Our prayer to G-d during the Ten Days of Repentance is analyzed here in tribute to the victims of the Manchester terror attack
For the past ten days, in our Shmoneh Esreh prayers during the Ten Days of Repentance, from Rosh Hashanah till Yom Kippur, we added the prayer of Zochreinu :
זכרנו לחיים מלך חפץ בחיים למענך :
אלקים חיים מלך חפץֶ בחיים
‘Remember us for life, O king who desires life, for your sake, living king’.
If we contemplate the literal meaning of these words, we cannot but wonder at our audacity in addressing them to Hashem - more so, on the days that He is sitting in judgment on each of us - and deciding our fate in the coming year. In this supplication, we are saying: judge us favorably - ‘to Life’ - ‘for YOUR sake, O King who desires life’.
Imagine that this was a case where you were before the judge for a traffic infringement, and, by way of defence, you said to the judge : ‘Acquit me, judge, for your sake’.
Yet, this is the substance is what we are saying to the Supreme Judge - who is judging us, not for a minor transgression - but for our entire fate.
Could there be a more chutzpadik plea, than this?
What basis could we forward for saying: a favorable judgement is ‘for Your sake’ , Judge?
Might we ‘rely’ on the comment in several places of Rashi - as, for example, on Vayikra 1:9 - that our performance of the mitzvah of ‘the animal on the altar, as a burnt offering, a fire offering, is a pleasing fragrance to Hashem’ - ‘pleasing’, comments Rashi, ‘for I commanded, and My will was fulfilled’.
Could we extrapolate, from this Rashi, that ‘our performance of mitzvot, is למענך: for Your sake, Hashem’ - as we say in our prayer, because it gives You nachat ruach?
Is it not more correct to say - as we in fact say in the last parsha preceding the Shema of Arvit : ‘Your commandments are.. our life and the length of our days’ , rather than that we perform them ‘for Your sake’?
Further, is this not implicit in the blessing which we confer on one who has performed a mitzvah: תזכה למצוות : may you merit to be granted the opportunity to perform more mitzvot- by Hashem?
This, in fact, is the assertion in Iyov (41:3), on the rhetorical question - by Hashem :’Who has preceded Me, in giving - and I will reward him. The midrash - on this passuk - adds: ’Who is the one who has preceded Me, to circumcise his son, and to whom I had not given a son..cried out the ruach hakodesh; who extolled praises to Me, before I gave him his soul.?’- and, so with each of the other mitzvot enumerated there.
This truth is beautifully encapsulated by the Kuzari:’Every mitzvah that comes before a person, is like an invitation from Hashem, for the person to come closer to Hashem’ -adds Rav Matityahu Solomon: ’like an invitation to sup at Hashem’s table’.
This surely is a priceless gift to us - ‘for our sake’ - not למענך אלקים: for Your sake, O G-d!
Let us - for the purpose of our enquiry, posit that, by doing mitzvot and good deeds, we are, in some way, doing למענך ה': ’for Your sake’, Hashem, and - this being the heart of our supplication: Judge us for life, for Your sake, so that we are able to continue ton ‘give you’ nachat - which, we clearly can not do, should You not judge us to life.
If we should decide that this is an opening to pray that our prayer should be accepted; ‘for Your sake, Hashem’, we are still confronted with an impassable barrier - that on Rosh Hashanah, we have crowned Hashem, as our King.
Rav Azriel Tauber elucidates: ’On Rosh Hashanah - unlike on the other moadim - we do not ‘ receive’ a gift from Hashem, we ‘give’ to Him - something which is contrary to our logic - as, by our logic, there is nothing we can give to Hashem, as He is complete in the fullness of completeness.
Says the Rav: ’We have but to ‘believe’ that Hashem asks something of us on Rosh Hashanah:((Rosh Hashanah 16.):’Crown Me as your king, over you’.
‘Rosh Hashanah is a moed that is ‘completely concealed - the other moadim are in the middle of the month, as if on them we can see Hashem - not so, Rosh Hashanah, the moon is completely unseen - alluding to our relationship with Hashem being completely ‘unseen’ by us - we are but to believe, and to fulfill Hashem’s request:’Say before Me verse of kingship - so that you crown Me as your king, over you’.
‘Here we ask: Since Hashem is complete without any lack - what does He need from us - what can we give Him?
‘The answer , say our Sages, is that for Hashem to be a King, He needs someone who will crown Him, and who will be His subjects, by crowning Him over them.
‘This’ concludes the Rav, ‘is what Hashem ‘needs’ from us, on Rosh Hashanah :that we - the subjects He needs - live, and it is to this, that we rely upon in our prayer:’For Your Sake, remember us for life.’
We find the same words -‘over you’ - in another place, in Parashat Shoftim, regarding the crowning of a king for Israel - and therein lies our difficulty.
The Torah there states:(17:14-15) ’When you come to the Land…and settle in it, and you will say: ’I will set a king over myself.. You shall set over yourself a king whom Hashem, your G-d shall choose from among yout brethren shall you set a king over yourself..’
Let us note that three times in these psukim, the Torah uses the words:’over you’.
Our Sages, on these psukim, comment:( Kid’ 32.):’A king who forgives an offence against his honor, his honor is not forgiven.’.
Their reason: the seemingly superfluous words ‘over you’ - which are used not once, but three times - require that the appointed king be ‘over you’- that you be in awe of him, this precluding forgiving offences against his honor
Herein lies our problem: Since - as we have brought - on Rosh Hashanah, Hashem is crowned - as is His request - He is ipso facto precluded from forgiving transgressions which have been committed against Him - which are offences against His honor.
How, then can He grant our prayers of these days, for life, which means: forgiving the transgressions we have committed against Him, and His honor?
Here, we can but wonder at the genius of our Sages, who provide an answer, by the wording of the prayer of ‘Remember us for life..King who desires life..for Your sake..’.
We have so far focused on the word ‘למענך’: ‘for Your sake’ - but the answer lies in other seemingly superfluous words they have chosen, in our prayer: מלך חפץ בחיים: ‘O King, who desires life’.
What do these words add?
They are the key to enabling Hashem - granting our prayers, to ‘remember us for life’.
How? Because our Sages also say: (Yerushalmi Pe’ah 1:1)‘רצונו של אדם, הוא כבודו’:’ A person’s will, is his honor’ - to fulfill a person’s wish, is to honor him’.
The extent to which this applies, can be seen from the Yerushalmi gemara, we have cited: ’The mother of Rabbi Ishmael, out of her awe for his being one of the gedolai hador, wanted to imbibe the water in which he had washed his feet.
‘The Sages wondered: How could Rabbi Ishmael permit this seeming dishonor of his mother?
They answered: to the contrary - this was not disrespecting her, since this was her wish, performing it, was ‘her honor’.’
If this was the honor due to the will of the mother of Rabbi Ishmael, how much more is the honor due to the desire of the King of Kings!
With this foundation, we now have an opening, to permit our prayer of ‘Remember us..O king’..because, You ‘desire life’ - Your Will is to grant our supplication AND, since this is Your will, fuflilling it, is also ‘Your honor’ - and not a breach of the King from the ‘prohibition’ on waiving His honor!
What proof can we bring, to substantiate our plea, that: to grant us life, is Your Wish’ - other than our words, in our prayer - and, that, more than this, it is also למענך:’for Your Sake’, as we plead in the next word of this prayer?
The answer lies in addressing the question: Why did Hashem, who is complete in every respect, create man - what need was there for this, in His eyes?
We have brought the answer of Rav Tauber to this question.
Rav Avigdor Nebenzahl proffers a different answer , one at the core of Rosh Hashanah: ’From a contemplation of the ways of Hashem - as far as our limited minds can go - Hashem created man - indeed the world - so that He could fulfill His wish, to do chessed, as - had there not been any creations, Hashem would be unable, to fulfill His will.
‘We find therefore, that the will to do chessed, does not derive from the needs of the recipient, but from the will of the giver - Hashem!’
Relating this to the words of our prayer, we find that, the desire pf Hashem to grant life to man, on the Days of Judgement, is truly ‘for His sake’. In the midrashim which deal with the creation of man, we can find an aid to this - we read, that when Hashem ‘consulted the heavenly denizens, as to creating man (Breishit 1:27) ‘in His image, in the image of G-d’, they asked: this ‘man’, what is his essence, his nature’? - and, sadly, as we read in Avot, ‘the first ten generations all angered G-d’, but then came Avraham, the pillar of Chessed, in whose merit Hashem created man - to do chessed.
This is captured in a midrash, expounding a difficult passuk:( 2:4) ’These are the generations of the heavens and the earth בהבראם: when they were created’ - the unusual word בהבראם: was chosen, because, when its letters are re-arranged, spell באברהם - alluding to the world being created in the merit of Avraham.’
We read in Pirkei Avot (2:4):’Rabban Gamliel, the son of Rabbi Yehuda haNasi said:’Do His will as if it were yours, so that He may do your will as if it were His.
We ask, in this, our prayer of ‘Remember us for life, King who desires life..’ - that this being Your will, too, then- as we are promised in Pirkei Avot - you do our will, as ‘Your will’ - and remember us for life.
May Hashem grant us comfort.
לרפואת יהונתן בן קינלה ושרונה בת לאה, בתוך שאר חולי עמנו, ובברכת פיתקא טבא לכל בני ישראל
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