There’s a beautiful notion in Chassidic thought that this time of year, as the high holiday of Rosh Hashanah approaches, “the King is in the field.”
The idea is that God, who1 often feels remote, who on the high holidays will sit in judgment in His court in the city and choose whether or not to inscribe us in the Book of Life, is now accessible to all. We don’t need to go before intermediaries to get to Him. We don’t need to request an audience. We don’t need to put on our finest clothes and bow. He’s just hanging out in the field where anyone can find him.
A couple of years ago, at the start of Elul,2 a friend of mine posted to a WhatsApp group this photo (see above) of a young Elvis, King of Rock ‘n Roll, hanging out in a field. Many of the men in the group, who are frum, devout Jews, didn’t get the joke. What’s up with the guy in the paisley print shirt? But I got it, and it has stuck with me ever since.
I love imaginging God as a friendly young Elvis, smiling and approachable. I don’t want Him always to be that way. Sometimes, I want a father, the much-maligned white-bearded-Guy-in-the-Sky. Sometimes, I want something ethereal, the He-Who-Cannot-Be-Described of Maimonides.3
But it’s nice to think that at least once a year, God is more like a big brother, the kindly kind, not the Orwellian, that he is like a friendly celebrity, the sort of person who doesn’t make his fans feel like pests or non-entities when he meets them but puts his arm around them, makes them feel welcomed and understood. Kind of like Michael Nesmith did when I met him.4
A week or two ago, another friend approached me in the kitchen of the workspace I’ve recently started using. I started renting a desk there during Elul, having decided I needed to do writing teshuva, repentance, more than anything else because I haven’t been faithful to my vocation, have not given it the time and priority it deserves. And at sixty years old, time is running out. . . .
Interestingly, this workspace is full of frum guys, and this one friend, finding me at the coffee machine asked how my Elul was going now that the King was in the field. I said I hadn’t gone to visit Him.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
I explained that I hadn’t been to shul and hadn’t even heard the shofar yet (which is blown every morning at service during the month of Elul to awaken us to the coming days).
“The shofar,” he said, “the shul, those are the elements of the city. The King is in the field.”
I get it.
But for some reason, I’m still not there. Jewishly, I’ve been coasting. Maybe it’s because of the start of the new school year and all the attendant busyness. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to focus more on my writing. Or maybe I’ve just run out of steam, but I’m not really much feeling it nowadays.
I haven’t laid tefillin in weeks. I’m not learning. I spend time on X instead of reading Tehillilm/Psams as I had once intended. And, in truth, I’m not much looking forward to the holidays. I feel like I could use more time before the next set of feasting and fasting comes along.
Here’s a true story I heard directly from the persons involved.
I met a guy at shul I had never seen before. I asked him had he just moved to the community. He said no, he’d been a member of the shul for decades, but he’d only just started coming regularly to services.
“That’s great,” I said.
“I guess,” he said. “I started coming for not-so-great reasons.”
He had been at a low point in his life, he explained, had been eating too much, smoking too much, generally down in the mouth.5 And his wife, who, of course, had to live with all of this, finally told him, “You really need to get God in your life.”
“In all the time we’ve been together,” he said, “she’d never said anything like that to me before.”
And not half a minute later, the doorbell rang. He went to answer it, and who was on the other side?
A Chabad rabbi.
The rabbi, whom I also know and who reads this Substack, was just doing the rounds, saw a mezuzah on the door, and decided to give it a try.
“It was like God knew I needed proof,” the guy told me. He welcomed the rabbi in. They schmoozed. He laid tefillin. And since then, he’s been pretty regular at shul—and, I assume, feeling better.
What am I getting at? Sometimes, God is in the city, sitting as a judge. Sometimes, He’s in the field, relaxing like a friendly young celebrity. And sometimes, He comes to your door like a rabbi working the neighborhood.
And maybe sometimes, He’s calling to you while you’re hiding out in your own mishegoss, like the Lord to Adam, “Where art thou?”
He knows where you are. I know where He is. Hopefully, the two of us will get together soon.
I’m tempted to capitalize all my pronouns, but considering that He is in the field, I’ll be sparing about that formality.
The Hebrew month preceding the month of the High Holidays, when we’re supposed to start getting psyched up for what’s to come.
Maimonides argued that any attribute we ascribe to God is inevitably insufficient.
If you don’t know who Elvis is, you surely won’t know Michale Nesmith, OBM. He was a member of the 1960s rock/pop band The Monkees, and I have been one of their most devoted fans nearly all my life (I’m wearing a Monkees T-shirt as I write this). I met him and one other band member at a fan convention when a generous guest at my home forked over $150 so my son and I could get pictures with them. The other Monkee was not friendly at all. He hardly seemed to acknowledge my and my son’s existence. Not so Nez, who smiled, and listened, and put his arm around me.
I don’t even know what this cliche means, and I generally object to cliches, but it felt right here.
Oh wow, that story of the man and the Chabad rabbi gave me goosebumps. Really beautiful.
I'm not sure if your son is still young enough to be at home, but if he is, a good reason to do Jewish stuff even when you're not "feeling" it, is to set an example for him. And it's fine to explain to him that even though you may not be excited about certain obligations right now, you feel it's important to maintain certain traditions anyway. That way, you're not being hypocritical.