The King Invited You. Don’t Bring a List.

Picture it. All year you have been trying to get into the one concert everyone is talking about. Not a stadium. The king’s palace. Invitation only. And somehow, against every odd, your name is on the list.

You walk through the gates. Your heart is pounding. The doors open, and there he is, the king himself, the one who wrote your name down, the one who wanted you there.

And the first words out of your mouth are complaints.

The traffic was awful. The seat is not what I hoped. My back hurts. My sister still hasn’t called. And since I have you here, let me tell you everything I’d like changed.

No one would do that. If you finally stood in front of the person you had admired your whole life, you wouldn’t think about your problems at all. You would forget them. You’d be shaking. You’d say thank you, thank you, I can’t believe I’m here.

That is Rosh Hashana. The doors of the palace open. The King is standing there. He is the one who invited you. And most of us walk in and start negotiating.

I have done it myself. I have walked into that day with a list, and I have walked out feeling emptier than when I came in. It took me years to understand why. Rosh Hashana is not about me. It is about thanking the King for one more year of being here. One more year of breathing, of holding the people I love, of getting to try again. Find the blessings. Say thank you. And for everything else, let go and say, I trust You.

There is a reason this feels so hard. You cannot inhale a new year while you are still clenched around the old one. I see it in my patients every day. Someone comes in short of breath, and half the time the problem is not that they can’t take air in. It is that they never let it out. The lungs are full of what’s already stale. The soul works the same way. Before you ask for anything new, exhale. Let the resentment out. Let the arguments you’re still winning in your head go quiet. Let the year end.

Then, with empty lungs, you are ready to inhale. Our sages teach that the whole day is about crowning God as King. I have spent a long time turning that one word into something I can carry with me all year, and I want to give it to you. Remember CROWN.

C. Crown the Giver.

Every moment, you are either crowning yourself or crowning the One who made you. There is no third choice.

Ask yourself honestly: how many months this year were you sad? How many days did you spend complaining, criticizing, comparing, trying to control? Because you cannot complain and crown at the same time. One or the other comes out of your mouth, never both.

Somewhere along the way we decided that if life is not comfortable, it is not good. Who taught us that? Nothing that ever grew in me grew when I was comfortable. Your joy is the measure of your crowning. When you praise, you place the crown on His head. When you complain, you quietly move it to your own.

R. Release, and let God.

Let go and let God. That is what emunah is. It is the trust that the One who invited you into the palace is also the One running it.

Go back to the first story we were ever told. Eve’s sin was not that she was hungry. It was three words: I will rule. The moment we grab for control, everything turns upside down. And we all do it. We manage outcomes, people, timing, what everyone thinks of us. The tighter the grip, the less that reaches us, because a closed fist cannot receive anything.

So name the three places you tried to rule this year. Not to beat yourself up. Just to be honest, because without honesty there is no change. Then, one at a time, hand them back. Say it out loud if you need to: this one is Yours.

O. Own nothing. It is all a gift.

Humility is not thinking small of yourself. Humility is knowing that every blessing came through you and not because of you. You did not close the deal. A buyer was sent who wanted exactly what you had, and the blessing passed through your hands on its way to you.

Look at your life this way and it changes everything. Your children are a gift. The home you sleep in tonight is a gift. The heart beating in your chest, which I have spent thirty years listening to, beats without you asking it to. That is a gift. Poteach et yadecha, You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing. We say it every day and we walk right past it. Nothing you have is owned. All of it is on loan from an open hand.

And when the gift is failure, when the door slams, when what you built breaks, the same humility says: this too came through me. Don’t let success go to your head and don’t let failure go to your heart. The wise fall seven times and get up seven times. The falling was never the question. Look at what you stopped doing because you were afraid of being hurt again, and go back to it.

W. Want what God wants.

The deepest prayer I know is not “give me what I want.” It is “help me want what You want.”

Think about how many of the things that shaped you would never have been let in through the front door. You would have called them problems and bolted the lock. So they came through the back, dressed as loss, as heartbreak, as the thing that fell apart. And now you thank God for them. Surrender is only this: agreeing to open the front door this year. Or, in the four words you can say standing in front of the King, I trust You.

N. Notice your blessings.

Whatever you appreciate, appreciates. And whatever you stop noticing gets taken from you, not to punish you, but so you’ll remember what you had.

So walk into this Rosh Hashana with a gratitude board, not a vision board. Say, look at everything I received this year. You will leave with more than the person who came holding a wish list.

You can tell what you truly value by how fast you move toward it. Watch how people run to the gym, mat under the arm, terrified of being two minutes late. That is appreciation. When something is an opportunity, we hurry. When it becomes an obligation, we drag. Look at what you have been dragging. It is telling you what you’ve stopped being grateful for.

One more year.

Every one of these points to the same place. Crowning, releasing, owning nothing, wanting what He wants, noticing. All of it is to plant one thing inside you: gratitude. That is why the first words a Jew says on waking, before the phone, before the coffee, are Modeh Ani. I thank You. Not I need. Not I want. I thank You for giving me back my soul for one more day.

Rosh Hashana is Modeh Ani stretched across a whole year.

So when the doors open and you find yourself standing before the King who invited you, don’t reach for the list. Look around at what you were given. Thank Him for one more year of being here. And for everything you cannot control, give it back to Him. I trust You.

Exhale. Then inhale.

Crown the Giver. Release and let God. Own nothing. Want what God wants. Notice your blessings.

Shana tova. May you be written for a year of open hands.

Blessings.

Afshine Ash Emrani, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Assistant Clinical Professor, UCLA
David Geffen School of Medicine

Join Our new website

Castle-Connolly Nationwide Top Doctor (Since 2008)
Los Angeles Magazine Super Doctor (Since 2010)
LA Style Magazine Top 100 Doctors in America (2024)

Subscribe to mynewsletter: substack.com/@afshineemrani
Explore my books: Amazon Author Profile