divine judgment

Distinctions

din (דין)

The article opens from the Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:2) that on Rosh Hashanah all the inhabitants of the world pass before Hashem like the animals of a corral and He judges the whole of Creation, which is why the day is Yom HaDin; but Yom Kippur is called the Day of Judgment as well, so what separates them? Ramban: Rosh Hashanah is din b'rachamim, judgment inside mercy, and Yom Kippur is rachamim b'din, mercy inside judgment. The article calls the distinction cryptic and takes up only the Rosh Hashanah half, leaving Yom Kippur for another time, so nothing here explains rachamim b'din. Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein unpacks din through a mashal of two philanthropists. Both give large sums, but the second vets every applicant, weighs the cause, and sets the amount by what the man before him merits. That is din: the receiver is the object of focus, so the influx can be curtailed, delayed, or portioned. In Tanach the plain word elohim can also denote a human judge, and calling Hashem Elokim invokes exactly that role, the Judge of all Creation.

rachamim (רחמים)

The first philanthropist in the mashal hands out money without asking who is receiving it. The focus stays on the giver, so the giving is steady and does not depend on desert. That is rachamim, and it is why the four-letter Name is associated with it. The Kabbalists express the same pair as duchra and nukva, and as mashpia and mekabel, influencer and recipient. In the imagery of the article the sun, always the same disc and always emitting its own light, is the giver and so rachamim; the moon, which has no light of its own and waxes and wanes, is the receiver and so din. Rosh Hashanah, first day of a solar year and first day of a lunar month at once, is where the two systems meet.

tekiah (תקיעה) and teruah (תרועה)

A tekiah is one straight, continuous sound; a teruah is made of several short broken sounds (whether three longer, nine shorter, or three followed by nine is a halachic uncertainty). Klein: teruah is akin to the Aramaic rauah, "broken," as in the Gemara's sulam rauah, a ladder with broken rungs. Hence the pairing in Tehillim 47:6, "Elokim has ascended with the teruah, Hashem with the sound of the shofar": the Name of din stands with the fragmented blast, the Name of rachamim with the whole one. Because every teruah is sandwiched between two tekios, all that shows from outside is rachamim; this is the Kabbalistic mesikas hadin, "sweetening the judgment," and the same principle in dipping the apple in honey, honey being sweet and so itself rachamim. The article reads tiku bachodesh shofar bakeseh l'yom chageinu (Tehillim 81:4) along the same line: the Rosh Chodesh side of the day, the side that carries the din, is the concealed one.

The article closes by asking what such concealment can accomplish, since we can hardly be fooling anyone by closing our eyes to the din. Its answer is that the concealment works by moving the object of focus. If we are judged, we are the object of focus, and with our sins that is a poor place to stand; so on Rosh Hashanah we do not speak of sins at all, but of Hashem's greatness and His Kingship, and in doing so we shift the focus from the receiver to the Giver, which is the rachamim paradigm, under which He gives without our deserving it. That is how the day is din immersed in rachamim and sweetened on the outside.

Rendering guidance

• Din / rachamim as a pair: judgment and mercy. Where the sense is the mode of Divine conduct rather than a verdict, "the attribute of judgment" and "the attribute of mercy" are safer.
• Ramban's formulas are best left transliterated with a gloss: din b'rachamim (judgment within mercy), rachamim b'din (mercy within judgment). Do not invert them; the inner word is the operative one.
• Tekiah and teruah stay transliterated in any halachic or shofar context. Where the drashah turns on the sound, gloss once: tekiah (an unbroken blast), teruah (a broken one).
• Trap: English "mercy" will also absorb chesed, chanun, and rachum, and English "judgment" will absorb mishpat and din alike (see the din / mishpat / chok / dat entry). If a passage sets din against mishpat, no single English word may cover both.
• Trap: rachamim is not softness. When din and rachamim stand together in one phrase, the contrast to carry into English is focus on the receiver against focus on the Giver, not harshness against gentleness.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Rosh Hashana: A Tale of Two Beginnings," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 28 Elul 5779 (2019-09-28): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8411-rosh-hashana-a-tale-of-two-beginnings.md. Primary loci: Rosh Hashanah 1:2 (all the world passes before Him like sheep of a flock); Ramban on din b'rachamim and rachamim b'din; Tehillim 47:6 (the article cites the chapter, 47, without the verse, and notes it is said seven times before the shofar) and Tehillim 81:4 (likewise cited as chapter 81); the Gemara's sulam rauah. The sun-and-moon parable is carried above as the article gives it; its calendrical mechanics (the nineteen-year cycle, intercalation, the solar eclipse) are background and are not repeated here.