The Jewish New Year is not like the secular New Year, though it does share one element. It's about examining the life lived over the past year, individually and in community. Here's one translation of a prayer called the U'Netanah Tokef, attributed to a Jewish martyr Rabbi Amnon of Mainz, recited in the synagogue just before his death, after his hands and feet had been cut off for refusing to convert to Christianity. Part of it has been translated as follows:
"All mankind will pass before You like members of the flock. Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; and You shall apportion the fixed needs of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict.
On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.
But REPENTANCE, PRAYER and CHARITY avert the severe decree!"
This is not a comfortable prayer. Quite a few people have hated it, actually, including more than one rabbi. Jewish TV Network offers a video (click on the Torah scroll) from "Torah Slam 2008" in Los Angeles, where a very talented cross-denominational group of rabbis discuss/ explain/ struggle with/ curse at this prayer, its translations (plural), and its meaning. The video is alternately funny, deep, moving, and angry; always impassioned, and ultimately very enlightening. No matter what religion you are.
Shana Tovah.
I always have a good chuckle over the whole 'religion is the opiate of the people' meme because its the sort of thing that could only be believed by the irreligious and impious.
Monotheism is not a particularly comfortable belief system. Since I can't resist a Tolkien reference, there is a great little scene early on in Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf is providing the exposition for the quest Frodo finds he's unexpectedly inherited. Frodo is quite shaken, as you might expect, and Gandalf tries to comfort him by making an appeal to the creator Deity, whom Gandalf (as Olorin) knows, but who is as yet unrevealed to the people of Middle Earth. Gandalf notes that the ring was trying to abandon Gollum and return to its reawakened master, and that in the dark Bilbo blindly put his hand down on it. This coincidence is too wonderful to believe and Gandalf notes that Bilbo of the Shire of all people does not suit the Ring's master's purposes and all people is probably least suited to serving them (the same in his own way could be said of Smeagol). Gandalf invokes divine providence when he says that Frodo was meant to find the ring, but not by his creator and that Frodo might find that comforting.
Frodo's response is a little bit courious at first blush. He says that he's not sure that he understands what Gandalf means, but that if he understands him right he doesn't find it comforting at all.
Your first thoughts in encountering this passage, if you pay attention to it at all, is to think that Frodo isn't comforted because he doesn't really understand what is going on. But I think we have to reject that interpretation because Frodo is actually extremely wise, and on that point even the Wise agree and defer to his judgement. So I think Frodo is seeing a bit deeper here and is uncomfortable because he does understand - God means for him particularly and has singled him out to go into Mordor and go to the Fire. Frodo understands that this means being wounded, and that to a certain extent he's being selected out to be a sacrifice: and that's not a comfortable thing at all. Divine providence is all well and good when you can believe in a Jolly Old Santa Claus in the sky, but it's much less comfortable when you believe in a creator of all there is who means for you to have a role in the story implied by something like, "Take up your cross and follow me."
If I had one problem with the prayer, its the last line: "But REPENTANCE, PRAYER and CHARITY avert the severe decree!"
Will it really? I don't think either Judism or Christianity teaches so. Sometimes maybe, but that isn't always God's purposes. Yes, God desires to be merciful, but that doesn't stop him from using his servants bitterly to His own Glory as he will. Have the Chosen People escaped every severe decree no matter how much repentance, prayer, and charity that they engage in? Have Christians been martyred always because those that were slain and ill-used been the least in acts of repentance, prayer, and charity? Does the rain always fall on the just, and does famine never come to those that love the Lord? We remember too often that Job was restored to greatness on this Earth, but does that really negate his suffering? What about all those children and servants whose role in the story was to just die? I think it is a true saying that the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; may we always be able to say even so, "Blessed be the name of the Lord."
This is also a problem for several of the rabbis at Torah Slam 2008, each of whom deals with the issue in their own way.
Thanks for a very thoughtful commentary, which adds yet another dimension to the discussion, with depth enough to stand beside some of the discourses in the video.
Hear, hear, #1.
Well said, celebrim.
How are the perfectly innocent supposed to repent?
How are those too young to understand or speak a word supposed to pray?
How are those who have nothing, not even names, whose brief and terrible lives are wholly controlled by merciless killers intent on their deaths, supposed to give to charity?
I think the system of actions recommended to those under the severest of decrees does not work.
In T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, Becket becomes a martyr only after he has lost faith in everything except God - He realizes that he can no longer trust his king and best friend, or the government that he served as chancellor, or former friends that have come to kill him, or even his own thoughts and desires.
He loses everything except God, but God does not restore him as Job was restored - God will not even spare his life. Rabbi Amnon would have recognized that position.
All that's left is a singularly total relationship to God, which exists to enlighten others, but which only a very few will ever understand.
And the last sentence is spoken to the audience.
Good point.
If you and Grim would agree, may I delete my comments? They do not enhance the site.
A man should do what he thinks is best, my friend.
A man should do what he thinks is best, my friend. I'll make it so.
I'll remind you that you have a posting account on Winds, which you'd be welcome to use if you'd like to take your concerns and make them an article.
I also repeat the invitation to watch the video.
I keep getting "not available". Nevertheless, it was wrong to comment without seeing it.
Weird, it plays for me. Wish there was a transcript, because it's really good. Sorry for the technical difficulties.
OK, I kept trying, and woo hoo! it's loading.
...
Oh, magnificent stuff!
I still don't agree that there is no such thing as a decree so severe that one can't cancel it or sweeten it by responding to it with a joyful spirit, lifted up by return and thus union with one's people and so on.