Malchus: Getting Back to Basics

I wasn’t planning to write a new post this year. The inspiration just wasn’t there. I don’t like to force it; I prefer to let it come naturally. However Hashem gave me a moment of clarity. I’m writing this as I sit waiting for Selichos at Chatzos, just hours after my family and I found ourselves in the bomb shelter again. For the second time in six months, we were keeping our children calm while trying to stay composed ourselves, with the sounds of explosions and air raid sirens all around us.

Thankfully and miraculously, no one was directly hurt in this attack. (There were casualties in an earlier attack in Yaffo, but the lack of casualties in this large-scale Iranian attack is astonishing.) Of course, we thank Hashem for the miracle, and beyond that I believe there’s a deeper message here that relates directly to Rosh Hashanah.

Rosh Hashanah is about proclaiming Hashem as the King of the universe. We often hear this concept, Hashem is the Melech, year after year, yet what does it trul…