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Macro or Micro?

By Rabbi Jonathan Tawil
September 24, 2019

It’s Rosh Hashanah and that gets you thinking. Many questions pass your mind, what’s with the apple and honey? What’s with the Shofar? Isn’t one day enough to celebrate as a New Year?

As the questions start piling in and your mind is let loose, you start pondering about the bigger things in life. What’s with Brexit? Israel? The US Elections?

So while you are on a role as the New Year 5780 kicks in and you’re pondering about the future, let’s take a look at the present in order to create your future!

As at 2019 the estimated world population is around 7.7 billion people. This has increased tremendously over the past 100 years rising from around 1.6billion at the turn of the 20th Century.

You are a successful being that is a one in 7.7 billion!

More than that, you live on a planet that is part of a massive universe.

While the spatial size of the entire Universe is unknown, it is possible to measure the size of the observable universe, which is currently estimated to be 93 billion light-years in diameter.

Each light year is approximately 6 trillion miles!

With so many people and such a massive universe, one might be carried away into thinking that perhaps, G-d has better things to worry about than little me. You would be so wrong!

Last week my wife came across a student of hers who got married a few years ago.

She asked how she had adapted to married life.

She answered “all is great, we share responsibilities – I take care of the Micromanagement – I get to ensure the house is tidy, car serviced and children taken to school. He takes care of Macro global management – he sits with his friends discussing whether the US should bomb North Korea, what to do with the Iran Nuclear deal, how we should go about Brexit and who is best to run the country!”

G-d deals with this world both on a Macro level – as the Melech (King) and on a Micro Level as Avinu (our Father).

Throughout the Rosh Hashanah prayers we mention G-d as the King.

This Rosh Hashanah we coronate our King, He is the Melech, He leads world events, taking care of the dictators, bringing peace, securing the environment, air, water, land mass and more.

Rosh Hashanah has a further dimension to it.

We repeat throughout our prayers the statement “Today is the birthday of the world.”

“This day is the beginning of Your works, a remembrance of the first day.”

In fact this might seem confusing. The world was created on the 25th of Elul. Adam was created on Rosh Hashanah. Why then, do we commemorate Rosh Hashanah on the birthday of Adam and not six days earlier on the birthday of the world?

Our Sages explain this is because the world didn’t take effect, there was no real purpose in the world until Adam was born. All the Macro was created for the Micro.

Rabbi Chaim Velozn explains that it is for this reason we scream out the prayer – “Hashem Hu HaElokim – Hashem is the G-d”.

The Name Hashem represents G-ds management of mega events in the world. The Name Elokim represents the Name of G-d that is involved in the details of creation, minor events.

On Rosh Hashanah we revisit that realisation that The King that runs Macro events is also the Father that is orchestrating all Micro events in my life.

The One G-d that is involved in toppling empires is involved inside my small home, at work, out in the street. He is around on a constant basis and is looking at each and every one of us Kiveni Marom – like the sheep are counted passing through the pen one by one. Each one of us is special and important. We need to know that G-d loves us. He eagerly awaits our call.

As we coronate The King through the blowing of the Shofar, we remind ourselves of the beginning of creation, where there was just Adam and Chava surrounded by a universe that was created solely for them. Every year at this time we visit this power of G-d’s Divine Providence and love that is focussed on each and every individual. We spent the entire Elul focussing on how Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li – I am for my beloved and my beloved (G-d) is for me. He loves each and every one of us.

We are really one in 7.7 billion but we are all unique and loved. He believes in us.

Another year has passed, a year in which you have achieved so much and yet there is so much potential still awaiting to be nurtured. G-d says “I want you in this world, there is something you can do that no one else will be able to.”

In the 48 hours of Rosh Hashanah, all of this makes its entry into the world. That is why every moment of these forty-eight hours counts. That is why we call it Rosh Hashanah—the “head” of the year, and not just “New Year’s Day” or “the beginning of the year”: Just as the head contains within it a neuro-switch for every part of the body, so is the head of the year a concentrated preview of the entire coming year. Because it all enters here.

Let us coronate the King, celebrate our birth and pursue a world which can connect and reveal G-d’s greatness!

Shana Tova

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