Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die: The Theology of Unetaneh Tokef

Unetenah Tokef is a Piyyut that dates as far back as the fourth century. Piyyutim are liturgical poems. This one was is thought to be composed by Yannai, though Yannai's text likely had even earlier origins.

Abraham ibn Ezra (1089-1164) was quite weary of using these piyyutim in prayer. He wrote: “When we pray, it is forbidden to inject into our prayers piyyutim, the basic meaning of which we do not understand. We should not rely on the goodwill of the author…”

Although we know the information in this tale is not completely factual, there is a story behind the Unetaneh Tokef prayer:

(Based on Sefer Or Zarua 12c. By R. Isaac of Vienna)

The story of Rabbi Amnom of Mainz, which wa the greatest of his generation. Once, Rabbi Amnon was as approached by the local bishop, who asks him to convert. Day after day the bishop would appear at his study to implore him to convert. The rabbi puts the bishop off, saying he will think about it in return with an answer in three days. Almost immediately, however, Rabbi Amnon is consumed with remorse for even even suggesting that he might convert. He decides to refuse to appear when the three days are over.

Angered by the refusal, the bishop dispatched soldiers to bring him to the castle by force. “What’s this Amnom, why didn’t you come to me as you stipulated - that you would take into account and get back to me what I asked?” Amnon replied, “Let me adjudicate my own case.” He explained that he should never have promised to come in the first place. Even saying he would is agreement enough to undermine his own faith and his own people.

Amnon then said, “I am perfectly willing, to undergo any punishment. The tongue that lied to you should be sentenced to be cut off.”

“No” said the bishop, The bishop however maintained that the sin was not performed by Amnon’s tongue. “Rather it is your leges that did not come to me, as you promised, those I will chop off, and the rest of your body I will torment.” The evil one started by cutting off the joints of his fingers and toes, at each moment, the torturer would ask, “Now Amnon, do you want to convert?” and the rabbi would say, “No.”

What is left of him after his ordeal was carried on the back if a knight’s shield to the Jewish quarter. And when Rosh Hashanah arrived, the Rabbi asked to be placed next to the Cantor. As a leader was about to recite the kedusha of the Musaf Amidah, the Rabbi asked for him to pause so that he could specifically add a prayer sanctifying God’s name. “And so, let all holiness rise up to You," he began after which he recited a the Unetaneh Tokef prayer, “And let us acknowledge the power of his day’s holiness...Truly, You are judge and prosecutor...There is a book and everyone’s signature is in it...and You will record all living beings.”

When he completed the final part of the poem [called a sillluk in Heb. poetry] he was he disappears [nistalek] from before the congregation somehow by taken God and from this world.

Three days later, he reappears in a dream to "Rabbi Kalonymous Ben Rabbi Moshe” and taught him this sacred poem [called a piyut] and instructed him to publicize it far and wide throughout the diaspora as a witness to the testimonial to what he has done.

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed - how many shall flourish and how many shall wilt, who shall live and who shall die, who will reach ripe age and who taken all too soon, who will drown in waters of refuge as they desperately attempt to reach the shores of freedom, who amongst fires and rubble in the aftermath of bombs, who by senseless violence and who by malicious attack, who because they do not have access to healthy food and who because of contaminated water sources, who because of environmental disaster and who because of cancer and illness, who because of mental illness and who by gun violence, who will be at peace and who will struggle to find their place, who shall be comfortable and who driven by anxiety and fear, who will be at ease, and who agitated and tortured, who will turn their heads and who will stand up for justice, who will be punished by broken systems and who benefit by their privilege, who will be humbled and who lifted up? But action, organizing power and work towards tikun (healing) could chart a different course for such decree.

On Rosh Hashanah, we consider how judgment is formed. On Yom Kippur we consider how judgment is sealed, for all who pass away and all who are born, for all who live and all who die..."

Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur "Is Un'taneh Tokef Palatable?"

Un'taneh Tokef is undoubtedly one of the most challenging pieces of Jewish liturgy. The problem is that it is also one of the most famous, as it seems to embody the traditional liturgical messages of the season: on this day, your fate is sealed, your future determined.... "How can modern Jews accept the fatalistic theology of Un'taneh Tokef?"

As a rabbi in a Reform congregation, I teach, all year long, the most precious ideas of our theology. Being a Jew is about being empowered to act as God's partner. I teach a nonfatalistic attitude to life, an approach that addresses our ability-indeed, our responsibility-to change the world at large and our personal world within it. In modern Jewish thought and teaching, I find comfort. In my Judaism of responsibility and covenant, humanity is engaged in a face-to-face dialogue with the divine.... Un'taneh Tokef assumes a vertical relationship between God, the king, and human beings, his servants.... The climactic line Ut'shuvah, utfillah utz'dakah ma'avirin et ro'a hag'zerah is usually taken as a claim that "repentance, prayer, and charity" can nullify a decree from on high. Surprisingly, these words come at the end of a text that just claimed the opposite: that our fate was already irrevocably determined. Paradoxical! It seems, actually, that Un'taneh Tokef is a masterpiece of theological contradiction, as if to say, "Beware! Everything is written ... but everything can be changed. And remember that your thoughts (t'shuvah), your words (tfillah), and your deeds (tzdakah) can save you."

Rabbi Brent Spodek and Ruth Messinger. "God's Hands"

Un'taneh Tokefis not about bribing God with our repentance, nor is it about magic. It is about facing mortality and seeking the redemptive power of God's presence through lives of spiritual seriousness and moral goodness. We are capable of submitting our lives to judgment, but judgment should not be understood as an alien and arbitrary force; rather, it is the process of personal insight and inner renewal that initiates redemption of ourselves and of our world. There is reciprocity here. God calls on us, and we call on God. Our partnership puts a human face on the divine as we proclaim the awe-filled holiness of this moment.

Dr. Joel Hoffman "How Was Your Flight?"

Some of us didn't make it through the year gone by. Others will likely not make it to the end of the next. Faced with this combination of terror and horror, we naturally ask what those who died did to deserve their fate, what we did to merit the unbearable longing for those we miss, and what we might already have done that will spell the end of our own lives. But Un'taneh Tokefdemands that we look more closely at our first instinctual reaction. Job is woven throughout the prayer and, by extension, throughout our lives. We have to overcome our natural inclination to look for a cause for every negative effect.

Piece by Amy Eilberg, adapted (Mishkan HaNefesh p. 211)

Unetaneh tokef, the prayer that imagines God inscribing in the heavenly book who shall live and who shall die in the year to come, has become for many a riveting and troubling image of the High Holy Days. As I say its words I remember a friends’ baby that did not make it, health scares and disagnoses, lifes lost far too soon.

In a sense, Unetaneh tokef invites the whole community into the truth which sick and grieving people live every day. Rosh Hashanah assaults the denial of the healthy, so that on this day, the ill—beset with clear awareness of mortality—are at one with the whole community, all of us knowing the fundamental uncertainty of life. We are made of dust, as the Unetaneh tokef concludes, and to dust we return; like clay vessels we can break. Life flowers, we fade and like shadows we pass and like a dream we will someday pass from sight. This is the truth, and there can be comfort in standing in the sacred circle of community affirming it, at the same time committing to savor the fragile gift of life we are given.

Arthur Green in his forward S.Y. Agnon’s Days of Awe, page ix.

If “in foxholes there are no atheists,” the Days of Awe powerfully remind us that all of life is a sort of extended foxhole and that each of us will have our final moment. We are not a morose people, and through the year we consider healthy those who spend their time on something more constructive and cheerful than brooding the inevitability of death. But we come together on the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe), skeptics and agnostics along with the pious believers and earnest seekers, to gratefully acknowledge that we are still here, and to admit that our survival has not been all our own doing. We look around us at the community of Jews in whose midst we have come to celebrate that fact and see old and young, strong and weak, vigorous-looking and those of sickly-seeming pallor. Yet all of us have lived too long and seen too much to think we can know which of these faces we will see next year.”

And Rabbi Yitzḥak said: A person’s sentence is torn up on account of four types of actions. These are: Giving charity, crying out in prayer, a change of one’s name, and a change of one’s deeds. An allusion may be found in Scripture for all of them: Giving charity, as it is written: “And charity delivers from death” (Proverbs 10:2); crying out in prayer, as it is written: “Then they cry to the Lord in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses” (Psalms 107:28); a change of one’s name, as it is written: “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be” (Genesis 17:15), and it is written there: “And I will bless her, and I will also give you a son from her” (Genesis 17:16); a change of one’s deeds for the better, as it is written: “And God saw their deeds” (Jonah 3:10), and it is written there: “And God repented of the evil, which He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it” (Jonah 3:10).

There are ten strong things in the world.

Rock is strong, but iron breaks it.

Iron is strong, but fire melts it.

Fire is strong, but water quenches it.

Water is strong, but the clouds bear it.

The clouds are strong, but the wind drives them.

The wind is strong, but the body withstands it.

The body is strong, but fear breaks it.

Fear is strong, but wine dissolves it.

Wine is strong, but sleep dispels it.

And death is stronger than all.

What is stronger than death?

Acts of tzedakah, as it is written:

Tzedakah delivers from death.