Dear Friends,

“On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water. But, repentance, prayer, and righteousness avert the severe decree.” Is innocent suffering really God’s will? Every year, we have people diagnosed with incurable diseases, friends and family who enter hospice and, yet, we come back every year saying “Who will live and who will die” and I can never make any sense out of it. Who will live and who will die infers that is all preordained.

Now, it’s interesting; because, if you believe this, you may actually feel better. Because, then, what can you do? It was already predestined. Now, I get a lot of complaints about my new Unetaneh Tokef which reinterprets the old prayer to say that it is not who lives and who dies, but rather who makes the most of the life they have. But, this new interpretation may not be so new. Does the Unetaneh Tokef really say, If you follow God’s law, you will live and if you don’t, you will die? Or does it say that life happens, some will live and some will die, through no fault of their own?

It is the last line of our prayer that makes all the difference in the world. It does not say nor has it ever said, “Repentance, prayer, and righteousness will avert the decree.” What it does say is that repentance, prayer, and righteousness will avert “the severity of the decree.” That, it may not matter what we do, life happens, tragedy happens, but how we live, can make the life we have better.

How we die, very often, is not our choice. But how we live, is up to us. Repentance, returning to God, prayer, a looking into oneself, and righteousness, treating our neighbors as ourselves, can make the limited life we have more precious and avert the severity of the decree. Judaism says we have freewill, we have a choice, and that God is there for us, not against us. God gets us through it. God is not the cause.

Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book is not called, Why Bad Things Happen To Good People, but rather, When Bad Things Happen To Good People. Who will live and who will die is not up to us, but whether we make the most of the life we have, whether we survive the hard times is up to us. And, where is God? Helping us get through it. As we say at a funeral, “God is a loving friend in whom we put our trust.”

How do we survive tragedy? With God’s help. But repentance, prayer, and righteousness all help us connect to this higher power. Not out of fear, but through love. Not as judge, jury, and executioner; but as a friend, a spouse, a parent. Who will live or die will happen, it is not up to us, but how we live until then is.

Happy New Year,

Rabbi Alex 

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