Unetanneh Tokef

When by the time this comes out, it will have already been published 'cause it'll be published later this week.

But I just wrote an article for the Free Press about this, about the Unetaneh Tokef, the prayer that says, "Who shall live and who shall die?" And a poem by a woman named Charlotte Delbo, who was in the French Resistance, and she writes this.

Basically, I won't give you the poem, it's about eight or nine lines.

But she says, like, "I saw so much death, and so many people died, so you have to do something with your life."

We come now to Unetaneh Tokef.

There is a reason this piyut, spiritual poem and chant, has meant so much to our ancestors.

It is not, I believe, because they took it literally.

This is magical thinking.

We know from much research how harmful it can be for our mental health, and I would want to support anyone in healing from these thoughts.

The reason Unetaneh Tokef has mattered so much to our ancestors and to us is something deeper and truer.

Judaism is inherently life-affirming and celebratory.

We say in the Torah, "Choose life." We have apples and honey for a sweet new year.

This year, yesterday, I tackled for the first time in my career to give a sermon on Unetaneh Tokef, 'cause it's such a difficult and challenging prayer of the High Holy Day liturgy, and really the main prayer of High Holy Days.

So today, I've decided to tackle another prayer that is special just to Rosh Hashanah, that is challenging in a very different way, and to share with you how I've worked my way through it.

It's Aleinu.

The wicked of the earth occurs three times in Psalms, each time referring to their destruction and not to their return to God, however.

But the Aleinu inverts that.

Instead of wishing for the destruction of the wicked of the earth, it conforms like Unetaneh Tokef to the rest of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, which is not that evildoers will be punished and silenced, but rather repentance will displace retribution.

This time it is not the repentance of Jews, but of all humanity.

That is the universal acceptance of God.