Crown The King, Change Yourself: Rabbi Moshe Tuvia Lieff’s Rosh Hashanah Challenge

As Rosh Hashanah approaches, many people instinctively think about teshuvah, past mistakes and what needs to be repaired. Rabbi Moshe Tuvia Lieff offered a different starting point during Chazaq’s Torah Talks: Before confronting the past, understand what Rosh Hashanah itself is asking of us.

Rabbi Lieff, a prominent rav, longtime communal leader and sought-after speaker, has spent decades serving Jewish communities in the Midwest and New York. A Brooklyn native, Rabbi Lieff studied at Yeshiva and Mesivta Torah Vodaath and later learned in kollel in Cleveland. Rabbi Lieff served for 19 years as rav of Congregation Bais Yisroel in Minneapolis before returning to Brooklyn to lead Agudath Israel Bais Binyomin in Flatbush. That combination of Torah scholarship, communal experience and an unmistakably warm delivery framed a discussion that moved from the meaning of Rosh Hashanah to the practical changes a Jew can carry into the new year.

The first point was striking: Rosh Hashanah is not primarily a day to dwell on sin. We do not recite Ashamnu or the lengthy confessions associated with Yom Kippur. The central task is to crown Hashem as King and place ourselves within that relationship.

Rabbi Lieff explained the familiar words Avinu Malkeinu through a simple contrast. A father wants everything for a child but may lack the ability to provide it. A king has enormous power, but why should one citizen among millions receive special attention? Hashem is both Avinu and Malkeinu: the Father Who wants what is best for us and the King Who has the ability to provide it.

That leads to one of Rabbi Lieff’s central approaches to Rosh Hashanah. The question is not merely what we did last year, but what role we intend to play in the year ahead. On the anniversary of Creation, when the world is judged, a person should be able to say: Give me another year because I intend to use it. My family needs me. My community needs me. I want to learn more Torah, give more tzedakah, help another Jew and become more useful in Hashem’s world.

Rabbi Lieff illustrated the idea through Pharaoh’s birthday in the Torah. Pharaoh reviewed the cases of the chief cupbearer and chief baker, restoring one to his position and executing the other. The point, Rabbi Lieff suggested, was not simply a retrospective judgment of their failures. Pharaoh was deciding whom the kingdom needed going forward. Rosh Hashanah similarly forces us to ask what we intend to contribute in the coming year.

The shofar deepens that message. It recalls Akeidat Yitzchak and the ram offered in Yitzchak’s place. Yet Rabbi Lieff asked why the ram’s horn became such a defining symbol. If the greatness of the Akeidah was Avraham Avinu’s willingness to sacrifice what was most precious, why not emphasize the knife?

The answer changes the tone of the day. Hashem does not want our destruction; He wants our return. The ram replaced Yitzchak. The shofar therefore speaks not only of sacrifice but of life, mercy and another opportunity to draw close. We ask Hashem for health, children, grandchildren, shalom bayit, parnassah and success not simply because we want more, but because we want the ability to use those blessings properly.

That understanding also reframes yirat Hashem. Rabbi Lieff recalled a Jew who became discouraged after opening an English machzor and seeing repeated references to fear and awe. There were already enough things to fear in ordinary life, the man argued. Why come to shul to ask for more fear?

Rabbi Lieff answered with the image of a child terrified of the dentist. Before entering the treatment room, the child may suddenly insist that the tooth no longer hurts. The pain did not disappear; one larger fear temporarily displaced everything else. Proper yirat Hashem is not meant to leave a person paralyzed. It gives life perspective. When Hashem occupies the center, many smaller fears lose their power.

And that fear is not simply fear of punishment. Rabbi Lieff described the relationship as the feeling one has toward a beloved rebbe whom one cannot bear to disappoint. The motivation comes from closeness, respect and love.

The same theme appeared in Rabbi Lieff’s discussion of the simanim at the Rosh Hashanah table. Apples and honey, the head of a fish and the other customary foods are not magic shortcuts around teshuvah. They are physical acts that give expression to what we are asking Hashem to bring into the new year.

The apple and honey also carry a deeper wish. We do not merely ask for a year that is objectively good. We ask for a year whose goodness we can recognize and feel. There is a difference between having enough and knowing that one has enough. A person can possess tremendous blessings and remain dissatisfied. The hope for a sweet year is that Hashem’s goodness should not only be present, but experienced as sweetness.

From there, Rabbi Lieff moved to the question everyone asks before Rosh Hashanah: How can this year actually be better?

The answer was not a sweeping resolution. It was change small enough to survive the enthusiasm that produced it.

People often imagine spiritual growth as reinvention. Rabbi Lieff urged something more realistic: identify one area that needs work and accept a concrete kabbalah that can last. It might involve Torah learning, honesty, compassion, patience, tefillah, family relationships or another area a person already knows needs attention.

“You know what ails you,” was the thrust of the message. Most people do not need someone else to identify every weakness. We know where we cut corners. We know where our patience disappears. We know which commitments repeatedly get postponed. The challenge is choosing one change and making it real.

That is especially important during the shofar blasts. Rather than allowing those moments to pass as emotion alone, a person can use them to accept one meaningful improvement. It need not be dramatic. A small kabbalah kept throughout the year can accomplish far more than an ambitious promise abandoned weeks later.

Rabbi Lieff also shared an episode that captured a gentler approach to mussar. Years earlier, Rabbi Lieff had considered extending an airline ticket through a travel agent in a way that raised a question of propriety. A respected Torah figure did not attack or embarrass Rabbi Lieff. Instead, the response was essentially: It may be technically permissible, but this is not straight. I know you; you are an honest person.

The rebuke worked precisely because it appealed to who Rabbi Lieff was capable of being. Rather than saying, “How could you do this?” it said, in effect, “This is not you.” Rabbi Lieff walked away strengthened rather than diminished.

That lesson applies equally to parents, educators and anyone trying to influence another Jew. Growth does not always come from telling someone how badly he has failed. Sometimes the more effective message is to remind a person of the goodness already inside and say: I expect more because I know who you are.

Rabbi Lieff closed with a chasidic story about a Jew who left his community to earn a living among non-Jews. Over time, the outward signs of his old life disappeared. Yet every Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur he returned to his rebbe and dressed once again as a chasid. Eventually he wondered whom he was fooling and returned wearing the clothing he wore throughout the year. The rebbe saw him and understood the truth differently: Now I see that all year you are really one of us; you only look like them.

That, Rabbi Lieff explained, is the challenge of Rosh Hashanah. The person who stands in shul on Rosh Hashanah is not supposed to be the disguise. That is who we really are. The task is to carry that person into an ordinary Tuesday months later, when there is no shofar, no machzor and no crowd reminding us what matters.

Rosh Hashanah is therefore not a performance and not a brief burst of inspiration. We crown Hashem as King, ask for another year and then demonstrate why that year matters by changing something real. The goal is not to emerge from Rosh Hashanah as an entirely different person. It is to leave knowing more clearly who we are, Whom we serve and what one thing we are prepared to do better..

---

Rabbi Yaniv Meirov is the mara d’atra of Kehilat Charm Circle in Kew Gardens Hills and serves as Chief Executive Officer of Chazaq. Now 222 episodes strong, Chazaq Torah Talks continues to inspire by showing that Jewish growth and survival are shaped through lived experience, commitment, and connection.