Bein kodesh l’chol
Amir Daddon is a very successful Israeli
musician and singer in his 40s; he’s been a part of various bands; in recent
years he has released three solo albums. He identifies as secular.
Shuli Rand is a popular,
57-year old Israeli singer who grew up Religious Zionist, left observant
Judaism, then became a Breslover chasid. You may know him as author of, and an actor
in, the movie Ushpizin.
Last week, Daddon
and Rand released a song together; it’s called Bein Kodesh l’Chol,
“Between sacred and secular.”[1] The video shows the two of them standing in an
alley in what may be the Old City. They take turns singing, and as they sing
they pace and turn, but constantly face each other. Their actions, facial
expressions, and most of their words mirror each other’s, and they are only
about a meter apart for most of the song. They nod at each other’s words, sighing,
conveying a deep, empathetic comprehension. Both are clearly distraught, exhausted,
frustrated, their expressions intense, their arms flung out and gesturing. To
me, it’s the rare case of a video that makes a song better.
Daddon, looking
strung-out in a black t-shirt, with defeated eyes and a deep 5 o’clock shadow,
sings first about his feelings of unrest in his secular life, and his
frustration with the sense that he doesn’t belong in that life:
Between sacred and secular I live,
with the truth that wreaks havoc inside of me, with a thousand habits, with
every scar on my face, I go forth to scatter these words.
Between reality and insanity, it
all comes back to me. There, in the place from which I come there is no peace,
and this burden is heavy, and a little too big for me.
I need to grow out of this and be
done with it, to grow out of this and be done with it.
And Rand, the
chasid, in white shirt, black pants and a long beard and the same expression of
pain and defeat, sings almost identically in response, questioning his comfort
in his religious life:
Between sacred and secular I live,
between the truth that wreaks havoc inside of me, with a thousand habits, with
all of the fear on my shoulders, I go forth to scatter these words.
Between reality and insanity, it
all comes back to me. There, in the place from which I come there is no peace,
and this burden is heavy, and a little too big for me.
I need to grow out of this and be
done with it, to grow out of this and be done with it.
My impressions
from the song
The two musicians
express a struggle between kodesh and chol, between sacred
religion and secular attractions, between the scars of the secular and the fear
of the religious, between what they each consider the poles of reality and
insanity, as perceived from their opposite points of view. The two use nearly
identical words to describe their own unsettled feelings where they are, their
attraction to where the other is, and their wish they could “grow out of” this
attraction and be done with it. The struggle of living bein kodesh l’chol
exhausts them. It’s a dramatically, gorgeously honest song.
I’m not sure how
many of us regularly feel the religious exhaustion that Daddon and Rand
express. Many of us are at a stage where we have our peer groups, our work and
our histories; we made the big religion and lifestyle decisions years ago. But
some of us do, even within a mainstream, observant community like ours. We have
people who are still making those decisions, and whose family members are still
making those decisions:
·
Whether to go clubbing or
to shul on Friday night;
·
Whether to invest in
sending their children to Jewish day school and high school;
·
Whether to go kosher, or to
stay kosher;
·
What sort of romantic
lifestyle to pursue;
·
Whether to seek meaning in
religion at all.
And even for those
who aren’t wrestling with major religious decisions, we face personal decisions
which test our ethical strength – exhausting decisions of relationships, of
work, of chinuch. We search for clarity between right and wrong, but even if we
find it, we strain to develop the strength to follow through. My point is not the specifics of religious struggle; my
focus is the exhaustion of having that struggle. Like Daddon and Rand, we shake
our heads, we fling out our arms, we cry and we turn this way and that, in
search not so much for an answer as for a way out of searching.
How can a Jew
navigate this exhaustion? Burned out and frustrated, wanting just to stop
thinking about these choices, how does a religiously drained Jew move forward from
chol? And while the song doesn’t take sides and doesn’t favour religion,
I do; I want to choose kodesh. How does the religiously drained Jew move
forward from chol, and find firm footing in the world of kodesh?
An answer may lie in Rosh HaShanah, and its emphasis on
recognizing Hashem as Melech. A deep understanding of Melech can energize
all of us, whether facing the Daddon/Rand exhaustion or our own.
What is a Melech?
The act of recognizing Hashem as Melech sometimes reminds me
of the scene in the movie, My Fellow Americans, in which a former American
president talks about how every time they played Hail to the Chief for
him, he would sing to himself, “Hail to the Chief, he’s the Chief and he needs
hailing.”[2] But Hashem doesn’t need
hailing, and that’s not what we are doing when we recite malchiyot. Far from it
– on Rosh HaShanah, when we say the malchiyot berachah coronating Gd, we are
actually empowering the human being.
The Zohar coined a phrase, לית ליה מגרמיה כלום. It means: “He possesses
nothing of his own.”
·
It also applies to Shabbat,
a day when nothing is created; we prepare for it beforehand, and then, as the
Zohar says, it communicates the reward for those preparations in the form of
berachah to the ensuing six days.[5]
·
And in the Zohar and many
other works of Jewish mysticism, לית ליה מגרמיה כלום also describes a
king. Far from being “the owner of all”, the monarch is an owner of nothing.
The Zohar’s point is logical. The monarch receives whatever
the nation provides via taxes, and whatever a predecessor bequeathed from a
previous generation’s taxes, and the monarch’s job is to distribute that wealth
for the benefit of the nation. The monarch is a
conduit.
Kohelet[6]
said it: “The benefit of a land, anywhere, is in a king who is enslaved to the
field.” He isn’t out there plowing, but his role is to be a conduit, making
sure that the benefits of the economy reach the nation.[7]
And the Rambam said it, in his Laws of Kings:[8] “Just as the Torah assigned great honour to
the king, and all are obligated to honour him, so the Torah instructed him to
keep his heart humble… He must be generous and merciful for small and great, he
must exit and enter at their desire and for their good, and he must care for
the honour of the smallest of the small.” The king’s role is to look after the
nation.
In sum: In Judaism, a king is an enabler, a facilitator.
Hashem as Melech
The same is true for Hashem, whom we declare King on Rosh
HaShanah. Of course, the phrase לית ליה מגרמיה כלום, that a king owns
nothing, can’t apply directly to Gd; Hashem created everything, and possesses
everything. But in terms of what Hashem’s monarchy means for us, in that
sense, yes, לית ליה מגרמיה כלום, He has nothing. Because Hashem’s goal in
this world is to enable us to achieve, to grow, to choose קודש
over חול.
Rabbi Shimshon Pincus,[9] who served
as Rosh Yeshiva in Yerucham and the Rabbi of Ofakim, spelled out this concept
beautifully. He explained that a king, elevated above the narrow concerns of
normal life, is positioned to act on his best impulses to benefit the entire population.
And then he wrote, “This is the meaning of Malchut for Hashem. When we
yearn and daven for Hashem’s monarchy to be revealed before the world” – like
in ובכן
תן פחדך – “we are davening for Hashem, in all His exalted glory, to
become involved in a practical way in our world,” acting as a facilitator for us,
enabling us להביא לגילוי יחודו של הקב"ה בעולם בכל הדרו, to live a life which
demonstrates the Unity of Gd, in all its glory, for all the world to see.
In other words – on Rosh HaShanah, the day of Creation of
humanity, we mark the ultimate, ongoing empowerment of humanity.[10] We
call Hashem our מלך, but we aren’t only talking about Hashem as King and Owner; we
are talking about Hashem as Empowerer, whose monarchy has the ultimate goal of
facilitating our spiritual work.[11]
This is the ultimate realization of
the romantic reciprocality envisioned by the Torah and elaborated upon by our
sages – את ד' האמרת היום להיות לך
לאלקים וללכת בדרכיו, “You have embraced Hashem on this day, to
be Your Gd, to walk in His ways,” promoting His agenda, וד' האמירך היום להיות לו לעם סגולה,
“Hashem has embraced you on this day, to be a special nation for Him.”[12]
What a gripping, resonating vision – the Jew not as an
anonymous, struggling citizen of the Divine empire, but the focus of that
empire, and the Divine Emperor personally focussed, entirely, on our spiritual
success! What a vision! What a responsibility!
Back to Daddon and Rand: Empowerment
In their bein kodesh l’chol existence, caught between
the sacred and the secular, Amir Daddon and Shuli Rand have two problems.
·
First, they are spiritually
torn; one lives in the reverence of the sacred and is drawn toward aspects of the
secular, the other bears the scars of the secular world and is drawn toward aspects
of the sacred. It’s hard to live in both worlds; Hashem is mavdil bein
kodesh l’chol, Hashem has divided the two dimensions, and their souls are
straddling that division.
·
But second, they are exhausted,
burned out, from the intensity of this struggle. They feel too weak to pursue
this intense struggle to its end and to make the hard choices that come with
it.
No one can answer the first problem for us; in a world of
Free Will, no one will force a person from the camp of chol to the camp
of kodesh. But for the second problem, the sense of helplessness, Rosh
HaShanah asserts that help is on the way! Hashem is Melech!
·
Like the melech that is the
Moon, reflecting the light of the Sun.
·
Like the melech that is Shabbat,
channeling berachah to the week ahead.
·
Like the melech that is a
human king, distributing the wealth of a nation to benefit the land, and caring
for “the honour of the smallest of the small.”
Hashem is here to enable and empower us!
·
If Shuli Rand feels burnt
out, the Melech will give him the strength to keep going!
·
If Amir Daddon feels exhausted,
the Melech will grant him the energy to keep seeking!
·
And if you or I feel like
our personal struggles bein kodesh l’chol – whether Kashrut and Shabbat
or Minyan and Tzedakah – are too hard and not worth the strain and struggle,
Rosh HaShanah’s Melech declares, “This is the top of My agenda, this is why I
created the universe, all those Rosh HaShanah’s ago!” You are not small; you
are the reason I am Melech.
שמור נא עלי
In a moment, we will blow shofar. As the shofar blasts ring
in our ears, we should have in mind that we are fulfilling a mitzvah – and we
should also have in mind the closing words of the song: “שמור נא עלי, רק שלא יכשלו
רגלי. Please, watch over me; just don’t let my feet stumble.”
The ambiguity of the song and video allows us to think that
the singers could be addressing each other or Gd, but on Rosh HaShanah, during
shofar, we voice this plea directly to Hashem, our Melech.
·
שמור נא עלי!
Tekiah, a straight sound, erupting from the shofar with pride and strength – Hashem,
You are our Melech!
·
שמור נא עלי!
Shevarim, a groan, three tired breaths pushed through the shofar – Hashem,
please invest energy in me!
·
שמור נא עלי!
Teruah, a staccato series of gasps frenetically jolted from the shofar
anxiously - Hashem, let me see and feel how You are here for me, enabling me!
This year, may we merit to see and feel Hashem’s שמירה,
Hashem’s help for all of us, how our Melech is working and manipulating our
world to enable us to find our spiritual path. שלא יכשלו רגלי,
may our legs never falter, but instead may we march into the future with a כתיבה וחתימה
טובה.
[3] See
Zohar Vayeshev pg. 181a
[4] For
more examples, see Zohar Chayei Sarah pg. 124b-125a, Zohar Vayishlach pg.
168b, Zohar Vayechi pg. 238a
[5] Zohar
Yitro pg. 88a. And it is called a melech or מלכה, as per Shabbat 119a, which will fit our
point here.
[6]
Kohelet 5:8
[7] The Jews demanded a King, and the prophet
Shemuel criticized them. According to the classic commentator Rabbeinu Nisim
(Derashot haRan 11), the Jews wanted someone who would hold all of the power
within himself. But the Divine vision is for a king who is just a conduit
to communicate and implement the Divine message to the nation.
[8]
Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 2:6
[10]
Humanity as a whole, as צלם אלקים. The Jewish nation, the collective Knesset Yisrael which
is a member of the ברית. And the individual.
[11]
Worth noting - אבינו מלכנו is not an oxymoron – the parent is the ultimate Melech,
empowering the child.
[12]
Berachot 6a, building on Devarim 26:17-18
