Rosh Hashanah: Love, Judgment, and Divine Relationship

Rabbi Zweig addresses three fundamental questions about Rosh Hashanah: why it feels heavy and oppressive, how we can focus on judgment while supposedly serving God without thought of reward, and how reward can be both the basic axiom of Jewish belief and something we shouldn't think about. He begins by examining a Talmudic teaching about loving God, noting that it concludes with assurance of eventual reward, which seems to contradict the call for selfless service. The Rabbi argues that serving without expectation of any response is actually self-destruction, not love, comparing it to idol worship where one serves gods who are 'estranged' and don't respond. True love requires knowing the other will respond, but without creating a contractual obligation. Using the analogy of a king leasing land and expecting thirty bushels but receiving only five, he explains that God knows our tendency toward self-destructive behavior - our yetzer hara that drives us to sacrifice ourselves compulsively rather than act intelligently.