On the Book of Life: Yom Kippur Thoughts

I don’t think I believed it literally, not even as a little girl.

We chant it over and over, several times throughout each service on the yamim noraim, the Days of Awe. On Rosh Hashanah, it is written. On Yom Kippur, it is sealed.

The verses refer to one of the understandings of the holidays: during this holy time, we were told way back in Hebrew school, G-d decides how the coming year will play out. As the liturgy continues, who will live and who will die. Who in the fullness of their time and who prematurely. Who will have peace and who will be restless, who will be poor and who wealthy, who brought down and who raised up.

It’s a vivid metaphor. It meshes the acceptance that some things are out of our control — that G-d ultimately decides what will happen, not us — with the idea that we can change the trend of our experience with our behaviour.

Tshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah, penitence, prayer, and good deeds* — these things, we are told, can nullify the severity of what is written for us. We can’t escape the consequences of our actions completely, but we can soften the blow by changing our ways, returning to our best selves.

But there’s something chilling about this idea, even in metaphor.

This idea of consequences reflecting behaviour, of earning and losing, of deserving, it all speaks to this idea of life being fair. But how can tragedy ever be fair?

In our own justice systems, we have concepts like “cruel and unusual punishment”: others’ wrongdoing doesn’t permit us to torture, to maim, to dehumanize. In the country where I live, it doesn’t permit us to take a life, however swiftly and painlessly.

So how can we accept the idea of G-d’s fairness in a world full of human suffering that no sin seems to warrant? Must we acknowledge on some level that our neighbour’s health crisis is sad, but G-d must have judged they deserve it? To pray with conviction, do we need to see lost loved ones as victims of their own actions or — worse — the decreed punishment of those who now mourn the deceased?

This isn’t so wild a river to ford if you believe in G-d. You can believe that G-d’s judgments are by definition just but far beyond the understanding of humanity. You can believe in another realm of reward and punishment that makes any earthly suffering dwindle to insignificance: pain during one’s lifetime isn’t a harsh punishment, it’s the mitigated blow that allows its sufferer to achieve eternal reward in the afterlife!

But what if you don’t believe?

It’s tempting to reject it wholesale: ancient traditions are ancient scams. The only power to which I need answer for my actions is my own and that of the government and law enforcement of the country I live in.

Or perhaps you prefer a nihilistic flavour of atheism: nothing matters. Everything is meaningless. Life isn’t fair, and it doesn’t make sense to concern ourselves with these heuristics called “right” and “wrong.”

If your position is the latter, well, I suppose that’s that. But I suspect there are very few who occupy that camp.

If you don’t, then rejecting organized religion and its philosophies merely shifts the frame of reference. Because what we’re talking about here is the age-old conflict of justice vs. humility.

Communities have need of both: we want to believe that people get (or should get) what they deserve, but we also want to believe that nobody is innately more qualified to say who deserves what than anybody else. We know from our history books and, unfortunately, from our newspapers that justice is never impartial. Those with power think they know what those with less deserve; those without can’t make their voice heard.

So what can that mean for us as individuals? We must accept that our actions have consequences, and many of us can accept that if we cause suffering, eventually we will ourselves suffer. But can we accept that thinking of suffering as punishment is ever just when it seems like it squelches, rather than encourages, virtues such as empathy and kindness?

The buffet model of religion — of morality — is often criticized for its inconsistency. You want a set of guidelines on how to behave? You’re choosing this faith/set of ethics/ideology because you trust that its ideas come from someone or something wiser than you? Then you have to follow it, even when your personal convictions conflict. Trusting only when it leads you where you would already have gone on your own isn’t trust; it’s self-serving appropriation of authority when it suits you.

It makes sense: both faithful and the secular argue that devotion is meaningless unless it’s all-or-nothing.

But an ethics that has no room for context, for the fruitful conflict of ideas is simply not one that reflects the real world.

We are subjective beings. Context is always with us: the differences between our perception of ourselves and our perceptions of other people will never vanish completely. Our experience of the world simply isn’t set up that way. We can minimize our bias, but we can never eradicate it.

For that reason, I think it’s okay to acknowledge that the metaphor of yearly sealed fates is to be used only under certain circumstances. We have the right to decide what we deserve. If we’re able — that is, if our bodies and minds and the circumstances of our lives permit us to do so in a healthy way — we can use the idea of consequences as a tool.

To be productive and caring members of society, we can’t abandon the bad things we’ve done, but we also can’t let them weigh down our future. The idea of being written into one book or another based on what we’ve done, what we hope to do, and what the (hypothetical or true, depending on your faith) Perfect Judge thinks — that may be a useful lever to shift many into taking responsibility for our actions and acceptance of their consequences without giving up hope for the future.

But just as a hammer is a poor choice if you need to turn a screw, the idea that all of us have been judged is not a helpful, just, or kind way to think of others’ suffering.

So this year, instead of thinking of organized religion as a buffet, to graze on what I please and ignore the rest, I’d prefer characterize it as a tool chest. Its tenets need not be universal or even consistent with each other; instead, the pragmatist, I will choose how to apply them, taking personal responsibility for these choices, and thinking of the context — the problem — as well as the principle.

* As per the translation from the Mahzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Rabbi Jules Harlow, ed.

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