The concept of divine kingship sounds simple, even routine, but it is not. It made ancient Israel unique. Eventually it had an impact on the development of freedom in the West. It was a Jewish scholar, Philo, who lived in Alexandria in the first century, who realized how radical it was. Philo was writing about Judaism for a Greek-speaking audience, and when it came to the political structure of Jewry he found that the Greek language had no word for it. The Greeks had words for most things. They were the world’s first systematic thinkers, and in Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics they surveyed every known type of political structure – tyranny, monarchy, oligarchy, aristocracy and democracy. But there was no word for the Jewish system, and Philo was forced to invent one to explain it.

The word he chose was theocracy – rule by God alone. This was the thought expressed by Gideon, the man who led the Israelites to success in their battle against the Midianites. When the people sought to make him king, he replied: “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. God will rule over you” (Judges 8:23).

Eventually the Israelites did appoint a king, and in the course of time they developed other systems of governance: judges, elders, patriarchs, exilarchs, city councils and, in the modern State of Israel, democracy. But the ultimate Ruler of the Jewish people was God alone. This meant that no human ruler had absolute authority. Prophets could criticize kings. People could disobey an immoral order. The sovereignty of God meant that there are moral limits to the use of power. Right is sovereign over might. These were, and remain, revolutionary ideas.

They were also responsible for the single most astonishing ­phenomenon of Jewish history, the fact that Jews retained their identity as a nation for two thousand years in exile, scattered across the world. Wherever they were, God remained their King. They remained His people. Rarely was this better expressed than in the great prayer, Aleinu, originally written for Rosh HaShana as a preface to the verses about God’s kingship:

He is our God; there is no other. Truly He is our King; there is none else.

There is an integral connection between kingship and creation, and it can be stated simply. God made the universe. Therefore God owns the universe. Therefore God is its ultimate Sovereign since He can specify the terms and conditions under which we exist within the universe. This applies to all humanity.

Hence the second paragraph of Aleinu, with its vision and hope of a time “when all humanity will call on Your name,” and “all the world’s inhabitants will realize and know that to You every knee must bow.” The God of revelation and redemption is the God of Israel. The God of creation is the God of all humankind. But they are the same God. Hence the vision of Zechariah with which Aleinu ends, when “the Lord shall be King over all the earth; on that day the Lord shall be One and His name One” (Zech. 14:9).

Underlying this is perhaps the most remarkable idea of all. “There is no king without a people.”¹, Rosh HaShana (2). The fact that the people of Israel accepted God as their King, and His covenant as their constitution, means that they bear witness to Him by their very existence and way of life. That is what the psalm means when it says, “You are the Holy One, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (Ps. 22:4). The praises of Israel are the visible symbol of God’s majesty. That confers extraordinary dignity on us.

footnotes: ¹ Kad HaKemaĥ

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, doyen of Jewish thinkers in the twentieth century, used to explain this by telling the story of his first Hebrew teacher, a Chabad Hasid who made an indelible impression on him as a child by telling him that Rosh HaShana was God’s coronation. “And who puts the crown on His head? We do.” He spoke about his memories of praying as a child among the Hasidim on the first night of Rosh HaShana:

I can feel the unique atmosphere which enveloped these Hasidim as they recited the prayers by which they proclaimed Him their King. The older Hasidim termed this night the “Coronation Night” as they crowned Him as their King. These poor and down­trodden Jews, who suffered so much during their daily existence, were able to experience the enthroning of the Almighty and the true meaning of the Kingship prayers of the Rosh HaShana ­liturgy.², vol. 2 (Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing House), 171.

footnotes: ² Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff, The Rav

The shofar on Rosh HaShana is our way of participating in God’s coronation.