A Matter of Life and Death:  Preparing for the High Holy Days

Selichot presentation by Cantor Sarah J. Sager, September 11, 2004

           I will never forget the first time I attended a Selichot service.  As a pre-bat Mitzvah 12-year-old, my parents felt that I was old enough to both appreciate and remain awake for the midnight service.  I vividly remember my father’s description of the dramatic, mysterious service that begins the penitential season, that is the first serous declaration of our wrongdoing and our resolve to make the coming year a more positive, productive and worthy experience.  I remember entering the synagogue at the strange hour when I was usually asleep, sensing in the presence of so many worshipers something important, something serious, something crucial to our lives and our future.  I cannot now remember if it was my father or my own youthful imagination that suggested the presence of angels in the atmosphere at midnight.  It is a mystical time of simultaneous ending and beginning.  The moment that our tradition assigns to miracles.  It is the time when Jacob wrestled with the angel, when the Israelites were freed from Egypt, when God gave the Ten Commandments.   Midnight is the time that poets have immortalized as the “bewitching hour” of Shakespeare, the “mournful hour” of Longfellow.  I have come to understand that the lateness of the hour is the time of night when we are most vulnerable, when the angels of our best selves are besieged by the demons of our psyches.    Thus does this night speak to the struggle of the coming days: between the life-affirming impulses of our truest natures and the negative, evil forces with which we all contend that bring only destruction and ultimately death to our spirits and our lives.

            This is the theme of our High Holy Day season:  during the ten days of repentance, the Days of Awe that include and bind Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, our tradition deliberately focuses our attention on death.  Unlike every other Jewish observance, these days are not linked to historical events of any kind – not the Exodus from Egypt, not the giving of the Torah, not the destruction of the temple.  The association of Rosh Hashanah with the creation of the world was a later accretion to the observance of Rosh Hashanah.  These days are intended for individual introspection, for contemplating the meaning of our lives, for confronting our mortality.     

            As Yitzchak Greenberg affirms in his outstanding book, The Jewish Way, “Judaism is a religion of life against death.”  Death is the negation of everything Jews believe:  it is the end of growth, of purpose, of possibility, of freedom.  Every ritual, every observance, every value of our tradition points in some way to life, to the enhancement, enrichment or strengthening of life.  In Judaism, death is the enemy.  Life is given the highest priority.  All but three laws of the Torah may be abrogated in order to save a life.  The Sabbath may be broken, kashrut ignored, fasting on Yom Kippur suspended in order to save life.  Only the commandments against murder, adultery and idolatry may not be broken for any reason --  as, in each case, one would be sacrificing life in order to save life.  Even when someone dies, the mourner recites Kaddish – and in so doing affirms that he or she has not given in to the defeat of death.  When we say Kaddish, we affirm that we will carry on, that death, however tragic, will not triumph over our spirits, that we will continue to work for that messianic time when God’s kingdom of perfection and complete life will come to be. 

            The one exception to this pattern, the one time of year when we are asked to confront death in all of its terrifying reality, when we do not hold it at arm’s length, is the period of the High Holy Days.  During these days, our tradition deliberately concentrates our attention on death.

            There is something profoundly sobering and maturing in the realization of mortality.  How often do we remark that young people seem to think that they are invincible?   If they only understood the risks, the dangers, the consequences of their behaviors, they would not be so careless.  To recognize the brevity of human existence gives urgency and significance to the totality of life.  To confront death without being overwhelmed, is to be given life again as a daily gift.  We generally experience this gift through trauma:  an accident or a critical illness or the death of someone close to us.  Most often the encounter fades as the presence of death recedes and the routine of our lives re-asserts itself.  In the Jewish calendar, the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe structure the imaginative encounter with death into an annual experience in the hope that each year the experience will  help us appreciate the richness, wonder and responsibility of our lives.

            It seemed to me that this underlying theme of our most serious annual observance may not be clear to many of us, may, in fact, be surprising and somewhat unsettling.  I thought it might be helpful, then, to spend a few moments examining this theme and the way it is expressed in our High Holy Day customs, rituals and liturgy.

            We begin with some of our customs and immediately see how the theme of life and death is embodied in everything we do.  We greet each other with the phrase “L’Shana Tovah tikateivu v’taychataymu” – “May you be written and sealed for a good year.”  We eat round challah, the shape of which suggests our hope for a continuous, ongoing, long life.

            The shofar calls to awaken us from the lethargy of our routines, the “psychic numbing” (as described by Greenberg) of our comfortable assumptions, our small, convenient, almost unnoticeable compromises that keep us from embracing life with the fullness, energy and commitment of our full potential.  The shofar calls to God to be merciful and forgiving towards us.  The shofar calls with hope, optimism and belief in the future.  As it did at Sinai, the shofar calls us to create ourselves anew – in God’s image, according to God’s plan. 

            Perhaps the most powerful expression of our consciousness of death during this time is on Yom Kippur when every possible occupation or distraction is suspended, when even the life processes of eating, drinking, and sexuality are stopped.  It is as if all of life is brought to a halt – so that it can be chosen anew with restored strength, energy and vigor. 

The special Torah and Haftarah portions that we read on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur echo the central theme of life and death as well.

            On Rosh Hashanah morning, as Abraham raises his knife to slay his son, life and death hang in the balance of an instant as God judges Abraham’s worthiness to be the progenitor of the Jewish people. 

            The Haftarah portion likewise echoes the central theme as we read of yet another barren matriarch, Hannah, who prays for life – within her womb.  As God is merciful to Hannah and fulfills her prayer, we pray that in sympathetic fashion God will be similarly merciful to us and will answer our prayers for forgiveness and for life.

            On Yom Kippur morning we read the most profound articulation of what Judaism is all about:  “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse; choose life, therefore, that you and your descendants may live.”          

What does it mean to choose life?  The Haftarah begins to answer.  It means more than simply existing; it means to have a vision, to make a difference, as Isaiah urges us:  “. . . . to unlock the shackles of injustice, to undo the chains of bondage, to let the oppressed go free. . . . to share [our] bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into [our] house.  When [we] see the naked, to clothe them;”

What does it mean to choose life?  The Torah and Haftarah portions of Yom Kippur afternoon eloquently instruct us.  We read in Leviticus how to make our lives a sacred journey.  We read immediately thereafter the quintessential attempt to avoid that journey and the opportunity to enhance the lives of others in the Book of Jonah.  In his weakness and fear Jonah represents the struggle we all face – the desire to run away, to hide, to be left alone.  But that means choosing death – and even Jonah is led, reluctantly, to that understanding.  God causes the great fish to vomit Jonah out of his living grave.  Even as he fulfills his mission, however, Jonah cannot appreciate God’s purpose in seeking repentance from humanity rather than death.  Jonah is a true Everyman as he consistently fights against God’s plan for him.

Even as our rituals and observances re-enforce the theme of life and death, it is really through worship, through the liturgy of the Holy Days that we move through the stages of confession, repentance and, finally, to the reaffirmation of life.  Our prayers during this time are perhaps the richest in terms of imagery and drama of any of our prayers throughout the year.  Our goals are clear:  we seek nothing less than the removal of sin and the renewal of our relationship with God and with each other.  We confront our guilt and failure – in the midst of our community – so that we might correct the errors, adjust our direction and renew our lives.  To turn from sin, from that which diminishes life, is to be re-born.  That is our goal:  to emerge from Yom Kippur reborn, forgiven and pure, at one with God.

We begin by acknowledging that we have fallen short, that we have missed the mark.  Ashamnu, we have sinned.  The Ashamnu recitation lists, in alphabetical order, sins that may have been committed by someone in the congregation.  We confess the sins in the plural form as the congregation shares responsibility and prays for forgiveness thus demonstrating that moral failure is the concern of the entire community.  The congregation chants the confession in unison, without harmony.  It is a simple, straightforward unembellished melody – as the enumeration of sin cannot be beautiful. 

Our confession of sin, as you will see on the hand-out in the first text, begins with the acknowledgement of our imperfection.  As you follow the words, listen to the music:  it conveys the initial hesitancy, the simultaneous fear and yet compulsion to approach God.  We hear the struggle, the fervent desire to deny or avoid or delay the admission of having sinned.  But we are in God’s presence:  all pretense disappears, we are brutally honest:  we have gone astray, we have sinned, we have transgressed.”

            I understand that there are many among us who cannot identify with the words, who feel alienated both by the overwhelming nature of the sins to which we confess and the seeming disjunction between our prayer and the reality of the world as we know it.  For many, the recent or imminent loss of a loved one seems to mock our apparent belief that prayer, repentance and righteousness can change God’s mind, can restore us to life.  Many feel profound hurt and anguish as the prayers seem unrelated to what they know as the goodness and decency of their dear ones and themselves.

            Our liturgy is not simple or easily explained.  It’s drama and impact derives in some ways from its seemingly primitive notions of God’s power and the cause and effect of our actions on the universe.  How do our contemporary, scientific, empirical minds subscribe to and embrace such notions?

            Perhaps the beginning of an answer may be found in the collective nature of our confession.  Surely, no one of us is guilty of all of the transgressions enumerated. But as the destructive actions of any one of us diminish the life of our community – the destructive actions of any human being diminish the life of our world.  On this anniversary date of 9/11 we clearly understand that lesson.  Each of us is responsible, therefore, for the well-being, for the ultimate life of the whole.  Each of us is responsible not only for our own soul, but for helping to make this a world in which every person conducts himself or herself according to the highest standards of ethical behavior, where every human being has a stake in the goodness, kindness, decency and honesty of every other human being.  If we could bring our world to that level of existence, if we could find a way to that kind of positive interdependence, we would know a time when nation does not lift sword against nation, when, rather then practicing war and destruction we would all direct our intelligence, energy, talent and creativity to feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and building a society of justice and righteousness.  If we could do this, if we could realize the messianic vision of our tradition, we would defeat death, we would realize the dream, the end of days when life will be eternal and death will be no more.

            It starts with each of us, with our lives and our actions, with seeking forgiveness so that we might start anew, start fresh, start reborn; so that we might then take that first step toward bringing all of humanity to a better place, a more positive, healthy, life-affirming place.

            How do we say it?  How articulate our most fervent longings?

            “Avinu, Malkeinu, hear us, answer us, have mercy upon us, write us in the book of life.”

            From the theme of death and our depiction of God’s judgment emerges the central image underlying the liturgy of the Days of Awe:  the trial.  We envision a trial in which each individual stands before God.  Our lives are placed on the balance scales.  Is my life contributing to the balance of life?  Or do my actions tilt the scale toward death?  My life is being weighed; I am on trial for my life:  Unetane Tokef:  “Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day.”   Listen to the tone-painting of the music:  “This day is awesome and full of dread . . . .”  The ominous quality as we recognize that God “writes and seals, records and recounts.”  There is no place to hide.  Our souls are bare and exposed:  “You remember deeds long forgotten.”  You open the book of our days, and what is written proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being . . . .”

            God’s judgment is inexorable.  We hear it in the low, steady, unyielding pulse of the choir:

                        “On Rosh Hashanah it is written,

                        On Yom Kippur it is sealed:”

            And the relentless recitation, at first detached but with increasing emotional intensity:

                        “Who shall live and who shall die. . . “

            We are on trial for our lives – over and over again we pray, we yearn, we implore God for mercy, for kindness, for help, for life: 

            Zochreinu, Remember us for life, O Sovereign who delights in life, write us into the book of life, for Your sake, God of life.”        

            Although solemn and serious, Yom Kippur never becomes morbid.  Its preoccupation with death is balanced throughout with the opportunity for repentance, the possibility of renewal, the promise of life.

            The Neilah service at the end of Yom Kippur ends with a crescendo of hope and anticipation that the closing gates have received our prayers and that God has accepted our sincere repentance.  We are released into a new appreciation of life.

            This is why many Jews start building the sukkah even before breaking their fast.  Yom Kippur in and of itself is incomplete.  It is not, ultimately, what Judaism is about.  Death can be opposed only by life.  Therefore, one must emerge from Yom Kippur to live more fully, more intensely – which is what the festivals and Shabbat ask us to do.  Five days after Yom Kippur we celebrate z’man simchateinu, the season of our complete joy when, we believe, even God dances in celebration.