“I don’t want to die” this phrase, recently said to me by my mom, is engraved in my brain. While facing a real situation of life and death, she did exactly what Torah teaches: bacharta bachaim – choose life!
“Yom Kippur is literally a ritual rehearsal, of your death” as teaches Rabbi Yitz Greenberg “The Jewish version of what it is to die. You don’t eat, you don’t have sex, you’re dead even if you’re living.” Other costumes related to this date help us to get this death act feeling: wearing white (reminding us of the traditional Jewish burial shrouds – tashrichim), not using makeup, lotions, not bathing, not wearing leather.
Although I have the costume of submerging into these practices of Yom Kippur, in my daily life, I have to admit that, before moving to the UK, I don’t remember fearing, or even thinking about my own death. After I moved here, more than once, I caught myself thinking about it, and especially, fearing dying here, far from my loved ones. I fear getting seriously ill and having to deal with the NHS, which is a new reality for me. I fear having an accident at home and not knowing the correct number to call. I am vulnerable here. Now, dealing with my mom’s health experience is leading me into a new path of thoughts and fears.
North American poet Maya Bernstein wrote about her own experience of being ill: “Somehow, embodying the physical frailty that is a precursor to and reminder of death, even by playacting our mortality, helps us to feel the truth that we theoretically know: that we—me, but you too—are mortal. This feeling can strengthen the spirit.” “None of us will be spared death. This we know; it should not surprise you. But what is surprising is that an active, embodied, existential awareness of this has the opportunity to be lifesaving.”
Being deeply vulnerable, aware of our fragility, is what is asked from us during Yom Kipur.
“This is the one time the Jewish religion really focuses on death and puts it before you.”1, as beautifully written in the traditional version of the iconic pyiut Unetane Tokef, written especially for this time of the Jewish year:
“How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,
Who shall live and who shall die,
Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not.”
Death is also present during Yom Kippur through the Yzkor service, when we remember our loved ones, whose physical presence is not among us anymore, but whose memories are kept alive in our hearts and actions. Their spiritual presence is brought to the synagogue, we feel the pain of their absence and we face the finitude of life. Bereavement becomes a concrete and communal feeling.
Although death is the only certain thing about life, we avoid thinking or talking about it. Talking about death is difficult and may be dangerous. However, the point of enacting death in Yom Kippur is not about clinging to the idea of actually dying, it is not a morbid directive, but it is an incentive to understand the wonders of being alive. By facing the darkest of our fears, we should be able to see the light.
Last year, while missing the togetherness that the Chaguim bring to us as a family, my oldest son, João, said: “Mom, now I get it. Yom Kippur is a celebration of life. Fasting shows how important and difficult it is to live, all the difficulties, all the obstacles, but also all the joy and happiness. The act of everyone getting together under the tallit is a celebration of life. It’s an embracing of both life and death, it gives meaning to life in both its end, but its presence as well.”
“Part of celebrating life is not to boast of it, but rather to look at your failures, look at your weaknesses, not in despair or in guilt, but as a corrector.”2 Or, as questioned by rabbi Rachel Barenblat: “What changes would we need to make in order to be remembered the way we want to be remembered? ...How we treat each other. What character qualities we bring to the fore. How we treat “the widow, the orphan, and the stranger” – the people most at-risk and vulnerable. (Maybe today it’s the trans kid, the disabled person, and the refugee.) Whether or not we’re doing something to make the world a better place. How we treat the barista or the Stop and Shop employee – or that person we don’t like who really gets on our nerves.”
The idea of Yom Kippur is to reach a limit point, and then to come back feeling deeply alive. As we read in the British Reform Machzor version of Unetane Tokef: “Let us not sour the joy of living. May God give us the courage to do these things and help us to rebuild our lives.”
“If your life were going to end tomorrow, where do you stand?”
The next 25 hours (now a bit less) are times for deep feelings. It is a mandatory time of affliction. Times to feel the vulnerability of being alive, to be afraid, to feel the pain, to think about death and life. It is a time to follow the teaching of our Torah and choosing life. A life of integrity, of moral values, of light.
For all the other days of our year, I leave us with a blessing:
Brucha At Shechina
Who grounds us,
Who reminds us that we know,
Who guides us,
Who gives us courage to let go,
Who gave us the breath of life and helps us to continue choosing life.
A better life.
Gmar Chatima Tova
Comments