## Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 2 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 2](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/2) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** MUSAF Musaf represents the “additional” sacrifice offered on special days: Shabbat, Festivals and Rosh Ḥodesh, and is said only on these days. Whereas the three daily prayers go back to the patriarchs (Shaḥarit to Abraham, Minḥa to Isaac, Ma’ariv to Jacob), Musaf is only connected to a sacrifice. Hence it has a more sacrificial feel than the other Amidot. Musaf generally consists of the same opening three and closing three blessings as all other Amidot, plus a central blessing representing *kedushat hayom*, the special sanctity of the day. Rosh HaShana is an exception. In place of one central blessing it has three, representing the three central themes of the day: (1) *Malkhiyot*, referring to God’s kingship; (2) *Zikhronot*, remembrances, in which we express our faith that God remembers our deeds and His covenant with our ancestors and us; and (3) *Shofarot*, references to the shofar and the part it plays in Jewish history and destiny. All three central blessings have the same structure. They begin with an introductory prologue announcing the theme of the blessing. There then follow ten biblical verses, each referring to “King,” “remembrance” or “shofar,” the first three from the Torah, the second three from *Ketuvim*, the “Writings,” and the third three from the prophetic books. The tenth verse returns to the Torah, the book of our beginnings. The blessing ends with a prayer. Kingship, Remembrance and Shofar are the key ideas of Rosh HaShana. First it is the anniversary of the day when God created the universe and thus became its Sovereign. Second it is the day He remembers our lives and those of our ancestors, and we pray to be judged favorably, if not for our sake then for theirs. Third, it is the day of the shofar, the sound that has accompanied the children of Israel through the epic events of their history and will accompany them in the future: the sound of tears and hope, warning and celebration. Each of the three prayers blends universality and particularity. *Malkhiyot* speaks of God as King of Israel but contains a plea that His majesty be recognized by all humanity. In *Zikhronot* we speak of God remembering the whole of creation as well as His chosen people. In *Shofarot*, alongside the shofar of Sinai we speak of the shofar that Isaiah said will one day be heard by “All the inhabitants of the world, all the dwellers on earth.” That is the fugue of Rosh HaShana. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 4 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 4](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/4) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ*And God of our fathers.* The first paragraph speaks about the fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for it is in their merit that we pray. Even Moses, when he prayed on behalf of the people, did so by invoking them (Ex. 32:13). We pray not as isolated individuals but as members of a family, whose history stretches over some four thousand years. And we pray to God not as a metaphysical abstraction but as the One who made a covenant with our ancestors that has shaped our history ever since. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 5 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 5](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/5) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** זָכְרֵֽנוּ לְחַיִּים*Remember us for life.*One of the four additions said in the silent Amida throughout the Ten Days of Repentance. The word “remember” chimes with “who remembers the loving-kindness of the fathers.” God remembers. Therefore the past is not lost. It exists in God’s eternity. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 11 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 11](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/11) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** מִי כָמֽוֹךָ אַב הָרַחֲמִים *Who is like You, compassionate Father?* The second addition made throughout the Ten Days. The word “compassion” echoes the earlier phrase, “With great compassion revives the dead.” ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 14 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 14](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/14) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** וּבְכֵן תֵּן פַּחְדְּךָ *And so place the fear of You*. A special addition to the holiness blessing, a prayer about God’s sovereignty over the universe. It follows the view of Rabbi Yoḥanan ben Nuri in the Mishna (*Rosh HaShana* 4:5) that the theme of Kingship (*Malkhiyot*) is to be inserted in the third blessing of the Amida, as opposed to Rabbi Akiva who held that it should be said in the fourth. As is often the case in Jewish prayer, we honor both views. Note again that it follows the normal structure of the Jewish imagination by moving from the universal to the particular: the first “And so” refers to all humanity, the second to “Your people,” the third to the righteous, upright and pious. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 20 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 20](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/20) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** אַתָּה בְחַרְתָּֽנוּ*You have chosen us.*The first of the central blessings, combining *kedushat hayom*, the special sanctity of the day, with *Malkhiyot*, the first of the three Rosh HaShana themes, God’s kingship. The fourth paragraph of most, though not all, Amidot begins with the word “You,” and it does so for a reason. Once the preliminary praise (the first three blessings) has been completed, we face God directly, addressing Him in the second person: “You.” This one word differentiates Judaism from the philosophical tradition that sees God as an impersonal force, the First Cause, the Unmoved Mover, Necessary Being, and so on. In Judaism God is a “You,” not an “It” – a Presence who relates to us as persons in all our particularity. This, said Judah HaLevi (*Kuzari*, IV:1–16), is the difference between the God of Abraham and the God of Aristotle. We can philosophize about the latter but we can talk only to the former. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 32 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 32](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/32) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** עָלֵֽינוּ לְשַׁבֵּֽחַ *It is our duty to praise*. This is the original setting of the *Aleinu* prayer which only later – at least a thousand years after its composition – was adopted as the closing prayer for each of the three daily services. Structured in two paragraphs, it contrasts present reality with future hope: (1) the reality that Jews are different in holding God as their only King, the only nation in the world constituted by a religious belief; and (2) the hope, expressed in the second paragraph, that one day all humanity will recognize the One God as their King. The prayer was edited by Rav, the third-century teacher who spanned the end of the Mishnaic era and the beginning of the period that produced the Babylonian Talmud. (Rav, also known as Abba Arikha, founded the academy at Sura.) In its earliest form, however, it may be much older. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 47 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 47](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/47) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** אַתָּה זוֹכֵר *You remember*. The second Rosh HaShana theme: Remembrances. Judaism is a religion of memory. The root *zakhor*, “remember,” appears 169 times in Tanakh. All ancient cultures saw gods in nature. Jews were the first people to see God in history, and to consider memory as a religious obligation. Time is structured in Judaism by the idea of covenant: a bond between God and the children of Israel, entered into in the past, binding us together in the present, and assuring us of a promised future. The deepest human fear, whether occasioned by distress or thoughts of our own mortality, is that we will be forgotten. We fear that we will live and die and it will be as if we had never been. Faith answers that fear by assuring us that God does not forget. Nor do Jews. More than any other people we preserve our memories. We recall every place where Jews once lived. We perpetuate the memory of those we have lost by giving their names to our children. We are the people of memory for whom those who died live on. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 83 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 83](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/83) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** וּכְתֹב לְחַיִּים טוֹבִים *And write for a good life*. The third of the extra prayers added during the Ten Days of Repentance. In the first, we asked to be written “for life.” Now we ask to be written “for a good life.” It is respectful to make the basic request first, and only afterward elaborate it. ###### Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 86 [Rabbi Sacks on Rosh HaShana Mahzor, First Day, Musaf 86](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Rabbi%20Sacks%20on%20Rosh%20HaShana%20Mahzor/s/First%20Day,_Musaf/r/86) **English Edition; Koren Publishers Jerusalem, 2019:** בְּסֵֽפֶר חַיִּים *In the book of life*. The fourth of the extra prayers, and the fullest. *Prosperity*. On Rosh HaShana, Rabbi Levi Yitzḥak of Berditchev used to pray this prayer: “Master of the Universe: why does a Jew pray for a year of good sustenance? Why does a Jew need money? When he has the means, he gives charity to the poor, provides for the education of his children, buys a choice *etrog* for Sukkot, tasty food to honor Your Shabbat, and fulfills in a beautiful way Your other commands. Therefore, if You want the children of Israel to continue to obey Your commandments in the coming year, You must grant them an abundance of good fortune.”