Congregation Netivot Shalom

Erev Rosh Hashannah

Sep 16, 2012 (eve) / 1 Tishrei, 5773

Vivian Clayton

An Erev Rosh Hoshannah Tribute: The Queen as Sovereign

L’shanah tova 

It is an honor to be in front of you tonight. I hope my drash is worthy of your attention. I dedicate this drosh in honor of the memory of my father, Simon Clayton, z’l. 

I have driven by our shul on many a Sunday night, coming or going hither and yon. The gates have always been closed and I have continued onward. But tonight, the gates were open, and through them I came. It appears that I am not alone.

Whether it is the force of tradition or a sense of personal obligation that draws you here tonight, we are acknowledging as a community the beginning of Yamin Nora’im and the journey that lies between and ahead of us in these next ten days. The tanach’s instructions for navigating this period of time are scarce and anemic (Lev: 23: 24 – 32; Numbers 29: 1 – 2; 7). The road map for this journey has been slowly developed over subsequent centuries. S.Y. Agnon, one of many writers offering thoughts on the Days of Awe tells us that this particular evening, the service is short and, in fact, the shortest because people in medieval times were frightened to be out after dark; and, pragmatically, tonight, by custom, many people are having celebratory dinners in their homes.

My drash will be limited to the content and the symbolism contained in our service of tonight. Jewish tradition sees Rosh Hashannah as the day when HaShem, our God, having completed the work of creation, is crowned king. This night has traditionally been called the Night of Remembering the Covenant. The special prayers in the Amidah are ones of hope for preservation of life and living.  And, scattered frequently throughout our prayers are references to HaShem as ‘the sovereign”, as the grantor of this life.

With so much emphasis on the joy of the being alive in the present, in what way, meaningful to the moment, can we pay tribute to our matriarchs and patriarchs? Which window onto the very distant past do we open, in order to remember the journey from there, to here? 

I share with you now, memories, both deeply ancestral as well as contemporary. When there are no longer any roads to a past, it is memory that brings the sentiment and event to life: 

FIRST: 

I offer gratitude and praise to Eve, for having the courage to eat the apple that expelled her and Adam from the garden, so that our journey in the wilderness could begin. The minute Eve bit into the apple, her eyes opened and she became free to expose a truth: honor your hunger and feed yourself. An awakening towards consciousness is part and parcel of creation and life. Her transgression became transmission. It gave us the opportunity to meet the stranger (excerpts from “When Women Were Birds” by Terry Tempest Williams, Sarah Crichton Books, 2012, pgs 89-90). 

SECOND: 

I honor Abraham who had the courage to trust the disembodied voice of HaShem, leave his home not even knowing where his destination lay. That trust he placed in HaShem was the very seed of our covenant with God that remains, for many of us, vibrant in our lives to this day. It also is the birth of the idea of life as a journey. Heretofore, prior to the rise of Judaism, people believed in life as a circularity. We’re born, we die, the next generation comes along and repeats the process. Life did not have a forward direction – it merely kept reiterating itself. The notion of life as a progression, created the very idea of history. Now, both the past and the future could be different than the present. According to Thomas Cahill, this was one of many gifts our faith gave the world. 

And, with this progress, came an evolving, increasingly interactive relationship with HaShem, one that was passed from Abraham to Moses. For instance, Moses actually persuaded God to withhold his divine wrath after the incident of the Golden Calf (ex: Exodus 32: 31 – 34). You might have thought that the present is different now from that past as we can no longer talk directly with HaShem and, visa versa. But, actually we continue to carry a belief during these Days of Awe, that with tefilah, teshuavah and tzedakah (prayer, repentence and good deeds) we might avert the most dire of outcomes held over us during our short but focused journey. 

***** ******* ******** ******** 

I now turn to the metaphor of HaShem as King. The paragraph in the Amidah tonight known as Melokh al kol ha-olam, emphasizes and speaks of kingship, concluding with the familiar phrase, “King of the Entire world who sanctifies Israel and the Day of Remembrance”. 

It is an ancient custom that when a KING is crowned, people come from all the towns to see the king being honored. In Deut: 33:5, it is said, “And there was a king in Jeshurun, when all the heads of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Israel together”. 

Yes, I am drawn tonight to be part of the assembly honoring our Sovereign ; I confess though: my understanding and valuing of the metaphor comes from my exposure to QUEENS, not kings. 

My father was born in London, the oldest son of seven children. He viewed the orthodox religiosity of my Russian grandparents as suffocating, particularly in its view of women. He came to the United States at the age of 19, seeking freedom of religion, or, I should say, freedom from religion. 

I have attended many simchas in England, and concur with my Dad that the position of women is unfamiliar and awkward for me. My female cousins sit in a separate section, they cannot wear tallits, they do not read from the Torah. Yet, to my astonishment, the entire congregation stands and while the Torah scroll is held , reading from the Orthodox’s United Synagogue’s siddur, translated by the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, say a prayer for the welfare of “Our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth ” and her family. This prayer is said before the prayer for the welfare of the state of Israel and its defense forces. There is no prayer for the country of England. 

The admiration and devotion to this monarch might seem like an exclusively religious gesture, given that it is in the siddur, until you tried to reach any of my family during the days of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June. While many of my second cousins, in their thirties and forties, either rented out their homes during the Olympics, or fled the country entirely, several sent me nearly a blow by blow account of events as they unfolded. Those who could not attend public events, sat glued to the television set, as one might do here on the day of the Super Bowl or the upcoming Presidential debates. 

And, I understand their devotion to this Sovereign, this Malka whose acts of long devotion and service are so visible and palpable. Of particular relevance to my family living in East London near the docks, the area most heavily bombed during the Blitz, was that her family stood by the British people. They went out in the streets as a family, offering comfort and expressing compassion to those most injured and affected. They did not flee London, but stayed there, like all who had no alternative, including my grandparents. They were present during England’s worst hours. 

But it was my father who pointed me to something Elizabeth said that made me understand when devotion and gratitude are justly earned. When I was less than ten years old, I remember him saying to me, “I want you to listen to this speech. Its important to me”. It was a replay of Elizabeth’s 1947 address to the nation when she turned twenty-one years of age. She was not a Queen, yet. It was her dedication of service to the nation. She said, 

“I declare before you all , that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong. But I shall not have the strength to carry out this resolution alone, unless you join in it with me. ….God help me to make good my vow, and God Bless all of you who are willing to share in it”.

It was the solemnity and sincerity in her voice that still lingers in my memory. 

But still deeper, and more ancient in age than a sovereign of a country, is my exposure to and awe of the behavior of another monarch, the Queen of a hive. For many years I was the keeper of two hives. These hives were nestled in their own Garden of Eden, in a one acre backyard in Walnut Creek, planted with eight different species of fruit trees. 

The bees predate man by about 40 to 50 million years, yet they, too were created by HaShem. How much of HaShem’s spirit is reflected in their society, and in the Queen herself, is a worthy question. 

Each hive, when healthy, shelters 60,000 bees, They live in a highly cooperative and organized society consisting almost entirely of females – the sterile female workers, a few drones and one queen. All 60,000 bees are loyal to and guard their queen, in whose image they are entirely created. All the queen does is lay an egg, every minute to the tune of 1500 a day. She neither feeds herself, nor grooms herself. Her excrement is carried away by another worker bee. The Queen’s devotion to her task of creation is unrelenting. The social cohesion and harmony within the hive is almost unfathomable in human terms. Just as in a new Jewish community, where the first thing done is to establish a cemetery, an old age home and a funeral society, the bees have undertakers. (it is a sight to behold: the dead bee is dragged to the edge of the outside platform, and pushed off. …No taharah here)… The honey bees, like our medieval kin, do not like being out after dark. As you take a late afternoon walk, note that on say a lavender or rosemary bush, it is the bumble bees that remain long after the honey bees have returned to their hive. There are guard bees, too. No stray honey bee from another tribe – or should I say, hive - can gain entrance to ‘check out’ the neighbor’s honey stores. 

To determine the health of a hive, one must know the health of the queen. Being Jewish, the thought of going into the Holy of Holies, the ‘brood chamber’ as it is known to find the queen, was just an anathema. Here’s an interesting parallel: just as our God remains elusive to us in modern times, the queen, by its nature and genetics, does not want to be found. Once you open the hive and light pours inward, the queen immediately retreats to the most remote part of the hive, usually four or five boxes down from the top. Whenever I did make an attempt, I was always unsuccessful. 

One day, an elder of the bee club took me aside and said, “Don’t follow the notion that you MUST see the queen every time you open the hive. Just look for her newly laid eggs. That will tell you how well she is performing. In fact, her laying pattern tells you more than actually seeing her. In time, he said, You’ll start to see her even when you’re not looking…… 

And, it was so. It reminded me of how a Talmudic scholar seeks to understand God’s truth. It comes only in glimpses. 

After this lesson, I became more bold in my beekeeping. I found that a contented hive had a particular chant when the queen was productive and laying her eggs. While I could hear it when just sitting quietly at the side of the hive, I also brought a stethoscope for a second ‘reality check’. The chant was soothing enough that it could lull me into a brief lapse of consciousness called a nap. However, the niggun sung when the Queen was dead, was a sound so distinctive, so mournful: it could not be mistaken for anything but a dirge of collective sorrow. Then, looking at the bees and how they loitered at the front of their hive, only further confirmed the tragedy that had taken place. It is hard to describe in words what a depressed bee looks like, but as the expression goes, you know it when you see it. The power and importance of this centralizing force in their lives is plain: A life without their sovereign is no life at all. The bees become listless, aimless, and develop diseases. Speaking personally, I understand that this hum connects me to the heartbeat of the universe, and the loss of it, means that I’m alone. 

Bees swarm when it’s time to leave one place and embark on the journey to their next home. And herein lies the biggest bee mystery of all: Even scientists have not been able to unravel the ‘chant’ sung within the hive that signals almost all of the 60,000 with their Queen to exit and find a new home so that they can multiply and be as innumerable as the stars above. What disembodied voice do they hear that tells them to begin the journey? Whatever it is, like Abraham, they trust the signal, and they go forth. 

It is obvious to me tonight that we are as crowded together as a human hive could be. 

It is obvious to me tonight that there is a comfort in our communion, as we hold ourselves apart from the larger world during this next week of teshuvah. The shofar, our signal, draws us with its call to worship. 

In the journey ahead, I hope that we all might catch a glimpse here and there of the Shechina, our Queen, as she notes and listens to our pleas of forgiveness for our human frailties. 

But tonight, let’s pause and rejoice in the sweetness of greeting in this new year together. 

L’shanah tova ; May you all be inscribed for a good year. 

Vivian Clayton, vivianclaytonphd@ix.netcom.com