At four periods the world is judged; on Pesach - for the grains, on Shavuot - for the fruits of the trees, on Rosh Hashanah all who came into the world pass before Him as sheep, as is written (Psalms 33) "He who fashions the hearts of them all, who discerns all their doings," and on Sukkoth they are judged for water.

(Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:2)

 

Only the God of Thoughts Can Evaluate Who Is a Sinner, Who Is a Tzaddik

One whose sins exceed his merits dies immediately in his wickedness, as is written, "For most of your sins", and so a society whose sins are many is annihilated immediately, as is written: "The outcry in Sodom and Amora - how great it is!", and similarly the entire world, if their sins exceed their merits, they are destroyed immediately, as is written: "Now God saw that great was humankind's evildoing on earth". This weighing is not done according to the number of merits and sins, but considers the relative weight of each sin and merit; there is a merit which may outweigh a number of sins, as is written: "for some good has been found in him", and there is a sin which outweighs several merits, as is written: "A single error destroys much of value" - and weighing is done only in the mind of the God of thought, and He alone knows how to evaluate the merits as against the sins.

(Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 3:2)

 

 

Best Wishes for A Good Year

To Our Readers

To the Entire House of Israel

 to All Mankind

A Year of Peace and Tranquility

An End to the Year with Its Curses

A Beginning of a Year with Its Blessings

Inscribe Us in the Book of Life, for Your Sake, Living God

 

 

"UNETANEH TOKEF"

Gili Zivan

 

Of all the piyyutim - liturgical poems - of Rosh Hashanah, I choose with great love as my favorite "Unetaneh Tokef". Every year I find myself looking forward to this supreme king of the day's piyyutim, to "Unetaneh Tokef". I repeatedly ask myself what it is in this ancient prayer that so excites and thrills me since childhood.

At first it was the hair-raising story of R' Amnon of Mayence. I - a girl of eight, or maybe ten - read the tiny lines on the margin of the siddur, which relate the wonderful and frightening tale of a far-away time and a distant place, about a courageous man, a giant of the spirit.

Later, it may have been the intense silence which pervaded the synagogue of my youth, right before the chazzan began to chant "A-dam". A single word which melody turns into a whole human story, beginning with the sound of a teruah - a trumpet blast - and ending in the depths of the earth (the sobbing of violins). "Man, comes from dust and ends in dust; he wins his bread at the risk of his life."

Since the mid-seventies, the trauma of the Yom Kippur War asks to be squeezed into the pages of the machzor, assisted by the wonderful melody of Yair Rosenblum. This melody is simultaneously "the most Israeli" and "the most Jewish". Whether heard ten times or a hundred times, it never ceases to affect me each time anew.

With the years, there has a developed literary understanding, adding awareness of the meaning of the short lines of the piyyut.

What is so unique about this piyyut? ´ Why, after hundreds of years, does it continue to cause hearts to tremble?

Why has it of late become the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur anthem for secular as well as religious Israelis? What is the source of its power?

I think that one of the wonderful things about this piyyut is the dramatic mid-poem transition from the feeling of total dependence upon God to the belief that we still have the ability to influence our world.

The worshipper suddenly switches from a self-image of a powerless person, ruled totally by a higher power, to optimism and trust in his ability to change the direction of life's flow.

The piyyut opens with a declaration of the holiness of the day on which "thy throne shall be established on mercy, and thou shall occupy it in truth." Already in this opening, the duality springs forth: the Lord sits on "the throne of mercy", which has the quality of forgiveness of his creations, alongside a description of the Lord who sits "in truth" in the celestial court, opening the books of memories of men and inscribing their sentences. The heavenly retinue awaits the reading of the verdict with suspense, and behold! the sounding of the shofar of the king who is also "judge and arbiter, discerner and witness" - followed by a gentle whisper.

The picture of the judge determining fates slowly dissolves, replaced by a softer picture. God is portrayed as a shepherd who checks the lambs in his flock, deciding the fate of each lamb. But the shepherd is not only a judge, he is a kind of compassionate father, who guards and takes care of his flock.

From the image of the shepherd checking his flocks, we move to the "inscribing of their destiny", and to the dramatic section of the poem, which describes the feeling accompanying the fateful verdict.

On Rosh Hashanah their destiny is inscribed

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed,

How many shall pass away,

And how many shall be brought into existence...

Who shall have comfort and who shall be tormented,

Who shall become poor and who shall become rich,

And then, suddenly, the sobbing, melancholy melody changes; the cantor and the congregation cry out:

But repentance, prayer and charity cancel the stern decree!

And further on we read:

 

You have no desire for anyone to die,

But that he turn from his evil way and live

How can this be? How does something which was, just a moment before, so deterministic and threatening, become so full of hope? What has happened during the prayer?

What is the meaning of the words "But repentance and prayer and charity cancel the stern decree"? Is this some sort of magic?

May I suggest that the answer is to be found on a totally different level.

True, on the face of it we do not control our lives, everything is determined from above. But this is only one part of the human experience. To be human does not only mean to be helpless; to be human means to influence.

How? By our ability to change ourselves, to recreate ourselves. This is very difficult psychological work, but it is possible. Traditional terminology calls this deep psychological process "teshuva" - repentance.

Teshuvah is the courage to acknowledge those aspects of our personality which we want to change, to admit to our weaknesses, and then to try - with little steps - to walk in new, unfamiliar paths. This is a spiritual process of analysis, a psychological process which drains energies and spiritual powers, but Judaism believes that it can be done. This is the basic premise behind the concept of repentance and the "Days of Repentance" which are currently reaching their climax.

What else is given us? "Prayer" - prayer is the expression of our decision; do we continue to engage only in "the here and now", or do we seek additional meanings to our lives? When we pray, we proclaim that there is something beyond reality, there is somewhere to strive towards, there is a reason for striving. Prayer means that we choose to relate not only to the horizontal foundation (man-man), but also to the vertical foundation (man-God).

And the third foundation which cancels the stern decree? "Charity". Charity is our social responsibility. It is in our power to change economic reality, ours and our neighbor's. It is in our power to help to those whose financial collapse may have turned them into paupers for a while. Charity is the traditional way of saying "How will your society look? It depends on you!"

The stern decree can be changed by the merit of our actions.

God gave us humans the ability to shape the community in which we live. The ability and the responsibility. The institutions of charity we establish and the "gemillut chasadim" we do will determine what kind of world this will be.

Jewish tradition, as is reflected in "Unetaneh Tokef" and in the many other prayers of the Days of Awe, believes in the ability of the individual to change, even in mid-life... in "teshuvah". The picture of God, as reflected in the piyyut and throughout the Rosh Hashanah Machzor, is that of a God who gives man a chance, "You wait for him until his dying day; if he repents, you readily accept him." God creates man, he knows their impulses, he is aware of their failings "for they are but flesh and blood". He understands that his creation needs a 'second chance'. This opportunity is granted time and again. The question is only do we find the strength to take responsibility for our destiny.

If we return to the question with which we began: what is the secret of the magic of "Unetaneh Tokef" , one of the answers in embedded precisely in this matter.

This ancient piyyut expresses better than anything else the feeling of modern man, who experiences two opposing feelings simultaneously: For one moment he feels himself to be a "zero", like a marionette controlled by wondrous and powerful powers, he knows not what the next day will bring, what catastrophe lies at his door. On the other hand - he feels "all powerful". He conquers worlds, eradicates diseases, leads to far-reaching changes in economics and in world policies.

In the words of R' Amnon of Mayence: Man "is like the potsherd that breaks, the grass that withers, the flower that fades, the shadow that passes, the cloud that vanishes, the breeze that blows, the dust that floats, the dream that flies away", but he is also able - through "Repentance, Prayer, and Charity - to cancel the stern decree!"

Rabbi Soleveitchik wrote an excellent description of this bi-faceted human and religious experience:

The first Adam is the man of glory, domination, and success; the second Adam, the lonely man of faith, the man of obedience and failure - these are not two different persons found in external conflict, the "I' against "you" - they are one man in a state of internal conflict... in every man there are two personalities, the first Adam, creator and man of glory, and the second Adam, the subdued and the humble. (Man of Faith, pp. 49-50)

The motif of duality - dependence as against independence, helplessness as against ability - is a frequent motif in the Jewish calendar and in traditional texts, but in the month of Elul and the festivals of Tishrei, this tension is emphasized sevenfold. We pass, almost inadvertently, between moments which stress man's responsibility and ability, to moments of dependence and futility.

For example, the concept of teshuva is, by nature, optimistic, presupposing the individual's capability for change, but a large part of the selichot expresses the experiencing of sin and total failure, which can have no repair other than by God's forgiveness. All the letters of the alef-bet cannot suffice to describe the extent of our sins, and we repeat again and again the order of the alef-bet in the piyyutim of confession - "Ashamnu, bagadnu" and "Al chet shechatanu", etc., -but despite this, we assume that "In the book of life and blessing, peace and prosperity, we will be inscribed and remembered before you."

In the Yom Kippur liturgy, the feeling of guilt reaches its peak in Ravva's supplication (Berachot 17):

My God, before I was formed I was of no worth, and now that I have been formed it is as if I have not been formed. Dust I am in life, and all the more so in death. In thy sight, I am like an object filled with shame and disgrace...

From Rabba's prayer, conveying extreme worthlessness, we move to the conclusion of Yom Kippur with the full-voiced proclamation "THE LORD IS GOD!", to the joyful singing of "Lashana habaa" - "The coming year in Yerushalayim", and then pass on to an evening which is all doing and trust in the power of doing - the construction of the Sukkah.

Will we have the wisdom to adopt this sober optimism also outside the walls of the synagogue, to overcome the feelings of futility, to influence future stages of Israeli society? Will we have the intelligence to mold a society based on foundations of repentance, prayer, and charity, and thereby to cancel the evil decree?

Dr. Gili Zivan is director of the Yaakov Herzog Center for Jewish Studies in Kibbutz Ein Tsurim

 

When Is Man Judged?

It is taught in a Barayta: All [things] are judged on Rosh Hashanah, and their verdict is sealed on Yom Kippur, so said Rabbi Meir.

R' Yehudah said: Everything is judged on Rosh Hashanah, but verdicts are sealed for each in its own time; on Pesach for the grains, on Shavuot for the fruits of the tree, on Sukkoth for water and man is judged on Rosh Hashanah, and his verdict is sealed on Yom Kippur.

R' Yossi says: Man is judged daily, as is written (Job 7:18), "You inspect him every morning."

R' Natan says: Man is judged every hour, as is written (ibid.)"Examine him every minute".

 (Bavli, Rosh Hashanah 16a)

 

This is the reason that the Day of Judgment of Rosh Hashanah is omitted [from the parasha], so that man will not behave arbitrarily, adapting himself to sin all days of the year, thinking to correct his ways as he approaches the Day of the Lord on which He sits on the throne of judgment; he should rather imagine that every day God sits on His throne for judgment, and he should check his record book, and thereby he will constantly be in a state of repentance, and there is the opinion which says "Man is judged daily" (Rosh Hashanah 16), as is written (Job 7:18) "You inspect him every morning, examine him every second."

 (Kli Yakar, Vayikra 16)

 

And this explains "man is judged every day" and not "they [the Heavenly court] judge him every day" as though to say that he is judged from within himself, as though it [judgement] is conducted automatically...

(Arvei Nachal, Parashat Nitzavim)

 

There is no doubt that the statements by R' Yossi and R' Natan express the deepest conception of faith. Man's standing in the world is not a matter of a verdict imposed upon him on some specific date; it is an expression of man's constant standing before God. There is not a moment in his life in which he is not being judged. What, then, is the particular relevance of Rosh Hashanah here? Against the background of the above, we can say that Rosh Hashanah is not a Day of Judgment; it is a "Yom Teruah" - of sounding the shofar - and a "reminder by shofar blasting", intended to remind man of the fact that he is constantly being judged.

(Y. Leibowitz: Discussions of Israel's Festivals and Appointed Times, p.165)

 

Man Comes from Dust

At first glance, this is a low view of man, to say that "man comes from dust and ends in dust", but in truth these words denote praise of man, who was hewn from a holy source, from our father Avraham, peace be upon him, as is written (Bereishit 18), "I am but earth and ashes", and he ends in dust - this refers to the Days of Messiah, about which David said (Psalms 44) "For our soul is bowed down to the dust".

 (Rabbi Yehoshua of Ostroveh; Sefer Toldedot Adam. Quoted by S. Y. Agnon in Days of Awe, p.86)

 

"You Edge Me Before and Behind"

Said R' Shim'on ben Lakish: Back to the creation of the first day, and before to the creation of the last day, this is the opinion of R' Shim'on ben Lakish, for R' Shim'on ben Lakish said: "The spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters" - this is the spirit of the Anointed King - the Messiah. How, then, to understand that which is written, "And the spirit of God will rest upon him?" - if man merits, he will be told: You preceded the ministering angels, and if not, he is told: The fly preceded you, the mosquito preceded you, this worm preceded you.

 (Bereishit Rabba, Parasha 8:1)

 

 

 

 

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator), Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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