Kingship. Memory and Shofar: A deeper understanding of the Rosh Hashanah Prayers

Rabbi Daniel Rowe

How to relate to and connect to the longest Tefila (prayer service) of the Jewish year.

The Talmud in Rosh Hashanah gives an enigmatic overview of the Rosh Hashanah musaf service and the need to add in verses about God's kingship (Malchuyot), human and national Jewish memories (Zichronot) and events involving the Shofar (Shofarot).

What is the purpose? and how does this help take us on the profound annual journey of Rosh Hashanah?

Rabbi Rowe begins by exploring prayer in general, addressing an old philosophical question. If God knows what is best for us, then why pray? At best it would be ineffective. At worst it could help engineer something that God did not think best? Classical Jewish sources see prayer as an inner transformative act that changes us into vessels capable of receiving blessings we may otherwise have been unfit for.

Next the talk explores the application of that to the daily prayer journey, the stages of the prayer service, and shows how they reflect the different description of Jacob's ladder stretching from heaven to earth in Bereishis (Genesis) 28:12.

The talk then turns to the Rosh Hashana prayers and explains how the verses of Kingship help to unlock a deep vision and mission that aligns each of us with the Divine vision for the world; how the Memories form our identity; and how the Shofar unlocks a deep pre-cynical primal cry of the soul in each of us.

he talk weaves together ideas from Torah (Hebrew Bible) Midrash Talmud Kabbalah and Jewish philosophy, punctuated by references to modern science, psychology and the history of political and social ideas.

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