Beginning Middle and End
The next pasuk in Malchiyot, as we will see, has an impact greater than one day a year. It’s the seventh pasuk in Malchuyot:
כֹּה־אָמַ֨ר ה׳ מֶלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל וְגֹאֲל֖וֹ ה׳ יצְבָא֑וֹת אֲנִ֤י רִאשׁוֹן֙ וַאֲנִ֣י אַחֲר֔וֹן וּמִבַּלְעָדַ֖י אֵ֥ין אֱלֹקים
So says God, King of Israel and its Redeemer, God of the hosts (the Jewish people)
I am First, I am Last and besides Me, there is no other God.
The Yerushalmi brings this pasuk to explain the statement that God’s seal is the word אמת/Emet. Like a signature on a document, God’s seal is Emet.
Why Emet?
The Gemarah explains that
א-Aleph, the first letter of אמת Emet, is the first letter in the Aleph Bet.
מ-Mem, the next letter in Emet is the middle letter of the Aleph Bet, and
ת-Taf, the last letter in Emet, is the last letter of the Aleph Bet
So God is the beginning, middle and end, based on this pasuk
אֲנִ֤י רִאשׁוֹן֙
I am the first One
Before anything was there, God was there, and
וַאֲנִ֣י אַחֲר֔וֹן
When everything ceases to exist, I am still the only One there
In the middle, where we have a world sandwiched between the beginning and the end, there is no other god but Hashem. What does that mean?
This is an important fundamental. The wordאלקים Elokim means force, power or energy. That is why God is called Elokei Elokim The God of gods. There are no other gods, so what does this mean?
For any energy in the world that people see as a force, God is the Source behind it. The sun is powerful, but what gives the sun its energy? God.
Anything in the world that seems to have its own energy is a god.
Rabbenu Bachya says that we don’t bow to another god, so what does that mean? What other god?
He explains that it refers to any force that receives its force from something else- and that something else is God.
The Maharal, in the Sefer Gur Aryeh, on Devarim ( 20,3) says that this is the principle of Hashem’s Achdut/ Oneness. That is why we say Hashem Echad, Hashem is One.
Rashi tells us that when they went to war, they’d say, Shema Yisrael, and just in the merit of saying Shema Yisrael, they would win the war, because they connected themselves to the belief in God’s Oneness. There is nothing else but Him. He is above everything. When we connect ourselves to that all-powerful Force, we can overtake anything. It is the force of God’s unity, which is based on our pasuk: There is nothing else but God.
We refer to this every single day. After we say Keriat Shema, we say Hashem Echad.
We end Keriat Shema with Hashem Elokechem Emet ( the word Emet is not in the Torah, we add it from another pasuk)
After Keriat Shema, we say
:
אֱמֶת אַתָּה הוּא רִאשׁוֹן וְאַתָּה הוּא אַחֲרוֹן. וּמִבַּלְעָדֶיךָ אֵין לָנוּ מֶלֶךְ גּוֹאֵל וּמוֹשִׁיעַ:
It’s true- it’s Emet, You are first, you are last, and there is no one else but you. This too, is based on our pasuk. We say this every single day in our Shaharit prayers.
Rav Yeheskel Levenstein says that this concept, at first glance, is not so easy to understand. But it’s a fundamental of our Emunah. There is nothing else but Ratzon Hashem/ the Will of God, in the world. Even when a wicked person does something that is seemingly against the Will of God, Hashem wants that to happen. Of course, he will get punished for it, but Hashem wanted it to happen. We can’t do anything against the Will of God. There is nothing in creation but Hashem.
Rav Yeheskel uses Korach as an example. He was evil, he rebelled against Moshe… One would think that it should not have happened. But he proves that it should have happened, because the earth that swallowed Korach was created at the beginning of time.
The revelation that Moshe Rabbenu was the ultimate prophet, and his undoing of the questions and doubts of Korach were built into creation, from the very beginning. So of course, Korach was the will of God.
Evil people don’t realize that they are working for God, but they are. Nothing happens in the world that isn’t working for God. That is the main principle of this pasuk.
These are the kinds of thoughts that we want to have in our minds when we are being judged, and that is the point of all of these classes. We should have full understanding of these powerful lessons, that God Himself told us to say, in order to merit a good judgment.
If you have all of these thoughts on your mind when you are being judged, that is powerful.
B’ezrat Hashem, we are all taking notes, and we will have a great Musaf Rosh Hashanah and a great year.
Have a wonderful day.