YHWH Day

Yesterday was Victoria Day in Canada, a vestige of our monarchical past. Canada's head of state is still the Queen, represented in Canada by the largely ceremonial Governor-General, while the Prime Minister manages the daily affairs of government. Canada is not a republic but a constitutional monarchy.

The Canadian model of governance has relevance for a theo-political understanding of Judaism. Kings and queens represent a check to untrammelled democratic power. Hitler was elected to office and commanded the undivided loyalty of the German nation. Mussolini, on the other hand, was hemmed in by the monarchy of Victor Emmanuel III. Even the Duce had to answer to someone.

Israel is a monarchy, and a constitutional monarchy at that. Unlike the other Middle Eastern peoples, who tended to apotheosize their royalty as divine (think of the pharaohs), the Hebrews recognized the kingship of God above human rulership. Thus there always existed a greater entity (even if, paradoxically, that entity was non-existent) to which oppressed subjects could appeal. Israel will suffer no Führer.

Like Canada's queen, Israel's king is distant. Kafka wrote of the emperor sending a message "directly from his death bed, to you alone, his pathetic subject, a tiny shadow which has taken refuge at the furthest distance from the imperial sun." We are at the furthest distance from the imperial sun, without even idols of the emperor to soothe our longing; we don't even get the occasional royal visit. But nonetheless we yearn for His message.

Israel among the nations must be like Canada to the United States, maintaining fealty to the king while lying next to the whirlpool of republicanism. We must not serve marble idols or faces etched into rock, even as our neighbours (and kinsmen) bow before them. Our Victoria Day is the Sabbath and a weekly reminder of our duty.

Loyalty to the kingship of the holy is freedom from the tyranny of the profane. If the throne we serve is empty it is because we cannot humanly conceive of what is vast enough to fill it.

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