Long Lived the Queen by Rabbi Aron White

Queen Elizabeth the Second seemed like a permanent feature of the global landscape – France has the Eiffel Tower, New York has the Statue of Liberty, and the United Kingdom has the Queen. For most of us alive today, she is the only monarch of Britain we have known of, and even though there are queens who reign in various countries, when one says the Queen, it is invariably Queen Elizabeth to whom they are referring. As one English journalist said, the death of a 96-year-old woman is not a surprise, but the death of the Queen is still a shock; and as a moment in history, it allows us to reflect on her life, the values that she modeled, and what her reign meant for British society and the Jews. The Unlikely Queen

One of the great ironies of Queen Elizabeth’s life was that although she died the longest serving monarch in British history, when she was born in 1926, she wasn’t supposed to be Queen at all. Her uncle King Edward VIII became King in 1936, and his future children would have been heir to the throne. However, once he abdicated in order to marry a divorcee (something then not allowed for kings), his brother became King George VI and King George’s ten-year-old daughter Elizabeth became heir to the throne. King George died young at the age of 56, and thus in 1952, aged just 25, Queen Elizabeth II became Queen of the United Kingdom.

Throughout its over-one-thousand years of history, the role of the monarch has evolved and changed, and by the time Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, the monarchy was a more symbolic role rather than being a ruler with the wide-ranging powers of monarchs from previous centuries.

Thus, Queen Elizabeth reigned for seven decades in what was largely a ceremonial role. If she just held a symbolic role, what did she achieve during her reign and what is the legacy she leaves behind?

I want to analyze the reign of Queen Elizabeth in two ways: in terms of what she modeled for people, and in terms of what she meant to people. Both through her actions, and through the unique role she served, she made a deep impact on the lives of millions of people and leaves a significant legacy both to the world and for the Jewish people. The Queen’s Values

I have never been a royal, but in certain ways, it actually seems to be somewhat similar to being an Orthodox Jew! Just like Jews, the royal family are part of an ancient tradition that goes back for generations, with each new person being a link in the chain. There are numerous laws and customs that guide the royal family’s behavior, ranging from the big questions of whom one can marry to minutiae like with which hand to hold one’s knife and fork. (There are lots of rules for guests, too – when eating at the Royal table, if the Queen finished eating, everyone had to stop eating, too!) A core value of the Queen was living as part of a traditional community, with the lifestyle and strictures that come along with that, something we are very familiar with from our own Jewish and halachic contexts.

Additionally, in a world that speaks about individual rights, the Queen would always speak about responsibility and duty. One of the Queen’s most famous speeches was given when she was still a princess, on her 21st birthday in 1947: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

This commitment to a life of duty, working hard to serve her people, framed her life – she saw her life as a series of obligations, and she worked tirelessly to serve her people. The Queen would receive daily updates of what was going on in Parliament that she would meticulously read every day and would have weekly meetings with the prime minister to hear about the latest updates in her kingdom. She was always punctual, and the prime ministers she met with all said she was always well prepared. She rarely took a day off work – in 2017, when she was a 91-year-old woman, she attended 292 royal engagements such as dinners and receptions. This sense of duty was seen by the Queen as a divine obligation, that this was her calling from G-d.

This was the theme of a tribute to the Queen given by Lord David Wolfson of Tredegar, a Jewish British Lord (who attended Yeshivat Hakotel), in what must be the greatest drasha ever heard in the British House of Lords: The Hebrew root of the word mitzvah, its basic etymology, is the word “tzav,” which means “commandment,” “order,” or “duty.” You do a mitzvah not just because it is a good deed and not just because you feel like doing it; you do a mitzvah because it is your duty. Her late Majesty spent her whole life doing the right thing and not just because she felt like it or because the mood took her.

She spent her 96 years doing the right thing, day in, day out, out of a sense of duty. It was a life, if I may respectfully say, of mitzvah, of acting out of a profound sense of personal duty and under the solemn oath to G-d which she took at her Coronation. In Hebrew, every letter also has a numerical value, and you can add up the values of individual letters to get the value of a word. In one of those coincidences which perhaps are not, the numerical value of the Hebrew word tzav, the root of the word mitzvah, is 96: 96 years of tzav, of duty, and also of mitzvah, of doing the right thing because that is your duty.

While I cannot confirm this, I am confident that this is the first time a Gematria has been used in the House of Lords, and it holds a powerful message. In a world that celebrates entitlement and individuality, Queen Elizabeth modeled a life of divinely inspired service to others.

The Queen and her family also serve as remarkable models of tziniut and refinement. She would speak with “the Queen’s English,” not only with its distinctive accent but in a style in which each word is measured and refined. Her style of dress would always be modest, and this is true of all of the royal family. In the age of social media, where words and pictures are shared with the world with fewer and fewer barriers, the Queen and her family are profoundly counter-culture models. “Kol kvuda bat melech pnima” is a source for the idea of tziniut, and Queen Elizabeth represented a living example of the kavod with which a bat melech conducted herself. The Queen’s Meaning

She may have modeled a duty driven life and conducted herself with refinement, but what did she achieve as the monarch? If she doesn’t make laws or make the decisions that affect policy, what is the meaning of seventy years of such a reign?

I believe that there was great significance to Queen Elizabeth’s reign, because it gave the British public three tremendous gifts – two of which applied to all her subjects, and one that was particularly relevant for the Jewish people.

The first gift she provided Britain with was a sense of unity. She was the sovereign and symbolic leader of the British people and stood above the divides of party politics. She did not get involved in the issues of the day; even regarding recent issues like Brexit or Scottish Independence, she did not share her views. Her role was to be above politics, attending charity events, visiting the sites of national tragedies and leading national celebrations, comforting those who are suffering, and honoring national heroes.

In today’s polarized era, we can see how important this was. The divisions between right and left, liberal and conservative, have become so deeply entrenched that modern America can feel like two societies battling each other. For the UK, the Queen was always a unifying force above and apart from politics. (To some extent, in Israel’s polarized climate, President Herzog is playing a similar role.) For seventy years, Queen Elizabeth served as a uniting force in British public life.

The second gift she gave to British society was identity. Even without holding executive power, the Queen is actually entwined into British identity and the fabric of British society in a way that makes her part and parcel of the life of all British people. She is literally everywhere – her face is on the money and stamps, the national anthem is a prayer for her well-being, and the parliament and government are officially in service of the queen. Senior lawyers are called Queen’s Counsels (or now King’s Counsels), and the leading individuals in their field are organized in the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal Academy of Music and tens of other such institutions, all of which are denoted as Royal. She is the official head of the armed forces, and soldiers fighting for Britain in Afghanistan and the Falkland Islands would go to battle to fight for “Crown and Country.” If a company services the Queen, the Queen can provide them a Royal Warrant, which is then displayed on their products; British people literally eat their Weetabix breakfast cereal in their morning from a box with a royal stamp printed on it, knowing that this company is one the 686 companies that has provided the Queen with the product they are receiving.

Queen Elizabeth was simply everywhere and part of everything, and in a deep way, the monarchy in Britain is part of what it means to be British. The loss of Queen Elizabeth means a loss of a part of their identity for the British people.

But for Jews, maybe the most important gift the Queen gave us was the gift of security.

For the generation who arrived in Britain as immigrants in the middle of the 20th century, the royal family held a very special place. The Queen’s embrace of the Jewish community was the greatest symbol to this group of immigrants that they had found a safe haven. My grandparents were refugees from Hungary – to them, the Queen was a symbol of all that was good about Britain, and on a deep, maybe even subconscious level, it was understood that she was the one setting the tone of acceptance of Jews in the country. When the Queen would meet the chief rabbi or send a letter to the Jewish community to mark a significant milestone, the deeper message it sent was that you are welcome and Britain.

British Jews are also well aware that they are part of the second chapter of Anglo Jewry, which began with Jews being allowed back into England in 1656. The first chapter of Anglo Jewry, which took place starting one thousand years ago, featured kings such as Richard the Lionheart, who was an open anti-Semite who took part in the Crusades, and was a chapter that ended with being expelled in 1290 by King Edward I. In the 20th century, as centuries of Jewish life in Russia, Poland and Germany began at first to unravel and then to be engulfed in an inferno, Jews were searching for a haven and for stability. As tens of thousands of Jews arrived on British shores, nothing symbolized that they had found a new home than the Queen, heir to a one-thousand-year tradition, who accepted the Jews as equal British subjects. The long reign of Queen Elizabeth marked a long period of stability and security for hundreds of thousands of British Jews. The Future

So, as the Elizabethan Era ends, what does the future hold for the Royal Family, Britain, and Jews in England? There obviously is no way of seeing the future, but I want to focus on two positives that relate to the new King of England, Charles III, and the new heir to the throne, Prince William.

While it is true that the Queen was warm and welcoming towards the Jews, she does seem to have been more neutral when it came to Israel. In a move that possibly was the choice of the British Foreign Office, but that was nonetheless painful, the Queen never visited Israel. Charles III, however, does seem to be closer to the Jewish state than his mother – for one thing, he has visited Israel three times; twice for the funerals of Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and then on an official royal visit in January 2020. Charles III was also very close to the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, giving him great honor and praise both during his life and after his passing. There is reason for optimism that King Charles III will be a friend of both the Jewish people and of Israel.

I would argue that Prince William has already had a majorly positive impact on British society in another realm. As mentioned above, the royal family guides the tone of many parts of British society. One trait of the royals for generations is the tendency to suppress one’s feelings and emotions, what is known in England as “keeping a stiff upper lip.” While this has a place, this could lead to being emotionally stifled and many mental health issues. The past decade has seen a major change in attitudes and awareness in the UK towards mental health, and I believe a lot of this has been led by Prince William. He has spoken openly about dealing with the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and has openly challenged the idea of always “keeping a stiff upper lip,” saying that looking after one’s mental health is more important. This is an incredibly impactful change and hopefully is a sign of more positive things to come.

For the past seventy years, Jews in the UK prayed on Shabbat that Hashem protect the Queen and all her family. As King Charles III takes the throne, let us join in their tefillos, “May He put a spirit of wisdom and understanding into his heart and into the hearts of all his counsellors, that they may uphold the peace of the realm, advance the welfare of the nation, and deal kindly and justly with all the House of Israel. In his days and in ours, may our Heavenly Father spread the tabernacle of peace over all the dwellers on earth; and may the redeemer come to Zion; and let us say Amen.”

Rabbi Aron White grew up in London and now lives in Arnona, Yerushalayim. He has semicha from Yeshiva University and serves as the Associate Editor of HaMizrachi Magazine.