A 180 Degree Turn: Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur

The more I prepare for Rosh Hashanah this year, the more I have come to see Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur rather differently.

We normally think of them as closely connected, which of course they are. They stand at either end of the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance. Rosh Hashanah begins the process and Yom Kippur completes it.

But perhaps the journey between them involves something close to a 180-degree turn.

In one particular sense, Yom Kippur is the easier of the two to understand. I obviously do not mean physically. A day of fasting and prayer is hardly easy, and genuine repentance certainly is not. But we instinctively understand what Yom Kippur wants from us. We have done things wrong. We regret them. We apologise. We ask forgiveness. We try, however imperfectly, to do better.

The Rambam could hardly be clearer. He describes Yom Kippur as the culmination of the opportunity for repentance and forgiveness, and requires each of us to confess. The process is intensely personal. What did I do? Where did I go wrong? What must I repair? What must I change?

We understand that language. I was wrong. I failed. I regret it. Please forgive me. Help me do better. We understand guilt, remorse, forgiveness and the hope of another chance. Sometimes on Yom Kippur, even crying is almost easy. The words help us, the melodies help us, and our failures are painfully recognisable.

Yom Kippur puts responsibility firmly in our hands.

Rosh Hashanah begins somewhere very different.

The Gemara tells us that on Rosh Hashanah we recite Malchuyot, Zichronot and Shofarot: Kingship, Remembrance and Shofar. The explanation of the first is striking in its simplicity. G-d says that we should recite the verses of Kingship “so that you will crown Me as King over you.”

That may be the central challenge of Rosh Hashanah. We are not being asked merely to believe that G-d exists. We are not simply asking Him for a happy, healthy and successful year. We are being asked to crown Him.

Once you notice that, the prayers look different. Again and again, we ask G-d to reign over the entire world. Again and again, the perspective moves beyond my plans, my problems, my hopes and even my coming year.

The fundamental question is astonishingly simple. Who rules?

And the answer is equally simple. G-d does.

That is a particularly difficult answer in the age in which we live. We are brought up to value autonomy. We make choices, build careers, plan our futures and increasingly expect to determine the shape of our own lives. If we do not know something, we search for it. If something goes wrong, we find someone who can fix it.

Much of that is excellent, and Judaism certainly does not ask us to become passive. The Rambam’s famous interpretation of the shofar makes precisely the opposite point. Its call is to wake up, examine our deeds, repent and remember our Creator. Rosh Hashanah demands action as well as faith.

But there is a profound difference between responsibility and sovereignty. Responsibility says that there are things I must do. Sovereignty says that ultimately I determine what happens. The first is essential. The second was never ours.

Someone recently asked me whether being British makes the idea of a king easier for me to understand. My answer was no. If anything, the British monarchy makes the distinction clearer. The British King is a constitutional monarch and a powerful national symbol, but he does not determine what happens to me tomorrow morning.

That is not the King Rosh Hashanah is talking about. G-d is not a figurehead. When we call G-d King, we mean the real King. And that becomes much harder when life does not go according to plan.

It is relatively easy to acknowledge G-d when a child is born, someone recovers, a problem resolves itself or a long-held hope is fulfilled. It becomes considerably harder in illness, bereavement, disappointment, unanswered prayer and the parts of life that simply make no sense to us.

Living with PSP has made that question somewhat less theoretical for me, but it is hardly an illness question. Sooner or later, almost everyone discovers the same thing: there are things we cannot control, cannot explain and would immediately change if we could.

Rosh Hashanah tells us not to confuse our inability to control those things with failure. Some things were never ours to control. That is the first great lesson of the Ten Days.

An important qualification is needed. G-d is not merely a powerful King. Jewish belief insists that He is a good King. That does not mean pretending that everything that happens feels good. Faith is not emotional dishonesty. Abraham challenges G-d over Sodom. Moshe argues and pleads. Iyov demands answers. One can wrestle with the King while still recognising that He is King.

Accepting G-d’s sovereignty does not require understanding everything He does. It requires recognising that our inability to understand does not put the crown on our own heads.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks gives this another dimension. He describes the first paragraph of the Shema as kabbalat ol malchut shamayim, accepting G-d’s Kingship, and calls it an “oath of allegiance to G-d.” That is a very helpful way of thinking about Rosh Hashanah, because a King needs a people. The Lubavitcher Rebbe develops exactly that language of coronation. Officers, soldiers and ordinary citizens may all have entirely different responsibilities, he writes, but at the coronation they share one defining act: they accept the King’s authority. That acceptance creates the bond between King and people.

So perhaps on Rosh Hashanah we are not simply placing a crown on G-d’s head. We are choosing to stand beneath it. That is not giving up responsibility. It is submitting our responsibility to a higher authority.

There is a precedent for that rhythm throughout Jewish life. Shabbat does not teach us that work is bad or that human creativity is unimportant. For six days we are commanded to work and shape the world. Then we stop. We deliberately place a boundary around our own creative power and acknowledge that the world is not ultimately ours. Rosh Hashanah makes a similar move at the level of sovereignty. We continue to act, decide, plan and build, but we put all of it beneath the crown.

And then the days begin moving towards Yom Kippur, and the direction turns.

Once I have accepted that I am not sovereign, Judaism does not allow me to use G-d’s sovereignty as an excuse. I cannot say: G-d controls everything, therefore nothing is my responsibility. Yom Kippur demolishes that escape route. By Yom Kippur the questions are intensely personal. What did I do? Whom did I hurt? What should I have said? Where must I change?

The Rambam is particularly uncompromising when it comes to wrongdoing between people. Yom Kippur does not simply wipe away the damage while I sit in synagogue and pray. I have to approach the person I have harmed. I have to seek forgiveness. I have to make amends where I can.

Suddenly the responsibility that Rosh Hashanah appeared to take out of my hands comes rushing back. But now it is the right responsibility. Rosh Hashanah tells me not to take responsibility for being G-d. Yom Kippur tells me to take full responsibility for being me.

That is the 180-degree turn.

On Rosh Hashanah, I have to surrender the fantasy that everything depends on me. On Yom Kippur, I have to surrender the excuse that nothing depends on me.

The two days correct opposite mistakes. The first mistake is over-responsibility: believing that I control outcomes, that everything can be solved if only I work hard enough or plan intelligently enough. Rosh Hashanah says no. There is a King, and it is not you. The opposite mistake is under-responsibility: blaming circumstances, other people, fate, history or even G-d for choices that actually belonged to me. Yom Kippur says no to that too. You are not sovereign. But you are responsible.

Perhaps that is why the order matters so much. First comes the crown. Then comes the confession. First I establish what belongs to G-d. Then I am forced to confront what belongs to me. Without Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur can become little more than a self-improvement exercise: identify weaknesses, set some targets and try harder next year.

But Jewish teshuvah means return. And return requires Someone to return to.

The Ten Days do not ask us to choose between humility and responsibility. They teach us the order in which to hold them.