The year turns. Hayom harat olam—today the world is conceived. Or is it tonight? We begin in the dark before the sun sees the year. Halakhah starts the day at sundown, so yes, “today.” But the liturgy runs two days and the arc bleeds into Yom Kippur. Which “today” is it? Both. Birth contractions ignore clocks. Labor runs across nights and weeks. We are standing in the contraction.
Before we go further, a word about slogans. You’ve heard “Christ is King” thrown like a badge in culture wars. On the other side, “no king,” the smirk that rejects any crown. Both miss the point. Torah’s claim is older, deeper, inescapable: there is a throne and it is not empty. If another faith shouts “Christ is King,” at least they’re pointing toward the throne’s reality. But the throne is not for base weaponising setting up those users for belief failures. The only kingship that stands is the one our shofar proclaims—Melekh ha-Olam, the Sovereign of the universe. Against that, both the rejection and the sloganeering are noise around the crown. Sorry Jesus but you never existed and never will until Christian’s start believing in occultism and magic. Which I would support actually it would alleviate much of their burden. Sadly still the simulation hypothesis has even less to stand on than Christianity or even polytheist religions.
Harat means pregnancy in toto, not toto from the pink Floyd hippy viewing of the wizard of oz if you’re Lucy at a drive in movie or worse some long haired hippy dudes basement, but actually from the Latin colloquialism. Creation is not a memory; it’s a womb still bearing down. Not to be confused with overbearing wombs. Each moment is a contraction bringing possibility from Ein Sof. The mystics call the rhythm tzimtzum: the Infinite withdrawing to make space, like a womb contracting to receive, expanding to nourish, contracting again to deliver. Light pours in; vessels crack; sparks scatter. That shattering isn’t failure; it’s the cost of finitude carrying radiance. Every Rosh Hashanah repeats the pattern: contraction, fracture, scattering, renewal. Tonight is contraction again. Tomorrow the horn crowns the child.
A brief accuracy note for fellow lovers of numbers: people often connect chai (חַי, life) = 18 to hayom (“today”). Standard gematria of hayom (היום) is 61, not 18; the resonance with chai is thematic rather than numeric. If you want a number to carry here, carry this: the day is alive because the King is alive. Let’s keep the poetry and keep the math honest.
Now the Names that carry the night. We proclaim YHWH—the Name that folds past, present, and future into one “Being-to-Be.” In our mouth we say Adonai—“my Lord”—because we do not pronounce the four letters. Adonai is the sound of deference; YHWH is the mystery of Being. On Rosh Hashanah, the Amidah swaps ha-El ha-Kadosh for ha-Melekh ha-Kadosh—“the Holy King”—because tonight sovereignty isn’t metaphor; it is the operating system of reality.
We also invoke Elohim. Grammatically plural, classically “God of powers,” it marks judgment and structure. When the Mishnah says, “All creatures pass before Him like sheep,” that is Elohim, the Judge whose scales are as binding as gravity. If YHWH/Adonai makes covenant personal, Elohim makes justice public. Two Names. One God. Justice and mercy braided.
And hear Koneh ha-kol—Possessor/Creator of all. Ownership underwrites sovereignty: if all being issues from the Maker, all being answers to Him. There is no un-owned square inch. Anti-king talk evaporates here; there’s nowhere outside the claim.
HaMelekh yoshev al kisei ram v’nisa—the King seated on a high and exalted throne. Psalm 93: “The Lord reigns, robed in majesty.” Psalm 47: “God has gone up with a shout—Adonai with the sound of a shofar.” Isaiah 33:22: “YHWH is our Judge, YHWH is our Lawgiver, YHWH is our King; He will save us.” These are proclamations, not preferences.
melekh (מלך) means “one who reigns.” The root m-l-k is rule, not “counsel.” The rabbinic line ein melekh b’lo am—no king without a people—signals that kingship, in Israel’s frame, is recognized order, not seizure. Scripture is ferocious with human crowns: Pharaoh enslaves, Nebuchadnezzar self-inflates, Israel’s kings betray covenant. To crown God is to dethrone pretenders.
Modern ears, allergic to monarchy, hear “king” and think oppression. But refuse God’s kingship and you don’t abolish sovereignty; you enthrone something else. Appetite. Ideology. Tribe. Technology. There is always a king. The only question is counterfeit or true. And note well: this is not about “faith” as private opinion. The throne’s occupancy does not wait on assent. Malkhuyot is ontological: we proclaim what is. Denying it doesn’t liberate; it installs a lesser throne.
Sovereignty liberates because it anchors meaning. The world is not ownerless. Chaos isn’t final. Justice isn’t fiction. That’s why the year starts with God’s reign, not with our resolutions.
From sovereignty, to remembrance: Zikhronot. “God remembered Noah”—waters fell. “God remembered Sarah”—life in a barren womb. “God remembered Rachel”—waiting ended. “God remembered His covenant”—chains began to crack. Hebrew z-k-r is memory-that-acts. When YHWH remembers, history bends. So zokhreinu la-chayim—remember us for life—is a plea for enacted mercy.
And we name Zokher ha-berit—the One who remembers the covenant. We trust algorithms with our data and resist the idea that the Holy One remembers our deeds. That is backward. Divine remembrance dignifies: nothing good is lost, nothing evil is ignored. With a King, deeds have weight. Without a King, even virtue drifts into oblivion.
Remember too Avinu Malkeinu—our Father, our King. In these days we address both intimacy and authority. Avinu says tenderness; Malkeinu says accountability. The Name pair itself demolishes the false choice between “God of love” and “God of law.” He is both. That’s why judgment can be mercy and mercy can be just.
Now the rail of sound. Tomorrow the shofar answers. Tekiah—whole and straight—the trumpet of enthronement. Shevarim—three sighs—the truth of fracture. Teruah—nine cries—alarm that cuts the narcotic of habit. Tekiah Gedolah—long beyond breath—endurance and mercy that outlast us. Not melody. Language. Whole, broken, awakened, enduring.
The horn itself teaches. A ram’s horn—emptied, pierced, reshaped to carry another’s breath. That is the soul under kingship. Our age drowns in noise; the shofar is pure signal. It crowns, it cuts, it wakes. Its echoes layer Sinai’s thunder (covenant), Jericho’s collapse (false walls fall), Jubilee’s liberty (debts released), and the promised great shofar (exiles gathered). One blast holding covenant, conquest, freedom, return.
El Shaddai. To Abraham: “I am El Shaddai; walk before Me and be whole.” Tradition reads she-amar dai—the One who said “Enough!”—the boundary-setter who told the sea how far to come. Other readings see nurture (shad, breast) or the Akkadian šadû, mountain; philology gives options, the midrash gives meaning. Either way the Name speaks of limit and sufficiency. In a culture that calls every hunger “need” and every urge “right,” El Shaddai is salvation: dai—enough. And yet Job cries, “the arrows of Shaddai are in me.” Same Name, other angle: devastation (shadad). The Sovereign who restrains can also overwhelm. Scripture preserves both because life does. We do not crown a mascot of our moods. We acknowledge the real King.
shevirat ha-kelim, the breaking of vessels. Infinite light overwhelms finite forms; shards and sparks result. That’s why reality feels both luminous and broken. Every face radiant and frail. Every institution just and corrupt. Every love glorious and mortal. Rosh Hashanah recalls the break and recommissions the repair—tikkun. Kingship is enacted as justice, truth, mercy, fidelity, Sabbath rest, honest scales, guarded tongues. We do not “believe” God is King; we live it by lifting sparks.
And the Names keep teaching. HaMelekh ha-Kadosh replaces ha-El ha-Kadosh in the Amidah—Holiness named as Kingship itself. HaMelekh ha-Mishpat replaces Melekh ohev tzedakah u’mishpat—the King who is judgment, not merely fond of it. In Unetaneh Tokef we call Him Melekh El Chai v’Kayam—King, God, living and enduring—because the Judge survives our verdicts. In Malchuyot, Zikhronot, Shofarot we lace the Names through verses: YHWH, Adonai, Elohim, Koneh ha-kol, Zocher brit, each Name a facet, each facet the same light.
The calendar is a teacher. Elul sounded a daily horn to wake the heart. Tonight is quiet because the court convenes. Tomorrow the horn is public because sovereignty is public. The Ten Days are open gates—teshuvah not as feeling but as practice. Yom Kippur seals the books with forgiveness that costs. Sukkot trains joy inside fragility—huts that keep out nothing but despair. Shemini Atzeret gathers the water and asks for the rain. The arc runs: sovereignty anchors, remembrance dignifies, sound awakens, return enacts, forgiveness grants, joy crowns.
Concrete, because covenant is concrete. Between now and the blasts: learn the service so you’re not a tourist in your own inheritance. If you miss the horn in shul, hear it before sunset—this proclamation belongs to the people. Begin teshuvah precisely: one relationship to repair with receipts; one appetite to bring under dai; one discipline of space-making—true tzimtzum—so Another’s breath can sound through you. When you hear Malkhuyot, hear a claim about reality, not a mood. When you hear Zikhronot, hear the promise that nothing true is wasted. When you hear Shofarot, let it interpret your year: whole, broken, awakened, enduring.
Let’s be blunt one more time because tonight deserves clarity. The “anti-king” posture is not deep critique; it is a category mistake. It confuses corrupt human monarchy—already dismantled by our prophets—with divine sovereignty, which is the moral architecture of being. Likewise, chanting “Christ is King” as a cudgel in culture wars still reduces Kingship to team and slogan. The throne predates our teams and swallows our slogans. Melekh ha-Olam is not a brand; He is the ground of order. You cannot cancel gravity, and you cannot cancel the crown.
So we stand at the threshold. We will speak the Names that unmask pretenders: YHWH/Adonai, Elohim, El Shaddai, HaMelekh ha-Kadosh, Koneh ha-kol, Avinu Malkeinu. We will ask for life. We will tune our ears for a sound older than fear.
When the ram’s horn finally answers morning light, let tekiah declare that reality is ruled. Let shevarim tell the truth about our fractures. Let teruah interrupt the lie that we cannot change. Let tekiah gedolah carry us further than our breath can carry itself.
May the One who said dai to the waters say dai to our harms. May the Judge who remembers enact mercy for life. May the King who owns all raise sparks from our hands. And may the crown rest, not on counterfeits, but on the rightful King.
L’shanah tovah tikatevu v’tichatemu.
