On the High Holidays, we read a poem known by its first two words in Hebrew: Unetaneh Tokef—Let Us Cede Power. It was written about a thousand years ago by an unknown author in Northern Europe. Whether one comes to synagogue in order to hear it, or stays away in order not to,
the poem epitomizes the High Holiday prayer services for many
contemporary Jews. In particular, this compelling and troubling passage
from the middle of the poem looms large:
On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.
How many will pass and how many will be created?
Who will live and who will die?
Who in their time, and who not their time?
Who by fire and who by water?
Who by sword and who by beast?
Who by hunger and who by thirst?
Who by earthquake and who by drowning?
Who by strangling and who by stoning?
Who will rest and who will wander?
Who will be safe and who will be torn?
Who will be calm and who will be tormented?
Who will become poor and who will get rich?
Who will be made humble and who will be raised up?
But teshuvah and tefillah and tzedakah (return and prayer and righteous acts)
deflect the evil of the decree.
The era when Unetaneh Tokef was written was a precarious
time for the Jews, full of massacres and forced conversions. The High
Holiday liturgy is packed with poems written in this period. In the
scheme of things, they are relatively new additions. After all, Jews
were celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur for a long time before
these poems existed. Unetaneh Tokef is not from the Bible and
it’s not from the Talmud; it’s just one poem, written by one obscure
author, and its imagery comes from one imagination. But, like it or not,
that imagery has stuck. Why? Because Unetaneh Tokef gives voice to what we really experience as we contemplate the future.
We look toward the coming year and we have no idea what will have happened by
the time we next look back. This is true every minute of our lives, but
Rosh Hashanah brings it to our attention. At this time next year, something will have happened—for good, for bad, or just for a change. If not this year—chas v’shalom—then in some future year, there will be upheaval, there will be loss. It is built into the system. In the words of Rabbi Linda Potemken,
leader of Congregation Beth Israel in Media, Pa., “the prognosis for
carbon-based life forms is not good.” We know this, but most of the time
we hide it away.
Imagine the text above without the first and last lines. The entire
passage is a list of questions. And the questions are not rhetorical. No
believer and no atheist, no scientist and no magician knows the
answers. Any of those things might happen. In fact, they will happen.
And some of them will happen in your very own life. Once they have
happened, they will turn out to have been the story of your life. Each
of us is living in a story whose plot we do not know. Our choices and
actions are part of that plot, but we are not the omniscient authors of
the major arcs.
On Rosh Hashanah it is written. The metaphor of God as a
writer and life as a written text is a very old one. When Moses pleads
with God to spare the generation that has built the golden calf, he
says, “and if not, erase me from the book that you have written.”
(Exodus 32:32) At first glance, the idea of life as a book that God has
written goes against our experience. We sense that we direct our own
steps, that the outcomes are related to the decisions we make and the
decisions other people make, and that both the good news and the bad
news in our lives are influenced by chance.
Putting aside the issues of fate and free will, however, there is
another part of our experience that finds perfect expression in the Book
of Life metaphor. You know that in reality there is only one life story
that is yours. Though it has yet to unfold, and whether or not it is
preordained, the story of “what will have happened” is real. I sit here
today and I wonder: What will my life be like one year, one decade, from
now? When I turn the next page, there may be a tragedy that makes
everything I strive for today seem worthless. Or maybe there will be a
wonderful surprise that makes my striving irrelevant. There will be
exactly one future, and it is impossible to grasp. How should I live
right now, given this uncertainty?
Of course, the future is always out of our hands. Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur are no different from other times in that way. But like many
Jewish holidays they are a training ground for living all year. For 10
days we are in intensive training on this point: Something will happen
and we don’t know what. We are in a plot, and we don’t get to write it.
We would very much like to be in control of our own lives, but the fact
is we are not. The great joys and sorrows will happen largely without
our consent.
What difference, then, can teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah possibly make?
Even if they don’t change the plot of your story, they do change your
character. That is, they make you a more worthwhile character in your
own story. It’s not the plot that determines whether a work of
literature is great or not so great. When you read a novel, you don’t
appreciate the characters on the basis of whether they live long lives
with no loss. What you appreciate is the depth and richness of the
characters’ lives. Teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah can
change your story into one worth reading. They can introduce the forms
of thought and expression that make your story eloquent. They can make
you part of a well-written novel, one about good characters grappling
with serious issues.
Teshuvah—repentence, response, return—is the ability to move, to change course, to come back to center, to reconcile.
Tefillah—prayer—is the ability to let the world take your breath away, to hold onto and to articulate gratitude, hope, and awe.
Tzedakah—righteousness—is the ability to pursue justice and to act from a fountain of generosity.
Some translations imply that teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah can change the plot. For example, here is the line as it appears in the Birnbaum machzor,
used for decades in Conservative and Orthodox synagogues: “But
repentance, prayer, and charity cancel the stern decree.” However, the
Hebrew is clear. It is not the decree that is transformed, it is the
badness of the decree. And “deflect” is a more precise translation than
“cancel.” Teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah deflect the badness of the decree by changing the focus from our powerless suffering to our power of response.
On Yom Kippur it is sealed. For 10 days we live with
excruciating awareness of the fact that our stories will include
suffering, without any promise that we will be comforted. On Yom Kippur
we give ourselves over completely to this truth. And then we close that
book. We move on to the most life-affirming period in the Jewish
calendar: Sukkot. We take with us the truth that we must cede power, but
we don’t cede all of it. Even when we can’t change the plot, it is the
strength of our character that can make the story rich and strong. It is
not what will happen to you that makes your life meaningful. That power
is in your hands, as you cultivate the self to whom it will happen. Teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah are there to help you write yourself into a role worth reading.
by Helen Plotkin
Tablet Magazine, 03/09/2013
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/142538/unetanah-tokef?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=d2f72951f9-9_3_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-d2f72951f9-206801785
