The Holy King

An Opening When a candidate wins a presidential election, the streets fill with joy. Bands play, crowds cheer, and there are moving speeches. But the next morning the drums go quiet and the flags are folded away. The great winner sits down at a desk and starts making decisions. That is exactly where the truth comes out: was this only a campaign, or is it a real government? My young friend, think about this. The Campaign We all know this feeling. It might come in the closing prayer of the Day of Atonement, or at a Hasidic gathering that touched your heart. It might come in a moment on the Jewish New Year when you suddenly heard the sound of the ram’s horn, truly heard it. Your soul rose up. You felt that you were different, that everything was different. You felt that now, right now, everything would change. And then comes Tuesday morning. The kids, the traffic jam, an email waiting for you, and one more coffee. And the inspiration? It isn’t there the way it was. And that hurts. But maybe, just maybe, this pain comes from a mistake in how we understand things. We are looking at the wrong address. What “The Holy King” Means During the Ten Days of Returning, from the New Year to the Day of Atonement, we change one line in the silent standing prayer. All year the blessing ends “the holy Almighty.” In these days we say “the Holy King” instead. That is two words: King, and Holy. “King” is the moment of crowning. It means accepting Heaven’s kingship upon ourselves. On the New Year we crown Hashem as King all over again. We do it with the sound of the ram’s horn, with long prayers, and with the words “Reign over the whole world in Your glory.” This is the campaign. This is the announcement. It is a thrill, and it is real, and it is needed. But “Holy” is something else entirely. Holy means set apart. Separate. Above. So what does “the Holy King” mean? Does it mean that the King who is set apart comes down? Does it mean that the higher world enters our everyday life of doing? Yes. Exactly that. What is a king’s job? It is not to sit in a palace. A king rules, gives to his people and provides for them. The king goes out to the people. The crowning is not the goal. The crowning is the opening. All the royal ceremony of the New Year is not the grand finale of our work of returning to Hashem. It is the beginning of the real work. From Inspiration to Action The Tanya is the classic book of Hasidic thought, written by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. In chapters 36 and 37 he explains that every descent and every ascent, and all our work of sifting and refining the world, has one purpose: to make a home for Hashem in this lower world. The goal is not to stay up in the high worlds of inspiration and feeling. The goal is to bring the light down, to draw it into physical matter itself. King Solomon wrote: “In all your ways, know Him.” This is not an instruction to think about Hashem while you are studying Torah. It is an instruction to know Him in every one of your ways: in business, with your children, at lunch, on Tuesday morning. So, my young friend, “Tuesday” is not a fall from the mountaintop. It is how the mountaintop becomes real. The campaign woke you up, and that is no small thing. That is the fuel. But the government is the real work: the decisions, the leading, the actual carrying out. The Torah says: “Judges and officers you shall appoint for yourself.” You need more than a judge who makes the decision. You also need an officer who puts that decision into force over your inner powers and over your body, so that it is simply carried out.