to continue] his addiction and doesn’t find them, he will go out to the crossroads and rob people[3].

The rabbis refuse to believe that the act of eating some meat and drinking some wine[4] could possibly warrant the death penalty, even if that is exactly what the Torah says (by their reading); according to their moral compass the punishment simply does not fit the crime. It is out of desperation at this conundrum that the rabbis launch themselves into the world of pre-crime: if the son steals[5] happy-meal size[6] amounts of meat and wine from his parents, this demonstrates a pattern of behaviour that will repeat itself over and over, until he can no longer support his addiction stealing from his parents’ pockets and becomes a highway robber. The rabbis are so confident that they can predict his future actions with certainty that they are willing to have him executed on the second occasion that this moderate booze-up occurs[7]!

All of this may sound rather far-fetched, but the reality may be even more shocking. During the crusades, many Jewish families committed suicide out of fear that they would be butchered by Christian mobs and their children converted; parents felt compelled to slit their own children’s throats. For hundreds of years afterwards, authorities on Jewish law struggled with these events; some tried to justify the actions of these parents, while others condemned them. One authority justified their actions based on the passage we have just read:

…They relied on this [source] to kill their children at the time of the decree [i.e. times of emergency during the crusades] for [the children] cannot distinguish between good and evil. We are afraid lest they settle amongst the gentiles of their nation as they grow up; better that they die innocent and not die guilty, for thus have we found concerning the Defiant and Wayward Son, that because his future actions would be to rob people and transgress Sabbaths, he is [put to death] with stoning…[8]

This is a very weak analogy indeed; the transgression of Sabbaths (not found in our passage) constitutes no threat to society whatsoever and as such cannot be considered within the rabbinic pre-crime framework (see below). Thus, this twist on our passage seems unacceptable from a legal standpoint, whatever it was used to justify. In fact, today we know that most of these parents probably justified their actions by comparison with the events at Masada as recounted by the medieval ‘Yosippon’ (a frum reworking of Josephus), which they regarded as an authoritative work of Jewish law/lore[9]. However, the rabbinic pre-crime enterprise did not stop with the ‘Wayward and Defiant Son’ and is basic to a number of well-known laws, such as the laws of Rodef (‘the pursuer’). The main pre-crime corpus is found in the 8^th chapter of Mishnah Sanhedrin,

(5) The Wayward and Defiant Son is judged according to his future actions. He should die innocent and not die guilty, for the death of the wicked is good for them and good for the world and that of the righteous is bad for them and bad for the world…

(7) These are they whose souls we save: one who pursues (‘rodef’) his fellow (to murder him), the male [to rape him] or the engaged woman [to rape her].

But, one who pursues the animal [to bestialise it], who violates the Sabbath or who engages in foreign worship: we do not save their souls[10].

This passage conjures up a host of new theological questions: are we killing off the Wayward and Defiant Son for the good of ‘the world’ or for his own spiritual welfare, so that ‘he should die innocent and not die guilty’? In the second section of our passage, whose soul is it we are ‘saving’ exactly: that of the pursuer (so that he should die innocent) or that of the pursued (so that he should not die at all)? For several reasons[11] it seems more likely that the phrase ‘save their souls’ here refers to the pursuer (other sources differ[12]); the rabbis were willing to kill in order to keep people’s souls clean. The salient point of this passage, however, is that pre-crime only applies when a person’s actions will significantly harm another person or society as a whole; the rabbis do not apply pre-crime in cases where a person wishes to harm only themselves (e.g. by bestiality, the transgression of the Sabbath, or idol worship). The similarity to John Stuart Mill’s ‘Harm Principle’[13] here, a foundational principle of modern liberal democracies, is especially striking.

Amongst this rabbinic framework of pre-crime we have uncovered, readers will still be most distressed by the case of the Wayward and Defiant Son: whereas in all of our other cases the threat is so immediate that the label ‘pre-crime’ barely applies, the case of the Wayward and Defiant Son involves the prediction of patterns of behaviour many years down the line - no exact science! Arguably the redactor of the Mishnah deliberately juxtaposed it with the others precisely to make it seem more reasonable! One thought, however, is comforting; from the very earliest strata of rabbinic law[14] there is a tendency to restrict the circumstances under which the law is applied to the point of making a conviction impossible, effectively ‘ruling the law out of existence’.

What does [the Mishnah] mean when it says [that the son cannot be convicted if his mother is] ‘not suitable’ [to his father]?...It means that they must be equal. Such has also been taught in an external tradition:

‘Rabbi Judah says: “If his mother is not equal to his father in voice, height and appearance, he is not convicted as a Wayward and Defiant Son”. What is the reason [for this restriction]? Scripture states “He does not heed our voice”, due to the fact that their voices must sound the same [because it states “our voice”] so too must their appearance and height be the same’.

Whose approach does this external tradition exhibit? [It exhibits the same approach as that seen in the following external tradition:]

The case of the Wayward and Defiant Son never occurred and never will occur. Why then was it written [in the Torah]? Expound it and receive reward!’…

Rabbi Jonathan said, “I saw [the Wayward and Defiant Son convicted] and sat on his grave”![15]

Rabbi Judah’s impossible restrictions on the parents of the Wayward and Defiant Son deliberately make the law impossible to implement; this is recognised by the narrator who associates him with the position that ‘the case of the Wayward and Defiant Son never occurred and never will occur’. A plain law of Deuteronomy is turned into a scholarly curiosity but not only because it is deeply troubling on the moral plain[16]; just as Spielberg’s ‘Minority Report’ concludes that the future is difficult to predict with certainty, so did (many of) the rabbis.

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Thanks go to my havruta Jesse Marglin alongside Rabbi Dudi Goshen, Bethany Boyd, Steve Slater and Hannah Sassoon, for teaching me these sources over many early mornings, long afternoons and late nights. I am also significantly indebted to Prof. Moshe Halbertal’s Revolutions in Exegesis as They Came to Be: Values as Exegetical Factors in Midrash Halakha (Heb) for much of what follows.

[1] This text may be shocking to us but it is not shocking at all within the larger biblical picture, it might even be considered relatively tame. Early biblical theology posited familial collective responsibility: children could be punished for the sins of their forbears (Exodus 20.3-5, 34.5-7) and children could be incinerated as a result of their fathers’ crimes (Joshua 7.24-25). What we might call the ‘right to life’ was not considered innate but rather flowed from the individual’s membership of the family unit, thus in three distinct biblical cases the patriarch of the family orders/permits the killing of one of their subordinate family members (Genesis 31.32, 38.24, 42.37). This is reinforced by the prohibition in Exodus (21.17) against cursing one’s father and mother; disrespect to those whom one owed one’s ‘Right to Life’ to was punished by death. Our text of the Wayward and Defiant Son already represents a departure from this early biblical theology; it demands a full judicial procedure including a trial before the ‘elders of his town’ and that the sentence be carried out by the ‘men of his town’, a far cry from the expected summary execution. In a further development to the theology expressed in Exodus, Deuteronomy does not permit children to die for the sins of their forbears (Deuteronomy 24.16 and so too Jeremiah 31.28-29; Ezekiel 18.2-4; 2 Kings 14.6).

[2] ‘He does not heed his father or mother’; it would be possible [to convict him] even if his father and mother [only] told him to light a candle and he did not light it. [The verse] therefore teaches ‘he does not heed’ [a second time] to create an ‘Equation by Association’ (‘Gezerah Shava’). Just as in [the second] ‘he does not heed’ mentioned below ‘he is a glutton and a drunkard’, so too in [the first] ‘he does not heed’ mentioned here ‘he is a glutton and a drunkard’. (Sifre Deuteronomy 218 – Ed. Finkelstein)

This follows the 5^th of Hillel’s Principles of Exegesis (numbered as the 4^th of Rabbi Ishmael’s Principles of Exegesis – see p. 51 in the Artscroll Siddur) which states that in a case where a generalisation is followed by a specification, the rule only applies to that specification. However, in the midrash cited above it is the moral problem that seems to be decisive rather than any exegetical principal.

[3] Midrash Tannaim on Deut. 21.21 (Ed. Hoffman)

[4] The rabbis take ‘a glutton and a drunkard’ to refer specifically to meat and wine due to an inner-biblical midrash found in the book of Proverbs: ¹⁹ Listen, my son, and get wisdom; Lead your mind in a proper path. ²⁰ Do not be of those who guzzle wine, Or glut themselves on meat; ²¹ For guzzlers and gluttons will be impoverished, And drowsing will clothe you in tatters. ²² Listen to your father who begot you; Do not disdain your mother when she is old. (Proverbs 23.19-22) This passage, full of allusions to our text of the Defiant and Wayward Son, portrays meat and wine as the paradigmatic foci of inebriation and gluttony. The specific quantities mentioned here (so too, see Mishnah Sanhedrin 8.2) are selected by the rabbis to represent typical rather than excessive consumption because they are concerned about patterns of behavior that will repeat themselves, as will be explained. The conversion of these quantities ‘half a log’ is notoriously difficult, I have provided the conversion here tentatively as an illustration of the quantities depicted.

[5] Both the Sifre (Deuteronomy 218 – Ed. Finkelstein) and the Mishnah (Sanhedrin 8.3) assume that this is so. What is striking about the Mishnah’s criteria for this theft is its acute awareness of the psychology of addiction. Only theft from parents and consumption amongst others is likely to be reflective of what will ultimately be a socially destructive pattern of behaviour.

[6] See note 4 above.

[7] Mishnah Sanhedrin 8.4

[8] The ‘Smak’ of Zurich – Commandment 6.19 (?), quoted in Halbertal, Revolutions in Exegesis as They Came to Be: Values as Exegetical Factors in Midrash Halakha (Heb) pp. 50-51 f. 15.

[9] Cited as authoritative many times by the classical commentators on the Bible and Talmud, especially Rashi. See Rashi to 2 Kings 20.13; Isaiah 21.4, 39.2; Zechariah 9.14; Daniel 5.1, 8.21, 11.17,18,23,30; 1 Chronicles 11.17. Rashbam to Genesis 36.31. Ramban to Genesis 32.4, 49.31. Radak to 1 Kings 19.2. However, some of these references may have been added by later editors.

[10] M. Sanhedrin 8.5, 7 – The tangent at the end of mishnah 5 was off topic while mishnah 6 was not cited for the sake of brevity. However, note that the tunneller of mishnah 6 provides the link between ‘future actions’ and the immediacy of ‘save their souls’.

[11] Firstly because the subject of ‘these are they whose souls we save’ is most naturally the pursuer and secondly because there is no ‘soul’ of the pursued to save in the second clause of mishnah 7. Thirdly, the introduction of the idea in mishnah 5 that the death of the Defiant and Wayward Son is ‘good for [him] and good for the world’ makes it extremely likely that a parallel sentiment is to be expected in mishnah 7.

[12] The Sifre to Deuteronomy uses the term differently: …‘[but you shall do nothing to the girl. The girl did not incur the death penalty,] for the case is like that of a man attacking another and murdering him’ (Deut. 22.26) - This teaches that all of the rape victims in the Torah are exempt [from punishment] and we save their souls. (Sifre Deuteronomy 243 – Ed. Finkelstein)

[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle

[14] Such might arguably be seen in Sifre Deuteronomy 218 – Ed. Finkelstein (quoted above, note 2) and is also fairly obvious in the first mishnah on the Defiant and Wayward Son, Mishnah Sanhedrin 8.1.

[15] BT Sanhedrin 71a. Note also the tendency to state that the law, though morally difficult, simply cannot be understood ‘for it is a decree of a king’ (Tosefta Sanhedrin 11.6), along the lines of ‘ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and die’ (Byron, The Charge of the Light Brigade).

[16] As suggested by many commentators. See Eliezer Berkovits’ classic ‘Not in Heaven’.

Finding A Chosen Place

2007-04-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

Any Jew aware of their Judaism finds themselves asking the question: “What should my relationship with Jewish tradition be?” While we spend time weighing the merits of various practices or observances, it often feels like tradition fails to acknowledge the reality that we are independent agents: that we are ultimately making a choice about how we engage with our Judaism. Popularly conceived, Judaism flatly tramples our individuality and asserts, “Your path is already chosen for you, accept it”! Does tradition itself concede any flexibility as to how I personally engage with it? Can tradition acknowledge that the way in which I relate to and practice my Judaism will be a result of the unique choices I make as an individual, rather than something that has simply been chosen for me? This Dvar Torah is an argument for conceiving of our relationship with tradition and God as just that, a relationship. It is an argument for finding a chosen place[1].

The book of Deuteronomy speaks to the wilderness generation, the generation that arose during the desert wanderings and is preparing to complete its spiritual journey through the conquest of the land of Canaan. The Israelites are instructed that, once the land is conquered, their spiritual centre is to be a special place that the deity will choose,

…[you shall go] to the place that the Lord your God will choose from [amongst] all your tribal territories to establish his presence; you shall seek out his dwelling place and go there[2]. (Deut 12.5)

The fact that the location of this ‘chosen place’ is not mentioned is often glossed over: the temple was later built in Jerusalem, and the book of Chronicles (a much later Second Temple period composition) identifies the precise mountain on which it was built as being Mt. Moriah (2 Chron 3.1). There is great significance to this identification, for Genesis tells us that Abraham was commanded to offer Issac in ‘the land of Moriah…on one of the mountains that I will show you’ (Gen 22.2). The fact that Deuteronomy chooses to say none of this, however, is often ignored.

Why are the Israelites told to go somewhere, without being told where to go? Why is their spiritual destination, at the end of all their long desert wanderings, kept hidden from them?[3] Our verse recognises this tension: ‘[you shall go] to the place that…God will choose…you shall seek out his dwelling place’. If the place is already chosen by God, why do the Israelites need to seek it out? The Sifre, a tannaitic halakhic Midrash, notes this difficulty and responds,

You might think you must wait until a prophet tells you [where it is]; hence the verse continues ‘seek out his dwelling’; search for and find the place, then the prophet will tell you. (Sifre Deuteronomy Pisqa 62)

The Israelites should not wait for God to tell them where the place he has chosen is, rather, they must seek it out and find it by themselves. Once they have found it, it is the function of the prophet to ‘tell them’. What this means remains unclear. It may mean that this becomes a game of divine ‘hide and seek’, the prophet telling them whether they ‘got it right or not’. However, it seems more likely that the prophet role is to simply put the divine stamp of approval on their endeavours. The divinely ‘chosen’ place is ‘chosen’ by Israel.

The problem of chosenness seems to be one that is almost unique to Deuteronomy. Of the twenty occurrences of the phrase ‘x that the Lord will choose’ (asher yibhar Hashem) in the Torah, nineteen of them occur in the book of Deuteronomy. While most of these – fully eighteen of them – concern the chosen place, one of them concerns the king. Surprisingly, we here find an almost identical problem regarding the indeterminate divine-human nature of the process by which the king is ‘chosen’. The verse states,

You shall surely place a king over yourselves who the Lord your God shall choose; you shall place one of your brethren over yourselves as king, you may not place over yourselves a foreigner who is not of your brethren. (Deut 17.15)

Here we have the same problem: If the king is chosen by God, why the injunction to make someone king? Why the detailed instructions as to who qualifies and who does not? Nahmanides’ comment on this point (ad. loc.) is truly startling,

In my opinion the simple meaning of the expression ‘whom He will choose’ is that every ruler over people receives his position from God, as it is written ‘until you will know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever he will’ (Daniel 4.29). Similarly the Rabbis have said: ‘Even a superintendent of the well is appointed in heaven’ (BT Berakhot 58a). Thus the verse is stating: You shall surely place a king over yourselves – whoever is decreed by Heaven that he is to reign…– but you are never to invest a foreigner with regal power. Similarly…the expression ‘the place that the Lord your God will choose’ (Deut 12.5) means that wherever God’s sanctuary shall be built, was all the will of God[4].

Nahmanides here asserts the ‘divine right of kings’: however the king becomes king and however the temple site comes to be chosen, all of these things are expressions of the will and workings of the Deity in human affairs. Again, we see that the divine ‘chosen place’ is ‘chosen’ by Israel, but in this case, the human choice requires no direct divine seal of approval.

We mentioned earlier that the book of Chronicles identifies the mountain on which the temple was built as being the same mountain on which the Binding of Isaac occurred. The nature and purpose of this identification is rarely examined. Does the book of Chronicles simply intend to provide us with geographical information? It seems more likely that Chronicles was making a profound exegetical link between the two episodes. We noted earlier that the Israelites were being sent to a seemingly precise destination without being told where to go. This occurs explicitly in two other instances in the bible[5]. The first occurs when Abram is first spoken to by God, “Leave (lekh lekha) your land, your birthplace and your father’s house for the land that I will show you” (Gen 12.1). The second occurs with the ‘Binding of Isaac’, where Abraham is told “…go (lekh lekha) to the land of Moriah and offer him up there as an elevation offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you” (Gen 22.2).

This is not the only link between the ‘chosen place’ and the ‘Binding of Isaac’. After the ‘Binding of Isaac’ episode we are told, ‘Abraham called that place “The Lord Will See”’. The voice of the narrator then reminds us of a common saying, ‘of which it is said today, “on the Mountain of the Lord, He [the Lord] will be seen”’ (Gen 22.14). Here we find an identical dialectic to that which we found earlier, namely: Does the sanctity of the place stem from God’s ‘seeing’ of the place, or of the people’s ‘seeing’ of the godly in that place? Here too, the godly path is the one that finds favour, both in the eyes of God and in the eyes of man.

We stand at a crossroads with many paths available to us. Each path is meticulously signposted, with the destination and distance clearly marked. But these are paths that have already been trodden by others, meticulously plotted and mapped. Sometimes these will take us where we want to go; sometimes they will simply force us into living the lives of others. Often we will need to cut our own path through the undergrowth, and we won’t know where it will take us; we will need to have faith in ourselves and in our own convictions. This kind of journey is a negotiation between ourselves and the terrain that is offered to us; our end destination will be the result of dialogue and compromise. It will be both the destination-place we have chosen, and also that which has been chosen for us. We will have found a chosen place.

A person is more satisfied with one measure of his own [handiwork] than with nine of his fellow’s. (BT Baba Mezia 38a) [6]

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Endnotes

[1] This Dvar Torah is significantly indebted to another Dvar Torah by Rabbi David Dov Levanon, entitled ‘Jerusalem – Seek Her Out and Find Her’. He takes a similar, though not identical, set of sources in a completely different direction.

[2] Biblical translations are my own. The structure of the sentence makes it difficult to express clearly in English.

[3] The source critical stance enhances the weight of the question. If centralisation was in Deuteronomy’s mind, why not solve the problem once and for all?

[4] Chavel, modified

[5] There is no concordance for this kind of assertion. If I am wrong, please tell me.

[6] Rashi asks why Abraham, in his initial encounter with God (Gen 12.1), is not told of his destination. One of his answers is that this was in order to make it ‘beloved’ to him. The talmudic statement quoted above ‘A person is more satisfied with one measure of his own [handiwork] than with nine of his fellow’s’ (BT Baba Mezia 38a) can be used to explain what Rashi means. In his commentary on the Talmud he remarks on this point: ‘It is beloved to him because he has toiled for it’.

‘Crazy Kedushah’ - Part One

2006-10-05T03:14:00.000-07:00

The Kedushah prayer, in which human worshippers join the heavenly hosts in praise of God, is a pinnacle of Jewish liturgical experience [1] . But despite being a major component of Jewish liturgy, the Kedushah prayer is probably the least understood of all the prayers. This two part Dvar Torah will aim to explain the origin of the ideas behind the prayer, elucidate its principal components in context and sketch a history of its development. Part one, ‘Isaiah’s Temple Vision’, will try to contextualise and interpret the biblical texts that make up the Kedushah prayer. Part two, (upcoming), will build on the biblical texts and argue that the Kedushah prayer originated in the rituals of mystical ascension practiced by the Merkavah mystics in late antiquity. Ultimately, we hope to conclude at each stage with some ideas as to the significance of the prayer in our own day.

Part One: Isaiah’s Temple Vision

Our story begins around 734 BCE, [2] while the First Temple stood in Jerusalem, capital of the southern kingdom of Judah. Rezin, king of Syria, had succeeded in convincing the northern kingdom of Israel to join with him in attacking Judah, aiming to force Judah into joining his anti-Assyrian axis (2 Kings 15-16). He hoped to bring down the dominant Assyrian Empire and create an empire of his own. It was at this time of crisis that Isaiah was first [3] called upon to begin his prophetic ministry. The introductory passages of the Book of Isaiah [4] make clear that the military crisis had been brought on by a parallel crisis in Judean society at that time,

11 "What need have I of all your sacrifices?" Says the Lord. "I am sated with burnt offerings of rams, And suet of fatlings, And blood of bulls; And I have no delight In lambs and he-goats. 12 That you come to appear before Me -- Who asked that of you? Trample My courts 13 no more; Bringing oblations is futile, Incense is offensive to Me. New moon and sabbath, Proclaiming of solemnities, Assemblies with iniquity, I cannot abide. 14 Your new moons and fixed seasons Fill Me with loathing; They are become a burden to Me, I cannot endure them. 15 And when you lift up your hands, I will turn My eyes away from you; Though you pray at length, I will not listen. Your hands are stained with crime -- 16 Wash yourselves clean; Put your evil doings Away from My sight. Cease to do evil; 17 Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; Aid the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; Defend the cause of the widow. (Isaiah 1:10-17)

In this initial oracle, Hashem rails against the lack of social justice in Judean society. The people oppress the poor and needy whilst believing that their sins can be atoned for through mechanical sacrifices and prayers. Emphasis is placed on how these actions defile the Temple precincts, where Hashem’s presence is to be found. In these initial oracles, the possibility for repentance still exists, “Wash yourselves clean; Put your evil doings Away from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good…”. However, Isaiah’s vision (chapter 6) paints a much darker picture,

In the year that King Uzziah died, I beheld my Lord seated on a high and lofty throne; and the skirts of His robe filled the Temple. 2 Seraphs stood in attendance on Him. Each of them had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his legs, and with two he would fly. 3 And one would call to the other, "Holy, holy, holy! The LORD of Hosts! His presence fills all the earth!" 4 The doorposts would shake at the sound of the one who called, and the House kept filling with smoke. 5 I cried, "Woe is me; I am lost! For I am a man of unclean lips And I live among a people Of unclean lips; Yet my own eyes have beheld The King LORD of Hosts." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew over to me with a live coal, which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched it to my lips and declared, "Now that this has touched your lips, Your guilt shall depart And your sin be purged away." 8 Then I heard the voice of my Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me." 9 And He said, "Go, say to that people: 'Hear, indeed, but do not understand; See, indeed, but do not grasp.' 10 Dull that people's mind, Stop its ears, And seal its eyes -- Lest, seeing with its eyes And hearing with its ears, It also grasp with its mind, And repent and save itself." 11 I asked, "How long, my Lord?" And He replied: "Till towns lie waste without inhabitants And houses without people, And the ground lies waste and desolate – 12 For the LORD will banish the population -- And deserted sites are many In the midst of the land…” (Isaiah 6:1-12)

In this ominous vision, there is no longer any room for repentance to avert retribution, the divine decree is sealed (See ff. [8] and [10] below regarding vv. 13). It is the verse that becomes the centrepiece of the Kedushah prayer that is proclaimed by the Seraphim (angelic beings) in this dark scene. But where is this “Temple” in which Hashem sits on a “high and lofty throne” and the Seraphim attend on him? The Hebrew word used is ‘Hekhal’ which can mean both ‘sanctuary’ and ‘palace’; it often refers to the earthly Jerusalem Temple, but in this case that interpretation does not seem to fit the ethereal context of the passage. Psalm 18 appears to provide some assistance,

7 In my distress I called on the LORD, cried out to my God; in His temple He heard my voice; my cry to Him reached His ears…10 He bent the sky and came down, thick cloud beneath His feet. 11 He mounted a cherub and flew, gliding on the wings of the wind….17 He reached down from on high, He took me; He drew me out of the mighty waters; 18 He saved me from my fierce enemy, from foes too strong for me. (Psalm 18:7-17)

Hashem is here portrayed as dwelling in a heavenly “temple”, a ‘Hekhal’ in Hebrew. The idea that Hashem dwells in a heavenly temple is in fact a very common one in the Bible [5]. It is precisely this interpretive direction that is proposed here by the Radak [6],

The “Hekhal” refers to the earthly Temple, or [alternatively] explain “Hekhal” to refer to the heavenly ‘Hekhal’, as in the verse “the Lord in his holy Hekhal // the Lord whose throne is in the heavens” (Psalm 11:4).

Before attempting to establish the meaning of the enigmatic Seraphic liturgy which became the centrepiece of the Kedushah prayer we must first work to establish the content of the passage. Most modern scholars [7] label this a ‘throne room vision’, a genre in which the prophet sees a vision of Hashem enthroned, consulting with and being attended to by a retinue of angelic courtiers. A similar ‘throne room vision’ can be found in 1 Kings 22:17-22, where Hashem consults his angelic courtiers as to how to tempt Ahab into going to war and various courtiers offer opinions. In our passage, as in many other passages, consultation is suggested by the use of the first person plural, “Who will go for us”? Classing this scene as a ‘throne room vision’, however, ignores a crucial detail in our passage,

6 Then one of the seraphs flew over to me with a live coal, which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 He touched it to my lips and declared, "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt shall depart and your sin be purged away."

If this scene is taking place in a simple throne room, what need is there for an altar? Rather, it is clear that this passage conceives of Hashem dwelling in a combined throne-room and temple, in which angels perform the temple service before him, and in which the angelic choirs sing his praises. The implications of this are truly startling: this passage must therefore conceive of the earthly temple as an imitation of the divine realm, of the earthly priests engaged in service paralleling that of angelic priests, of levitical choirs singing Hashem’s praises in parallel to the “Holy, holy, holy!” of the seraphic chorus.

Yet, the focal point of the passage is the impending disaster about to befall Judah. There is a disconnect between heaven and earth, between the heavenly and earthly temples: Isaiah is not able to join in the angelic praise due to the sins of the people, "For I am a man of unclean lips And I live among a people Of unclean lips…”. Repentance cannot avert the impending crisis; all that remains is for the retribution to occur. (There is a significant problem with our passage regarding this retribution, see ff. [8]). Judah is doomed and the Jerusalem Temple is doomed.

Conclusions

The significance of the seraphic praise is that Hashem is too Holy to dwell in the defiled Jerusalem temple; rather than his presence resting in the Jerusalem temple it “fills all the earth”. The Judean people have failed to live up to the ethical demands that Hashem makes of them. The Temple below has failed to imitate the Temple above. The world that is has become disconnected from the world that aught to be. The seraphic cry of “Holy, Holy, Holy!” marks the beginning of the departure of the divine presence from the First Temple [11].

The significance of this interpretation for the Kedushah prayer is immense [12]: we are reminded that Hashem’s presence can only dwell amongst a people that are worthy of it. The people of Judah were not punished for forgetting to sacrifice or pray, they were punished for behaving to each other unethically and not taking care of the vulnerable in their society.

The fact that with this cry the Seraphim were lamenting the loss of the divine presence was never truly forgotten. Despite variations in versions of the Kedushah prayer, this sense of loss was preserved:

From Your place, reveal Yourself and reign over us, for we are awaiting You. When will You reign in Zion? Let it be soon and in our time! [13]

Chag Sameach!
I’m looking forward to your reactions, ideas, comments and criticism. Scroll down past the endnotes and click the link below to add a comment.

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Endnotes

[1] In the regular weekday morning service, the Kedushah prayer is recited three times: once as part of the blessings of the Shema, called the Kedushah of Yotzer/Yeshivah(?); once as part of the repetition of the Amidah, called the Kedushah of Amidah and once towards the conclusion of the service alongside its official Aramaic translation, called the Kedushah of Sidra.

[2] I have followed Blenkinsopp in the Anchor Bible’s ‘Isaiah 1-39’ (2000) for the dating here. Blenkinsopp indicates that he generally follows Albright. The reigning king of Judah, Uzziah (Chron.)/Azariah (Kings), had abdicated some years earlier due to contracting a skin disease (2 Kings 15:5) and his son Jotham and grandson Ahaz reigned in his place. The Book of Chronicles depicts Uzziah’s skin disease as a punishment for his attempting to perform the temple service, despite being a non-priest (2 Chron. 26:16-21). I suspect that there may be a link between Isaiah’s vision, especially in the actions of the coal-wielding seraph, and the tradition related in Chronicles. The vision is dated to the time of Uzziah’s death, some years following his abdication.

[3] Although this vision (ch. 6) is only recorded in the sixth chapter of the work, it has the earliest dateable superscription in the work. Blenkinsopp prefers not to see this as Isaiah’s first commissioning, he sees the arrangement of the material as primary. I have necessarily simplified these issues here for the expected audience.

[4] For a discussion of the source critical issues, see Blenkinsopp; “we might say that the eighth century prophet has been buried under an exegetical mountain” (pp. 90). I have necessarily simplified these issues here for the expected audience. Traditional Jewish justification for the modern critical position can be found in the commentary of the Ibn Ezra to Isaiah 40:1.

[5] Micah provides a similar picture,

2 Listen, all you peoples, Give heed, O earth, and all it holds; And let my Lord GOD be your accuser -- My Lord from His holy abode. 3 For lo! the LORD Is coming forth from His dwelling-place, He will come down and stride Upon the heights of the earth. 4 The mountains shall melt under Him And the valleys burst open -- Like wax before fire, Like water cascading down a slope. (Micah 1:2-3)

In the Hebrew, Hashem’s “holy abode” is in fact his holy ‘Hekhal’, and that ‘Hekhal’ is evidently in the heavens. See also Habakkuk 2:20 and Psalms 3, 11:4, 15, 20:2-7, 29, 150:1-2.

[6] Rabbi David Kimchi (1160-1235) lived all his life in Narbonne, France; he was renowned as a grammarian and commentator. For a general introduction to the classical commentators, see Louis Jacobs, ‘Jewish Biblical Exegesis’ (1973).

[7] For example, Blenkinsopp and the Isaiah volume in the Word Biblical Commentary series.

[8]

11 I asked, "How long, my Lord?" And He replied: "Till towns lie waste without inhabitants And houses without people, And the ground lies waste and desolate – 12 For the LORD will banish the population -- And deserted sites are many In the midst of the land. 13 "But while a tenth part yet remains in it, it shall repent. It shall be ravaged like the terebinth and the oak, of which stumps are left even when they are felled: its stump shall be a holy seed." (Isaiah 6:1-13)

The response to Isaiah’s question, presumably ‘How long [until the retribution occurs], my Lord?’ is problematic. We should expect a date or description of the agency by which the retribution would occur, but none is given. Instead, Hashem gives a ‘self-fulfilling’ answer: “It will have happened when a massive destruction has happened”. This answer, however, conceals a gargantuan problem that lies at the heart of our passage: the complete or almost complete destruction of Judah did not actually occur for approximately another 140 to 150 years, until the conquest and exile of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar in 597-587 BCE [9]!
The solution that would best preserve the veracity of the prophecy and its integrity (retains vv. 13) would be to identify the foretold destruction with that of the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who ravaged Judah and laid siege to Jerusalem in 701 BCE, but did not actually manage to conquer the city; some 33 years later. This would account for the ‘righteous remnant’, “its stump shall be a holy seed” [10], depicted here. Furthermore, some passages in Isaiah interpreted the Davidic promises as unconditional assurances of Jerusalem’s safety during Sennacherib’s invasion (see Isaiah 36–7; Ollenburger 1987; Brueggemann 1988: 74). This too would support the antiquity of vv.13. However, the correlation of this prophecy with the invasion of Sennacherib is problematic as no major exile occurred during Sennacherib’s campaign. Whatever its true significance, it is likely that this prophecy was reinterpreted by each community that received it and took on new significance as historical events unfolded.

[9] So Rachel Elior in ‘The Three Temples’, Littman (2004), pp. 1.

[10] Note that this phrase is only attested elsewhere in Ezra 9:2; I used the phrase ‘righteous remnant’ deliberately. Many scholars see this passage as reflecting later interests. It also seems to clash with the central message of the passage, that no repentance is possible. VHMY. Hence, in each mention of the possibility of repentance above, I have been careful to state that there is no room for repentance to avert the crisis, despite vv. 13, and omitted vv. 13 in my quotation from the passage. I was forced to simplify my treatment of these issues in the interests of brevity. See also ff. [8] on the problems of vv. 13.

[11] I am deeply indebted to Rabbi Menachem Leibtag (http://www.tanach.org) for first proposing this direction of interpretation to me and for his pervasive emphasis on ‘righteousness and justice’ as a recurring theme in the Bible.

[12] I am not suggesting that this precise interpretation was foremost in the minds of those who began to use this seraphic liturgy, in fact, as we continue our study we shall see that it took on new significance altogether. However, the fact that this verse was lamenting the loss of the divine presence was never truly forgotten. The significance of this interpretation should be weighed in pragmatic terms: the difference it can make to our lives and the lives of our communities.

[13] From the Sabbath Morning Service Kedushah prayer according to the rites of Ashkenaz and Sephard. Note that this is in fact a response to “Blessed is the Lord from His place”; a full treatment of Ezekiel 3:12, which brevity did not permit, would have yielded precisely the same interpretation as did Isaiah 6:3. This verse marks the departure of Hashem after charging Ezekiel with the task of telling the first wave of exiles in Babylon about the impending destruction of Jerusalem,

"And you, O mortal, take a brick and put it in front of you, and incise on it a city, Jerusalem. 2 Set up a siege against it, and build towers against it, and cast a mound against it; pitch camps against it, and bring up battering rams roundabout it. 3 This shall be an omen for the House of Israel. Thus said the Lord GOD: I set this Jerusalem in the midst of nations, with countries round about her. 6 But she rebelled against My rules and My laws, acting more wickedly than the nations and the countries round about her; she rejected My rules and disobeyed My laws. 11 Assuredly, as I live -- said the Lord GOD -- because you defiled My Sanctuary with all your detestable things and all your abominations, I in turn will shear you away and show no pity. I in turn will show no compassion: (Ezekiel 4:1-3,6,11)

There are those that emend the text and instead read “as the Presence of the Lord rose from where it stood” (“BeRum Kevod Hashem MiMkomo”). They claim that this makes more sense contextually as an angelic liturgy is not expected at this point. It also fits better with the movements of the divine presence depicted in Ezekiel 10:18-24. Whether this emendation is correct or not, the context of the passage and Ezekiel’s own emotions as the divine presence departs are the same,

14 A spirit seized me and carried me away. I went in bitterness, in the fury of my spirit, while the hand of the LORD was strong upon me. 15 And I came to the exile community that dwelt in Tel Abib by the Chebar Canal, and I remained where they dwelt. And for seven days I sat there stunned among them. (Ezekiel 3:14-15)

As it stands, the meaning of Ezekiel 3:12, “Blessed is the Lord from His place”, is enigmatic anyway. Perhaps the ‘place’ of Hashem could be identified with the heavenly temple, in contradistinction to the earthly one. This is possibly the interpretation being posited by the passage from the Sabbath morning service Kedushah prayer quoted above, “From Your place, reveal Yourself”: “Your place”, being the heavenly temple.

Rosh Hashanah – Enthroning Hashem

2006-09-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

You shall intone ‘Kingship’, ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Shofar Blasts’ before me on Rosh Hashanah. ‘Kingship’ – So that you should enthrone me as king over yourselves. ‘Remembrance’ – So that you are brought to my mind [only] for good [reasons]. And with what [should you enthrone him]? With the shofar. (Baraita BT RH 34b = 16a)

Just as the shofar is sounded at countless coronation services in the Prophets (2 Samuel 15:10; 1 Kings 1:34, 39, 41; 2 Kings 9:13), so too do we use the shofar at Hashem’s ‘coronation’ on Rosh Hashanah (1). This symbolism is made absolutely explicit by the recital, seven times, of Psalm 47 at the start of the shofar blowing service at Musaf:

God has ascended [to his throne] with a blast; Hashem, with the sound of the shofar…For God has become king (2) over the nations; Hashem is seated upon his
holy throne. (6, 9)

There is a pivotal difference between the exercise of ‘accepting the yoke of heaven’ (M Berakhot 2:2) and ‘enthroning’ Hashem as king. Note how the nature of this ‘enthronement’ is elucidated by the Sifre (3):

Why did the Sages see fit that ‘Kingship’ should be said first, and that ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Shofar Blasts’ should only be said afterwards? Rather that you should enthrone him over yourselves first and after that ask mercy of him, in order that you should be remembered [for good] before him. And with what [should you enthrone him]? With the shofar, [because] the shofar signifies freedom, as it says (Isaiah 27:13) “On that day he shall sound the great shofar [and the lost ones will come from the land of Assyria and the rejected ones from the land of Egypt and they shall prostrate themselves to Hashem on his holy mountain in Jerusalem”].

The foundational and essential act of Rosh Hashanah according to these sources is not the ‘acceptance of the yoke of heaven’, which the Mishnah (Berakhot 2:2) conceives of as taking place daily with the recitation of the first paragraph of the Shema. The ‘acceptance of the yoke of heaven’ is an act performed by the individual (at least partly) under duress. The ox has no choice but to accept the yoke (plough harness) placed upon it by its master. So too, despite doing so ‘with love’, the individual Jew has no choice but to submit lovingly to the demands of the supreme existence (kivyakhol).

Distinct from this is the foundational and essential yearly act of Rosh Hashanah: the communal act of enthroning Hashem as king of the community (4). This is not an act performed under duress, it is an act performed out of herut, the freedom to do something (as opposed to hofesh (5), the freedom from something). The significance of the shofar, as the Sifre notes above, is that it is a symbol in scripture of the free acceptance of Hashem’s sovereignty. The proof text the Sifre brings for this reads as follows, “On that day he shall sound the great shofar [and the lost ones will come from the land of Assyria and the rejected ones from the land of Egypt and they shall prostrate themselves to Hashem on his holy mountain in Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13). The dispersed of Israel are not ‘gathered up from the four corners of the earth’ as other texts state, rather the shofar serves as an invitation to the dispersed of Israel to enthrone Hashem willingly and the dispersed ‘come’, apparently of their own accord, to Hashem’s holy mountain. There ‘they will prostrate themselves’, they do so as a collective and voluntary act.

That the community of Israel is able to freely choose to enthrone Hashem as king over themselves, an opportunity the individual does not have, testifies to the power of the community within Jewish thought. The sheer power and audacity of this theological claim is nowhere more evident than in the last verse appended to the Aleinu prayer, the central pillar of the ‘Kingship’ section of the Musaf service. The verse is from Deuteronomy 33:5, part of the blessing with which Moses blesses Israel before his death, and reads as follows, “And there was a king [i.e. Hashem] in Jeshurun [i.e. Israel], when the heads of the people gathered, when the tribes of Israel were together”. It almost seems (kivyakhol) as if Hashem’s being king was dependant on the actions of Israel. It is precisely this audacious theological claim that the Sifre on Deuteronomy (Piska 346) makes at length:

“And there was a king in Jeshurun” (33:5): When all of Israel is united in their counsel below, His great name is praised above, as it is said, “And there was a king in Jeshurun”…Similarly Scripture says: “This is my God, and I will glorify Him” (Exodus 15:2) – When I acknowledge Him, He is glorious, but when I do not acknowledge Him, He is [not] glorious, if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol) – “When I proclaim the name of Hashem; ascribe ye greatness unto our God” (32:3) – when I proclaim His Name, He is great, but when I do not, [He is not great,] if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol) – “Therefore ye are My witnesses saith Hashem, and I am God” (Isaiah 43:12), when you are My witnesses, I am God, but when you are not my witnesses, I am not God, if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol) – “Unto thee I lift up min eyes, O Thou that art enthroned in the heavens” (Ps. 123:1) – were it not for me, Thou wouldst not be enthroned in the heavens, if one may say such a thing (kivyakhol). So too in this case [“And there was a king in Jeshurun…]when the tribes of Israel were together” – [He is King] when they form one [unified] group; [He is] not [King] when they form several groups. (6)

It is at Rosh Hashanah that the community (re)enthrones Hashem as king, as the central orientating aspect of our lives; we realign our priorities and remember that despite “our beginning in dust and our end in dust”, it is only we ourselves, as a community, that have the power to set our priorities and right our ways.

The individual human being on Rosh Hashanah may be hopeless and frail, “a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a fleeting breeze, flying dust and a fleeting dream”. Yet the community on Rosh Hashanah can sound the shofar and proclaim:

God has ascended [to his throne] with a blast; Hashem, with the sound of the shofar…For God has become king (2) over the nations; Hashem is seated upon his holy throne. (Psalm 47:6, 9)

Chatimah Tovah!
Comments and criticism welcome as always. Scroll down past the endnotes and click the link to add a comment.

Endnotes

(1) This too is the symbolism of the sounding of the shofar in Psalm 132, which recounts the events of 2 Samuel 6, when David brought the ark of Hashem up to Jerusalem.

(2) Four of the so-called ‘kingship psalms’ (93:1, 96:10, 97:1, 99:1) contain the characteristic phrase “Malakh Hashem”. Here, a similar phrase, “Malakh Elokim”, is used. Mowinckel argued that in each of these instances the phrase should be rendered “the Lord has become king” rather than “the Lord is king”. Proof for his position, which is one of a number of possible readings, can be adduced from 2 Kings 9:13 “Jehu has become king”, and similarly 2 Samuel 15:10. It is doubtless that contextually the instance in Psalm 47 that was just cited is the most secure of these readings. For the inner-cultic liturgical uses of these psalms and a good treatment of the hypothesised ‘Enthronement Festival’, see “Psalms”, John Day, 1990, Sheffield Academic Press. This writer has significant doubts about the hypothesis. What appears absolutely certain, however, is that ‘chaoskampf’, the primeval victory over the raging watery chaos, is an absolutely central part of the enthronement. Hence, every single ‘chaoskampf’ passage of significance is cited in the ‘Kingship’ section of the Musaf service. It should also be noted that each of these passages mentioning the Leviathan (and Rahab) have significant parallels in the Ugaritic (i.e. Canaanite) narrative of Baal’s victory of Yam, and also in the Mesopotamian ‘Enuma Elish’. Compare Psalm 74

12 O God, my king from of old, who brings deliverance throughout the land; 13 it was You who drove back the sea with Your might, who smashed the heads of the monsters in the waters; 14 it was You who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left him as food for the denizens of the desert.

And also Isaiah 27,

1 In that day the LORD will punish, With His great, cruel, mighty sword Leviathan the Elusive Serpent -- Leviathan the Twisting Serpent; He will slay the Dragon of the sea.

With the Ugaritic,

Though you smote Lotan the wriggling serpent, finished off the twisting serpent, encircler-with-seven-heads, the skies will be hot, they will shine when I tear you in pieces (KTU 1.5.i.1-3).

VHMY – I therefore conclude that Hazal (‘our Sages of blessed memory’) were completely aware of the links between chaoskampf and enthronement, even if they understood the theological significance of chaoskampf a little differently, and therefore, in their wisdom, included these passages in the ‘Kingship’ part of the Rosh Hashanah Musaf service

(3) I do not yet have the precise reference for this; apologies.

(4) VHMY – It should also be clear that Psalm 47 is an invitation for the rest of the nations of the world to likewise enthrone Hashem as their God too, inviting them to “acknowledge God” i.e. with a shofar (Malbim).

(5) This distinction between hofesh (freedom from school) and herut (freedom to worship Hashem) is made by the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, Sir Professor Jonathan Sacks, in his ‘Passover Haggadah’.

(6) I have mainly followed Rabbi Reuven Hammer’s translation (Yale Judaica Series) here. I have omitted the middle section for brevity, because the Midrash is complex and because the text, as you may have already noticed, is corrupt in places. I would highly recommend serious iyyun here, this Midrash is extremely deep. Be sure, as always, to look up each of the scriptural references carefully as each has a nuanced context. Be sure to see Michael Fishbane’s excellent treatment of this Midrash (and this entire genre) in his ‘Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking’, Oxford University Press, 2003.
In a similar vein, the Sifre (Piska 313) says of Abraham, whose endeavours, especially the Binding of Isaac, we recall throughout Rosh Hashanah:

Before our father Abraham came into the world – it was as if (kivyakhol) the Holy One, blessed be He, was only king over the heavens; as it is said, “Hashem, the God of the Heavens who took me” (Gen. 24:7). But after Abraham came into the world, he made Him King over the heavens and the earth; as it is said, “I will make you swear by Hashem the God of the heavens and the God of earth” (v. 3).