Coming into the Presence—Elul 3

On Rosh HaShanah and all through the ten days of Repentance through Yom Kippur, we sing and chant, Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King. We have a host of other metaphors for God in our festival liturgy, too. Witness these we sing when thanking God for remembering the covenant of love with us:

We are your children, you are our father.
We are your servants, you are our master.
We are your heritage, you are our destiny.
We are your flock, you are our shepherd.
We are your vineyard, you are our watchman.
We are the clay, you are the potter.
We are your subjects, you are our king.

Still, Our Father, Our King is the refrain of the Days of Awe. And indeed, these are the two metaphors that permeate and dominate not only the Torah, the writings, and the prophets, but also the Talmud and the Hasidic stories and most of the Jewish tradition, like most of the Christian tradition. They are beautiful, rich, evocative, lovely. God is a loving father, not a slave master. God is a faithful and generous and wise king, not a fickle, bloodthirsty, and foolish one.

It is not the metaphors themselves that are wrong. It is that our world has changed and these metaphors no longer speak to us in the liberating ways they once spoke to our ancestors. They’re dead metaphors. Unfortunately, many of us today no longer even know what having a father present at all means. And very few of us have experienced standing before a king.

Are we just stuck with going to services and praying these words without having a deep understanding of them? Without much of a way to relate to them so that they become meaningful to us? We can use our imaginations to help bring these metaphors back to life, yes. That’s good. But why not use our imaginations with new images so turning toward the Presence during the month of Elul and the Days of Awe is meaningful to us in new ways. Why not ask ourselves, What does it mean today to “Know before whom you stand”? What does it mean to “come into the Presence?” What gives us that experience of standing before someone who or something that existed before we were born, gave us life, sustains us in life, calls us into question, is larger and wiser and in all ways better than we are, showers us with favor, holds over us the power of death, inspires awe and boundless love and speech-defying gratitude in us? What is it that you would bow before, with dignity not servility?