KN 5780
U’netaneh Tokef
I was thinking a lot about what to say tonight - thinking about why this holiday is so important to me - why I consider it my favorite holiday of the year. And I read an article about how, even in the darkest of times, Jews have found a way to mark Yom Kippur. From the Spanish Inquisition through the Holocaust - in secret and in desperation and sometimes at the risk of their lives - Jews commemorate this day. Why?
I’m a pretty Johnny-come-lately Jew. I was raised in a completely secular household and sought a more Jewish life as an adult. I remember going to my first Yom Kippur service at B’nai Jeshrun on the Upper West Side in New York about 25 years ago. I felt so out of place - I didn’t know the prayers, I didn’t understand the words. And still I was mesmerized - struck by the melodies and the power of the energy of that room.
I still don’t knew Hebrew - much to my husband’s chagrin - and I still don’t understand all the prayers. But I realized that the more I understood the liturgy, the less I felt out of place when everyone around me was davening and shockling.
And so my Jewish life has become not so much a system of belief as a process of discovery. Study of the words and why they were written leads me on a path to my own religion. And as I dive into specific parts of the liturgy, one thing becomes clear. Judaism - no matter how you observe it - is a tradition committed to personal agency and the possibility of transformation.
Last year, we talked about the Kol Nidre itself - the legal contract that kicks off the service and frees us from our vows and promises so that we may move into the new year with a clean slate.
This year, I want to move from law to poetry. Because this rich service that takes us on a 25 hour journey through our souls includes legal concepts, prayer and yes, poetry. In fact, contained within the High Holy Services is a poem so beautiful it inspired one of Leonard Cohen’s most haunting songs, Who By Fire. Its a stunning melody, but sort of a bummer. Its basically a contemplation of all the ways we can die. That’s the holiday in a nutshell, right? “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on the Fast of the Day of Atonement, it is sealed.” We’re told our names may not be written in the book of life. Bummer.
Let’s face it - the whole holiday is a bit of a bummer. We dress in white and men wear kittel - the garment they will be buried in. We don’t eat food or drink water. Its basically a dress rehearsal for death. (So Jewish - its a wonder we don’t call our estate planners and ask them to join us during the restorative yoga break before sundown.) But to approach the holiday as a bummer would be to miss entirely what’s so beautiful about it.
This poem, the U’netaneh Tokef, which literally means LET US SPEAK, is said on both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the third b’rakah of the Amidah in Musaf.
That means that on Yom Kippur, it comes just around the time you’re starting to feel weak from hunger. You might be thinking about how you’re going to make it to Neilah, or you’re starting to calculate the hours left before break fast. You might miss Musaf because cut out of services early to take a walk with a friend, or maybe your YK nap went a little long and you’ll just meet everyone later over a bagel. That’s ok.
But let’s assume you stay. Now, its Musaf, and the ark is open and we stand for the repetition of the amidah. We reach the Unetaneh Tokef - a poem with a perfect three act structure.
The first act is pomp and circumstance. God is on a throne, angels are trembling and the shofar is sounded - a reminder to wake up - pay attention.
The second act is all plot - who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water, who by famine and who by thirst- its brutal.
You’re vulnerable anyway - tired and hungry - and the liturgy chooses this moment to remind you of your fragility - remind you of how quickly what you have can be taken away. It says you have no power at all - your destiny is written in a book you can’t read and kept in a place you can’t find. Its deep stuff - and terrifying. It plays on all of our worst fears.
How many moments or hours or days of the week do we spend thinking about bad things - future fantasizing our anxieties about death or disease, literal and metaphorical - our failures and our foibles - what might befall our aging parents, our growing children, our bank accounts, our work life, our personal relationships? Time spent contemplating the exact things listed in this doom poem and more. We know its not productive and we get caught in a cycle that feels out of control.
So just when the Unetaneh Tokef is leaning into our greatest weaknesses, something extraordinary happens. A second act twist if you will. Mind you, this part is NOT in the Leonard Cohen song. After that long list of horrible things we have no control over, when we are feeling at our most vulnerable and out of control, we say the following words:
U-t’shuvah, u-t’fillah u-tz’dakah ma-avirin et ro’a ha-g’zerah.
But T’shuvah, T’fillah and Tz’dakah have the power to transform the harshness of our destiny. (Other translation - “avert the severe decree”)
T’shuvah - repentance but also return
T’fillah - prayer but also self-reflection
Tz’dakah - righteousness, justice and charity
We go from a list of things that can happen TO us straight to a list of things WE CAN DO - things that are proactive - things that have the power to transform. We are told to not wait for God to act upon us but to take action in our own lives and the lives of others - welcome a stranger into your home, feed the hungry, change the effect of the list of things that can kill you by living in the present.
And just like that we go from victim to protagonist - just like that we become the author of our own story, and just like that we go from waiting for something to happen to us - to deciding that WE determine our own present. Bad things can happen. But we are told in this moment that how we live our lives, how we act toward ourselves, toward God and toward one another is what determines the value and quality of our time here on earth. God inscribes and seals - but how we live this day, and how we feel about this day, is up to us.
The third act and denouement is a reminder: each of us comes from dust - and to dust we shall return. Our days on earth are limited. How will we live them? What choices will we make? What will our attitude be?
Three acts of the story - the three movements to the poem. First, the wake up call. Second, the warning and call to action. And finally, the reminder of fragility.
And so suddenly it occurred to me - this question of why, in the darkest of times, at the risk of their own lives, whether secular or religious, Jews for centuries connect to this moment of deep spiritual work. Its because on some level, the law and the prayer and the poetry lead to this one thing, and I can’t possibly say it better than Viktor Frankl so I will quote him:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
U’netaneh Tokef: the key to unlocking so much of what this 25 hours is about. It is the reminder to live in the present - to take control of your life, and to have the humility to know that we are but dust. We don’t know how many days or years we will have. But we determine how we will live them.
G’mar chatimah tova.
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