If Rosh Hashanah is known for anything it’s apples & honey, the shofar, and that Hashem is King. Why would the coronation of His kingship be more impactful than being God of all Creation? If it’s a contest between the Being that split the Reed Sea and the man that levied harsh taxes against the colonies, it’s no contest. So what does it mean in any practical sense that Hashem seems to be giving himself a demotion over our holiest days? Perhaps the answer is found in one of the changes to our daily prayers during these Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. 

Throughout the year, the third blessing of every Amidah reads…

You are Holy, Your Name is Holy, and the holy ones praise you every day forever. Blessed are you Hashem, The Holy God. 

It’s a simple two sentence prayer that seems pretty obvious. Hashem is holy. Okay maybe we need to be reminded that His Name also contains His holiness. Then I guess the holy ones, whoever they are spend their time praising him. Then, Bless the Holy God. Seems kind of redundant. Who is more holy than God? But okay.

But when you go to that third blessing on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur the prayer becomes far longer. The most important change is at the end when the blessing concludes: Blessed are you the Holy King (Hamelech Hakadosh) instead of the Holy God (Hakeil Hakadosh). But long before you get there, after those initial two sentences, suddenly there are now six additional paragraphs! No longer is it just talking about the holy ones who praise, but everything Hashem has created. The Jews and the non-Jews. The righteous and the wicked. It mentions fear and trembling, hope and joy, and a rather vivid picture in stark contrast to the vague prayer of the rest of the year. 

So why the switch? Did the rabbis just want to keep everyone in synagogue longer? Maybe when it comes to the sermon. But not for this prayer. In order to understand why the additions are present and why the switch from “holy” to “king” is so important, we have to think a little bit about the nature of holiness itself. 

The word Kadosh, which we translate as holy, has a very specific nuance to the concept. At the root, Kadeish means separated, something set aside. A special set of China, a special suit, growing up in my house we had a formal living room that I never got to go in except on Thanksgiving. Anything that is designated as separate can be kadeish. In fact, a woman of a certain profession is called a kedeisha, because she is separated from the community. So at its root, kadeish doesn’t necessarily mean favored or good. But when something becomes Kadosh it is separated for Hashem. The English word Holy sounds like whole, and the Hebrew word for whole is connected to Shalom. So really what kedusha is about is separating something for the sake of becoming the best version of itself. Holy acts repair the world (aka tikkun olam.) The holiest acts are done without ulterior motive. We would call this l’shaim shamayim (for the name of heaven).

So with this understanding of holiness, let’s look at some of these new paragraphs. 

And so instill your awe Hashem our God upon all of your works… Let all of them become a united group to do Your will whole heartedly… Your name inspires awe over all that You have created. 

The paragraph depicts a future time when the world has become perfected and thus reached a high level of holiness. Judaism is not like other religions. If the other faiths don’t believe in our version of God we don’t think they’re going to hell or that we need to eliminate them. We don’t think at the end of time God is going to pour out his wrath on the non-believers. Quite the contrary. Our Rosh Hashanah prayer service is clearly saying that Hashem loves all of His creations and is looking forward to the day when all the world returns to Him. That’s because Judaism believes that we’re all inherently good. We may become confused as to what is good, or how to pursue that good. But if we all had clarity about what is right the world would naturally come together. Recognizing that God is the source of good and the path to living that good is what it means to make Hashem King. The day of Rosh Hashanah itself is not a day just for the Jews to reach their holiness, we’re praying for the whole world! 

And so grand honor Hashem to your people… good hope to those who seek you…

How many times have you heard phrases like, “No good deed goes unpunished,”“Nice guys finish last,” or “A students work for the B students, who work for the C students. And C students own the companies.” Doing the right thing should lead to revealed good in the world. But it doesn’t seem to at all. So there is a cynicism about doing good. When the world reaches its completion, that cynicism will evaporate and everyone who strived to do the right thing will become the celebrities. Not the basketball players, not the top podcasters. And the Jewish people who have been maligned throughout history will be venerated. Finally we can argue about Israel’s right to exist and the facts will be listened to. People will care about what is right instead of about being right. For all those times you have had to bite your tongue because the truth would offend, now the truth will matter far more than, “their truth.” 

And so the righteous will see and be glad, the upright will rejoice, and the devout will sing glad songs and exult. Iniquity will close its mouth and all wickedness will vanish like smoke when You remove the domination of evil from the earth. 

In this paragraph we find the next level, the very holy and righteous Jews, and so clearly they will be happy. And the evil ones? They’re in for some trouble. Except didn’t we say above that Hashem loves all His creations? Maybe Hashem just hates the worst of the worst? Doesn’t seem right. On top of that, why should the saints have to share the same page with the worst sinners, let alone the same paragraph? Doesn’t seem fair. But maybe these terms of wickedness don’t refer to people at all. Even the best of us still struggle with inner battles. The bigger the tzaddik (righteous) the bigger the yetzer hara (evil inclination). As the Kotzker Rebbe says, “The reward for passing a test is a bigger test.” In this world, the challenges never stop, no matter how great you become. But when the world achieves completion, the inner voice of the yetzer hara will disappear. Imagine being free of your distractions, of your temptation to phone it in, of “not feeling.”

This is the reality when Hashem is recognized as king. He’d stop being an abstract concept and something that tangibly impacts your life. How much of your time is spent thinking about the President or Prime Minister of your country? Maybe you’re not political, but whole television stations, late night talk shows, podcasts, books, election ads, and uncomfortable Thanksgiving tables are obsessed with the “king.” Much of that is because we’ve become cynical about our top political leaders. But that’s because those leaders have become corrupt, not using the office or crown to benefit the people, but themselves. That’s why the blessing ends with Hamelech HaKadosh, the Holy King. When Hashem is king, it is not a perversion of the concept, but the actualization of the greatest potential of what kingship could possibly be: Creating a state of existence that benefits the land and its people in the most amazing way. 

Rosh Hashanah is a day to abandon cynicism and realign with the reality we know both we are capable of and the world is capable of. Doing so elevates the world in holiness and prepares it to receive Hashem’s presence. The yetzer hara within us may want to reject a king that would usurp the government system we set up, especially after seeing our trusted leaders who promised change, all too often became the thing they railed against. But when we realign with the deepest part of ourselves, our truest purpose, and the goals we really want, on Rosh Hashanah we understand that Hashem wants those things for us even more than we do. And He’s actually trying to get us there, if we can just get out of our own way. When we crown Hashem as king, we put ourselves on the path to our best selves, trusting that what He wants is the best thing for us.