Shabbat Hachodesh: Nation of Royalty – Part 2

 

Shabbat Hachodesh: Nation of Royalty

It is significant that our first national mitzvah was to take control of our time starting with the new year of kings.

Daniel Pinner

“Der Jude kehrt nach Ost den Blick,

Und seiner Seele Sorgen

Er denkt an seines Reichs Geschick

Und an der Freiheit Morgen.

So wie ein Herrscher, der verbannt

In des Exiles Schmerzen

Sich noch von dem verlornen Land

Als König fühlt im Herzen.

Anlegt er, wenn ihn Andacht fühlt

Die Farben seines Landes;

Da steht er beim Gebet verhüllt,

Weiß schimmernden Gewandes.

Den Rand des weißen Mantels breit,

Durchziehen blaue Streifen,

Sowie des Hohenpriesters Kleid,

Die blauen Fädenschleifen.

Die Farben sind’s des theuren Lands

Weißblau sind Juda’s Grenzen;

Weiß ist der priesterliche Glanz,

Und blau des Himmel’s Glänzen!”

(“The Jew turns his gaze

And the worries of his soul to the East;

He thinks of his kingdom’s fate

And of the morning of freedom.

Like a ruler who has been banished,

Who, in the pains of exile

Still feels himself in his heart

To be King of his lost country.

When sublime feelings fill his heart

He is robed in the colours of his Land;

He stands in prayer, enwrapped

In a shimmering robe of white.

The hems of the white robe

Are crowned with broad stripes of blue,

Like the robe of the High Priest

Adorned with bands of blue threads.

These are colours of the beloved Land:

Blue and white are the borders of Judah;

White is the radiance of the Priesthood,

And blue, the splendours of the Heaven!”)

A Yiddish song of yearning also expressed this idea beautifully and powerfully:

“A Yiddishe Malchus, Rabbosay –

Kennen ihr farshtein?

A Malchus von leuter Hellkeit,

A Malchus von Melachim alein”

(“A Jewish kingdom, gentlemen –

Can you understand that?

A kingdom of absolute brilliance,

A kingdom of Kings alone”).

In 1932, the great Jewish visionary and leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky penned the Beitar anthem:

הָדָר –

עִבְרִי גַּם בְּעֹנִי בֶּן-שַׂר,

אִם עֶבֶד, אִם הֶלֶךְ,

נוֹצַרְתָּ בֶּן-מֶלֶךְ

בְּכֶתֶר דָּוִד נֶעֱטָר.

בָּאוֹר וּבַסֵּתֶר

זְכֹר אֶת הַכֶּתֶר

עֲטֶרֶת גָּאוֹן וְתַגָּר.

(Hadar [Glory] –

A Hebrew even in poverty is the son of a prince;

If a slave or a wanderer

You were created the son of a king,

Crowned with the diadem of David!

Whether openly or in secret

Remember the crown –

The diadem of magnificence and struggle.)

And the Jew is enjoined to begin every day with this majestic bearing:

The Mishnah (Berachot 1:2) cites Rabbi Yehoshua’s ruling that we must recite the Shema of the Morning Service “by the third hour, because it is the way of sons of kings to rise at the third hour”. This, indeed, is the halakhah in practice (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Reading the Shema 1:11 and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 58:1; also Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 17:1).

The Tosafot Yom Tov, quoting Shabbat 111a and 128a, explains this with the simple yet inspiring words that “all Israel are sons of kings”. As a son of a king, it behoves the Jew to begin his day as royalty do.

This has tremendous, awe-inspiring ideological implications:

Whenever the Talmud mentions Rabbi Yehoshua without further definition (there were more than fifty rabbis called Yehoshua), it refers to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiyah of Peki’in. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiyah was the student of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai – the man who tried with all his power to prevent the destruction of the Second Temple and to preserve Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. And after the Destruction, he did all he could to preserve and to strengthen and to encourage the shattered and conquered Jewish nation in the Land of Israel.

And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiyah was the teacher and rabbi of Rabbi Akiva – the man who led the Jewish revolt against the Roman occupation and restored Jewish independence and sovereignty and kingship to Israel for almost three years. Rabbi Yehoshua was intimately acquainted with Jewish kingship, with Jewish royalty; he epitomised the concept of “a kingdom of Kohanim and a holy nation”.

Rabbi Yehoshua, who had such a powerful connection with kingship, transformed the very concept of royalty into daily practical halachah.

At the very dawn of Jewish independence, even while still in Egypt, G-d infused the principle of majesty into the Jewish psyche. Our national New Year is the first of Nisan – the New Year for Kings.

And at the dawn of every day, the Jew is reminded of this: the time for reciting the Shema is the time when sons of kings rise.

This is the magnificent message of Shabbat Hachodesh – the Shabbat which ushers in the month of Nisan, the month of redemption. As the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 11a) and the Midrash (Mechilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yochay 12:42 and Tanchuma, Bo 9) tell us, “in Nisan they were redeemed, and in Nisan they are destined to be redeemed in the future”.