Imu Shalev: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about an upcoming holiday, diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

Hi, I’m Imu Shalev. Let me ask you a question. If I took a poll right now asking “What is Rosh Hashanah all about?” – what would the most popular answer be? It’s the Day of Judgment, right? Yom Hadin. God is going to judge the whole world on this day and decide its fate for the coming year. And what are we supposed to do? We’re supposed to search our hearts, confront our misdeeds from the past, and do teshuvah, repentance. And with all that focus on our misdeeds and repenting, it can end up feeling like one big guilt-fest.

But what if I were to tell you that Yom Hadin, that Judgment Day, isn’t in the Torah. Those words? They never appear.

That’s it! Cancel shul! We’re going to Disneyland!

Well, not so fast. Our tradition definitely does tell us that Rosh Hashanah is a day of judgment. But what if the reason the Torah doesn’t call it that is because judgment... isn’t the true essence of the day? And until we understand what Rosh Hashanah really is about at its core, we’re not really ready to observe it, to do it right.

So in this episode, with some help from Rabbi Fohrman, we’ll explore the question of what Rosh Hashanah really is primarily about. And we’re going to get some really important clues from the prayers that we say on this day. When we’re done, we’ll see how we might be able to stand before God and stand before ourselves, not feeling the gloom of guilt, but truly celebrating and even looking forward to this holiday. 

One editorial note before we dive in is that Rabbi Fohrman and I will be co-presenting this material. So instead of just hearing me at the beginning and end of the podcast, you’re going to have the pleasure of hearing me take turns with Rabbi Fohrman, sharing some of these ideas together. Okay, without further ado, let’s get started. 

Into the Mishnah

Normally on Into the Verse, the first place we’d go when investigating something is…into the verses of the Torah. But, as we mentioned, Judgment Day isn’t in the Torah. So where is it? It’s actually in the Mishnah, the Oral Law recorded by our sages.

Let's take a look at what the rabbis of the Mishnah themselves say about this day and see if we can pick up any clues. Here’s how the Mishnah describes the judgment that takes place on this day (Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2). On Rosh Hashanah:

כָּל בָּאֵי הָעוֹלָם עוֹבְרִין לְפָנָיו כִּבְנֵי מָרוֹן – All the inhabitants of earth pass before God like a flock of sheep,

שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר – as it says (in Psalm 31),

הַיּוֹצֵר יַחַד לִבָּם הַמֵּבִין אֶל כָּל מַעֲשֵׂיהֶם – God, the one who forms all of their hearts, who understands all of their actions.

The sages say God looks at us super closely, at our hearts, at our deeds, like a shepherd counting his sheep. So it's exactly what we might expect. The sages are describing God, kind of like the eye of Sauron, lidless, always watching, seeing all the sins and misdeeds, judging us for them.

But that's not all the sages say about Judgment Day. In fact, in the Talmud that explains the Mishnah, they give us a really different notion of this day. It discusses what are the appropriate prayers to say on Judgment Day, and instead of telling us to be guilty and pray for mercy, because "The great lidless eye is watching, the shepherd's gaze escapes no one! Beg, beg for forgiveness!”…the sages in the Talmud say something else. They suggest three sections of prayer. Here, I'll let Rabbi Fohrman show you.

Rabbi David Fohrman: The Talmud says that the prayers on that day should have three basic themes. The first one they call Malchiyot, verses that describe God's kingship. אִמְרוּ לְפָנַי... מַלְכִיּוֹת כְּדֵי שֶׁתַּמְלִיכוּנִי עֲלֵיכֶם – The sages of the Gemara say (Rosh Hashanah 16a): “Say before Me verses of kingship so that you will crown God as King over you.” That's one section.

The next section is called Zichronot, verses that describe fond remembrances that God has of the people of Israel. In the words of the Gemara: Zichronot – Say verses of memory, כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּעֲלֶה זִכְרוֹנְיכֶם לְפָנַי לְטוֹבָה – so that your memory should come up to Me in a good way.

And finally a third section, Shofarot, verses that reference shofar. In the words of the Gemara, וּבַמֶּה – how will you be remembered? You will be remembered through shofar.

All told, it's a kind of mysterious threefold formulation of the day. These three categories of verses end up being the center of gravity around which our prayers on Rosh Hashanah revolve. But why? What exactly would Malchiyot, Zichronot, and Shofarot have to do with this larger idea of Yom HaDin – a day of judgment?

Kingship, Memories, Shofar

Imu: Thanks, Rabbi Fohrman. So the prayers aren't quite what we'd expect them to be when we consider Judgment Day. The sages, in their formulations of this day of judgment – they seem to see something deeper about this day than simply weighing your deeds and confessing your crimes. Something that has to do with Malchiyot, Zichronot, and Shofarot – kingship, memories, and the shofar.

On the one hand, this is kind of nice: There's no guilt, no forgiveness. But on the other hand, it's kind of confusing. What kind of Judgment Day is it without guilt? And where are they getting this idea from, if it’s not in the Torah?

Well, let’s take a look at what the Torah itself says and see if it can give us more clarity on the essence of the day, and maybe help us see what the sages saw that made them understand Rosh Hashanah as Judgment Day, and as a day of kingship, memories, and shofar. Rabbi Fohrman analyzes the Torah’s description of Rosh Hashanah. 

Rabbi Fohrman: The Torah characterizes Rosh Hashanah with just a couple of cryptic words. It calls it “a day of zichron teruah” – a day of remembering the cry of the shofar (Leviticus 23:24).

What exactly does this mean? It just seems to be hopelessly ambiguous – “a day of zichron teruah,” a day of remembering the cry of the shofar. But whatever it means, it certainly doesn't seem to be saying it's a day of judgment. I mean, if you wanted to say it was a day of judgment, you’d just come out and say: “On the first day of Tishrei, that's a Yom Hadin, a day of judgment. God has these scales and weighs the lives of everybody.” 

Nothing like that. Yom zichron teruah, “a day of remembrance of the cry of the shofar” – almost as if there was some event that we were supposed to remember involving a shofar, but like, an event that was so obvious that obviously, just “Remember that day, you know, the cry of the shofar?” 

What are we even talking about? What is so obvious to the Torah here that you and I aren't getting?

The amazing thing is that the sages actually tell us what event it was, right exactly where you would expect them to tell us. Listen now to the words that we all say as part of our Rosh Hashanah prayers right, before we actually declare the verses of Shofarot:

אַתָּה נִגְלֵֽיתָ בַּעֲנַן כְּבוֹדֶֽךָ – You, God, revealed Yourself in a cloud of glory

עַל עַם קָדְשֶׁךָ – to Your holy nation

לְדַבֵּר עִמָּם – to speak with them;

מִן הַשָּׁמַֽיִם הִשְׁמַעְתָּם קוֹלֶֽךָ – from the heavens You made Your voice heard,

וְנִגְלֵֽיתָ עֲלֵיהֶם בְּעַרְפְלֵי טֹֽהַר – and You revealed Yourself to them in thick clouds of purity. 

When it happened,

גַּם כָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ חָל מִפָּנֶֽיךָ – the whole world trembled before You,

 בְּהִגָּלוֹתְךָ מַלְכֵּֽנוּ עַל־הַר סִינַי – when You, our King, revealed Yourself on Mount Sinai.

Yes, that's the event the Torah was talking about, zichron teruah. That's what we're supposed to be remembering here on Rosh Hashanah. It's the memory of the cry of the shofar, the cry of the shofar that the entire nation, that we all heard, way back at Sinai. If you read the text of Revelation at Sinai, you'll find there was a shofar blast there (see Exodus 19:19). That cry seems to be what the remembrance of this day is about.

The Shofar at Sinai

The shofar at Sinai – it was God's way of saying: This is Me.  Later on, אָנֹכִי יְקוָה אֱלֹקיךָ – I am the Lord your God (Exodus 20:2) – those would be the first words of the Ten Commandments, “This is Me.” But even before the voice coalesced into words, even before that – when there was just raw, untrammeled voice, the voice of the shofar – the voice was also saying, “This is Me.”

And now every year we have yom zichron teruah – a day of remembering the voice. When we hear the shofar, it takes us back, it stirs something in our collective human souls. We know that voice. It was the moment we made contact. It's the moment that changed everything for us. After that moment, we could never be the same.

Imu: That memory of the shofar, of the first encounter with God… somehow that is the essence of Rosh Hashanah. I’d argue that if we aren’t relating to that – if we don’t remember that core encounter – we’re missing the essence of the day.

Yom Hadin, Malchiyot, Zichronot, Shofarot – they are all expressions of the primal encounter with God, of the day we first met Him and heard His voice. That’s a very different Rosh Hashanah than the one many of us are used to, but I believe it’s the one the sages intended.

I want to suggest that the sages knew that the essence of this day is zichron teruah, a day where we remember that close encounter with God. But the sages see expressions of that essence as a day of judgment, as a day that is worthy of declaring God’s kingship, a day of memories and shofar.

Let me show you what I mean. Put yourself in the shoes of the nation at the moments leading up to Sinai. Imagine hearing God’s voice as a shofar, getting louder and louder. You’re trembling, hearing and feeling, even seeing – the Torah describes total sensory overload, so they were seeing voice and not only hearing it.

You encounter God. What would that event have meant to you? How would you have processed it rationally and emotionally? Wouldn’t it have made God’s power, God’s mastery over all, so much more real? And I don’t mean that it proved God exists. I think the generation that went through miracles in Egypt and the Splitting of the Sea – they knew God existed. But there’s no hiding from that knowledge when you encounter God directly. At that moment, as we stood in front of God, we knew: God is our King, God is our Master, God is our leader.

This is how Malchiyot, at least, is just one expression of the Sinai event. Here, take a look at what Rabbi Fohrman says about this.

Malchiyot: Recognizing God as Leader

Rabbi Fohrman: The Sinai event, the Revelation event – what was that really about? One way of thinking about it is: That day was the day that we recognized God as King.

It was, in a word, coronation day. The Torah itself seems to call it that. God proposes to Israel this grand bargain at Sinai. וְאַתֶּם תִּהְיוּ-לִי מַמְלֶכֶת כֹּהֲנִים – you're going to be a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6). No such thing as a kingdom without a king. 

To accept God as King is really to accept Him as Leader. It is to express a willingness to follow Him, to let Him lead you. And that, of course, was a facet of the Sinai experience. We heard God's voice, we understood who He was, we understood who we were. He's the Creator; we're the creature. In recognizing that, we understood that by rights He should be the ultimate lawgiver. We accepted the Torah. These laws were the directives of the Master of the Universe, and our acceptance of those directives indicated our willingness to allow Him to lead us.

Every year when we remember that day, when we remember that voice, on Rosh Hashanah we crown God anew.

Imu: So that’s why the sages declare that this day of remembering Sinai – it’s a day to declare God’s kingship. We’re just re-enacting what that moment meant to us. So now we’ve explored Malchiyot. What about Zichronot, Shofarot, and Judgment Day? How are they expressions of the essence of Rosh Hashanah – of that Divine encounter with God? 

We suggested that Malchiyot, declaring God’s kingship, is just an expression of the idea that we are remembering Sinai. When we hear God’s voice, we know He is our King. Could it be that Zichronot, Shofarot, and Yom Hadin are also a reaction to hearing God’s voice?

Let’s start with Zichronot – memory – and see how Rabbi Fohrman explains this.

Zichronot: The Role of Memory

Rabbi Fohrman: What role does memory play in Rosh Hashanah? Does that, too, take us back to the Sinai experience somehow?

Go back to Sinai, really consider that experience. As wonderful as accepting the Torah is, as wonderful as accepting God's kingship is, that event can also provoke a crisis. You see, you and me – the average, everyday Joe or Jane, who doesn't experience Revelation – we live what we might call normal lives. I was born in San Francisco in 1965 and then I moved to New York when I was a teenager, and I can tell you the whole story of my life, what I'm trying to achieve, what I'm trying to do. I have my story.

But imagine what happens if Joe or Jane experiences Revelation at Sinai. The Being who originated the universe is right here, and you are standing around the mountain. It changes everything. Who am I anymore? I am so small in the face of the Master's immensity, I am so overwhelmed, that I am in danger of losing my entire sense of self. My little story… it matters anymore that I moved to New York when I was thirteen and a half?

Okay, so that is the crisis. But if Malchiyot provokes that crisis, it also contains the seeds of an answer to it, and those seeds are known as Zichronot, the notion of God's memories.

Let me explain by taking you into an exploration of the idea of memory. What does memory do? What exactly is its function? So you might say, “Well, that's obvious. Memory helps you remember, right?” But memory does far more than that. It's actually the way we understand ourselves, we understand who we are. Identity itself is wrapped up in the idea of memory, and the reason is that memory is really about storytelling. When you remember things, you're actually connecting the dots between your various experiences, weaving them together to form a story. And our identity emerges from that story.

So if you think about it, that means that some points in my life are going to be more important to the story than others. Let's say I'm a big fancy investment banker, and as I'm rushing out the door to work one morning, my seven-year-old daughter spills orange juice on the floor, and I clean it up before I go to work. So that might have happened, but in the way that I talk to myself about my life, it's a rather disconnected dot. It doesn't really contribute to the grand story of my life, at least the way I see it.

But now, here's another way to start thinking about the crisis of Malchiyot that we talked about before. If there really is a King in this universe, maybe there's a grander story than the one I'm telling myself? Maybe the Creator has a story too? 

You think your life is about your story, and from your perspective, when your daughter spilled orange juice, that wasn't a big deal. It was a disconnected dot. But maybe the Creator in His story, maybe He doesn't think so? Maybe, when you stopped and you patiently cleaned up that mess and smiled to your daughter – maybe that was a really meaningful dot? Maybe everything needs to be seen as how it connects to that dot? Maybe your life, in the Master's view, is not just about what a good hedge-fund manager you are, but how you balance your career and family?

There's a story being told in this universe, and it's so much larger than just you. There's a grand weave of history, and at one level that's scary, but on another level it's deeply comforting. And if you could be part of that weave in a meaningful way – if you and your whole life can be a dot that connects in some visceral, significant, redemptive way in the world – how can there be more meaning in life than that?

You know, we speak about Rosh Hashanah as the beginning of the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe. What is awe? We feel awe sometimes when we're in the presence of something like the Grand Canyon, or when you sit on a grassy knoll looking up at the stars at night. But ask yourself: Why do you feel awe? Is it just because you feel like you’re small and this is big? I don't think so. So you’d say, “Okay, fine, so I'm small, that's big.”

The reason why you feel awe when you have those experiences is because you begin to get a sense that there might just be a larger story here. And if there is, I have to figure out how I fit. I want to be a part of that larger story. Sure, if you want you don't have to, you can continue telling your own story… but at what price?

Part of a Larger Story

For those of you who read Harry Potter, remember that moment when Harry is at Platform 9¾ and he's trying to figure out where that train to Hogwarts is, so he's asking around and he asks somebody, a guy by the name of Joe, and Joe doesn't know. He says, “I've no idea, I've never seen Platform 9¾ before.”

Imagine you're Joe. You have your life, you're doing your own thing, but imagine that one day you figure out you're part of J. K. Rowling's novel. There's a creator here, and there's a grand epic story, it's Harry Potter – and you just got bumped into and asked which way the train is.

Now, in that moment of revelation, when you realize there's a story here – the Sinai moment, as it were – what do you want most deeply? It's like you feel like petitioning the author and saying, “Could I have a significant role in this story? I don't want to just be the guy who got bumped into to ask where the train is! How can I help? How can you take my life, my personality, my gifts, my track record, what I've done – weave me into that story?”

So yes, on the one hand, the Sinai moment – the encounter with Kingship – implies din, it implies judgment. You're going to look at my life, You're going to see who I am, You're going to see my track record. What have I done? How can I contribute? But that's a glorious thing, that judgment. It's not judgment in order to be punitive and see what terrible things you deserve to be subjected to, to be paid back for all your sins. No, this judgment is a marvelous opportunity. It's my opportunity to be a part of the grand unfolding story. Take me in.

Imu: It’s incredible to think of judgment as a way of being considered, as an opportunity to be part of something bigger than ourselves. This idea completely changes what it means to pray on Rosh Hashanah. Instead of saying, “Please, God, spare us, forgive us for all our sins,” it’s saying: “Please let us play a role in Your story. Let us be important memories in the grand narrative of the universe.” In Zichronot, we recall all these times throughout history we’ve been so privileged to play that part, and we ask God to let that continue through us. And if we picture the Day of Judgment as an opportunity for us to be part of that story … that’s a thought that gives us great hope. Hope that we can leave the guilt of Rosh Hashanah behind, but also that we can approach Yom Hadin with a certain kind of reverence and even joy.

Rosh Hashanah and God’s Story

Over and over, we’ve asked where the sages got the idea of Yom Hadin from and how it relates to Sinai. And now I think the answer is finally clear: Rosh Hashanah is all about closeness with God. Zichron teruah, the memory of Sinai, is really about waking up to the fact that God is our Master, our King. And so we spend time on Rosh Hashanah recognizing God’s mastery. But the memory of that encounter also fills us with awe and creates a crisis: God is the memory-keeper for all humanity; He is the great storyteller in the sky. How do I fit into that story?

That is Yom Hadin. It’s like, after a year of work at your company – filing documents, landing clients, pursuing marketing campaigns, whatever it is you do at your business – you take a day out each year to look at the corporate mission statement. How does what I do align? 

Let’s see, it says here we’re pushing growth, profit. Did I make money this year? Great, check. Let me keep reading. “Pursue growth while maintaining a healthy work-life balance.” Hmm, how’d I do there? Well, I missed all of my kid’s soccer games; I haven’t been connected to my wife lately. I need to change something!

Yom Hadin isn’t the court case of God vs. Rivky Stern, “Haul in the scales of sins vs. merits!” It’s, “Who am I? What does God want of me? What is God’s story, and what’s my story? Do they align?” Is there guilt involved? Yeah, sure. But it’s not a mitzvah to fill up with self-loathing, and the more you hate yourself, the better Rosh Hashanah you have. If you do that, you’re missing the point.

It’s about the encounter with God; it’s about closeness; it’s about a relationship. Life is complicated. We have families, we have work, we pursue leisure. Sometimes we forget that God wants us to live that life with Him, not around Him. How are our businesses a part of God’s story? How are our families a part of God’s story? The simple things that we enjoy – how can we enjoy them together with God, as part of our relationship with Him? That’s Yom Hadin. That’s a day of zichron teruah.

Take a look at that mishnah again, the one that is the source for Yom Hadin: “On Rosh Hashanah, all the inhabitants of the earth pass before God like a flock of sheep.” Do you see the difference now? God’s judgment isn’t the great lidless eye of Sauron waiting for you to fail. It’s the loving shepherd, who, honestly, has a lot of sheep, but is taking the time to tend to each one of us individually and making us feel special. Making our stories matter.

And remember, the Rabbis gave us a verse to support this conception of din. It was a verse from Psalms: שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר הַיּוֹצֵר יַחַד לִבָּם הַמֵּבִין אֶל כָּל מַעֲשֵׂיהֶם – God, the one who forms all of their hearts, who understands all of their actions.

When a person judges you, they don’t know your full story. They don’t know your desires, your passions, your struggles in life, what led you to the moment of “failure.” They judge you on an objective scale. That, frankly, isn’t fair.

But the Creator? He formed our hearts, He understands the true nature of all of our deeds. He judges us subjectively, and that’s a good thing. That is the judgment of Avinu Malkeinu, the merciful and loving Father and the all-knowing leader.

The sages tell us how to pray on Rosh Hashanah, through Malchiyot, Zichronot, and Shofarot. Let’s revisit those prayers one more time:

Malchiyot – Say before Me verses of kingship, so that you will crown God as King over you.

Zichronot – Say verses of memory. Remind Me of your national story. Remind Me of your merits, כְּדֵי שֶׁיַּעֲלֶה זִכְרוֹנְיכֶם לְפָנַי לְטוֹבָה – so that your memory should come up to Me in a good way, so that God will incorporate us into His story.

Shofarot: Joining Our Voices with God’s Voice

The Talmud continues: וּבַמֶּה? How will we get God to remember us? Through the shofar. The shofar has a double meaning for us on this day. On the one hand, we use it to remember God’s voice. But the sages have us pick up the shofar not just to remember God, but to have Him remember us. 

God chose to communicate with us wordlessly at first, so we could just hear His voice and know Him. We do the same. We blow our shofar back to God. It's our wordless prayer, a desire to fuse our kol with His kol – to join our voices with His voice. To join our story with His story. 

Rosh Hashanah is a day of celebration because it celebrates our relationship with God. It celebrates that He cares about us enough to hear our voice and to make it His voice. To hear our desires, our hopes, our prayers, and to weave them into His story. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s remarkable, it’s awe-inspiring.

Reflecting on Our Own Stories

On to the reflections portion of this episode. I know that I say at the end of every single piece, “This is one of my favorite pieces!” But sue me. This is one of my favorite pieces. And for me this is very classic Rabbi Fohrman, or classic Aleph Beta. One of the major takeaways that I have at Aleph Beta, and particularly in this piece, is that a lot of our rituals, our prayers, they’re sort of like bones: They provide structure and stability, but the spirit is something we need to bring to our rituals. That’s one of the things that I think great Torah study does. Learning Torah helps you bring spirituality – helps you bring the emotion, the heart, the values – to the dry bones. 

So I’ll tell you what I do, practically, as a way of connecting the dry ritual experience of Rosh Hashanah, going to shul and saying the prayers, with the values and the beauty that emerges from a course like this. And I’d recommend this exercise, if it works for you. If not, come up with something that does. But here’s what works for me.

What I like to do before Rosh Hashanah is reflect on some of the ideas we’ve been speaking about, and actually write some of those reflections down. Why write them down? Because it can be hard to stay focused on these thoughts, or even find time for them… and it’s almost a way to force myself to think about these ideas. And also, writing stuff down gives me something I can come back to later. 

So one question I like to reflect on through my writing is: What is your story? Can you tell your own story to yourself?

When I reflect on my story, I might try to encapsulate the story of this past year, get it all down in a short paragraph. And I consider my role – actually, my roles – in that story. This past year, who have I been as a parent? A spouse? A son to my own parents? What about my role in the workplace? And my role in the community, or with my friends?

Another part of my story is: What events stood out this year? What are the achievements or the failures that have stayed with me? It’s a really good way to reflect on the significance.

And when I’m done writing the short version of my story this year, I turn to God’s story for the world. And this part’s hard… but I try to write a paragraph about this too. How does my story align with my perception of God’s story? What am I proud of? What am I ashamed of?

Just sitting with those two paragraphs is a very powerful experience. They’re opportunities to forgive yourself, opportunities to try and do better. But even more subtle than that, you can’t help but begin to see yourself moving toward that larger, grand view. Because all of us, I think, want to be part of the larger story of things, of God’s larger story.

Anyway, I’d consider bringing what you wrote to shul on Rosh Hashanah and reflecting on it often throughout the prayer service. And when we sound the shofar, focus on how you might match your voice with God’s voice. What will you pray for this year?

Thank you so much for joining Rabbi Fohrman and me on this journey to explore the essence of Rosh Hashanah. From all of us at Aleph Beta: Have a shanah tovah. May we all be inscribed in God’s book – in God’s story – for a good new year.

Credits

This episode was written and recorded by our lead scholar, Rabbi David Fohrman, and by me, Imu Shalev. 

When this episode originally aired on Aleph Beta, it was edited by Rivky Stern. 

Into the Verse editing was done by Sarah Penso.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our editorial director is me, Imu Shalev. 

Thank you so much for listening.

Into the Verse is a project of Aleph Beta, a Torah media company dedicated to spreading the joy and love of meaningful Torah learning worldwide. For our full library of over 1,000 videos and podcasts, please visit www.alephbeta.org.