Averting the Severity of Life

I. Who Shall Live

In Unetaneh Tokef, the phrase “who shall live and who shall die,” is followed by this list (copied from the link above, with some edits by me):

Who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by upheaval and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning.

Conventionally, this list is interpreted as the variety of ways that those “who shall die” might do so in the coming year. But! Then the passage goes on to this list:

Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.

This second list is about ways of living, not ways of dying. Looking at the original Hebrew, one list flows right into the other, and is grammatically very similar, with the same repeating formula of “and who… and who….” So, just for the sake of Torah (for generating more wisdom), why assume that the first list is only about death? After all, we know the phrase “live by the sword,” right?

Looking at the first list as ways of life opens up the metaphorical imagination. What could it mean to live by water, by fire, by sword, by beast, by famine, by thirst, by upheaval, by plague, by strangling, by stoning?

Maybe these are lists of ways of making a living (given a lot of metaphorical leeway)? Anyone working in the pressures of a capitalistic market knows what it’s like to live “by thirst.” Anyone trying to make a name for themselves on the internet is trying to live “by plague (virality).” Too much of a stretch?

Maybe we could expand our perspective to see this as a list of ways that individuals or groups include violence in their survival strategies. If you protect yourself by overwhelming those who would attack you, then you live “by water.” If you feel safe due to police or military presence, then you live “by fire.” If you thrive on chaos (see: trolls, whether on the internet or in the White House), then you live “by upheaval.” If your freedom requires the captivation of others, then you live “by strangling.” If your self-justification requires the vilification of others, then you live “by stoning.” Eh??

II. The Severity of Life

Hold on to your hats, because I’m gonna take a big step back and broaden the overall theme/message-- all life thrives on severity, harshness, on something negative. Half of your DNA comes from the victorious sperm that got to the egg first; all of your DNA comes from the coupling of a sperm and egg that then shut out all other applicants. Whether eating meat or not, we destroy life to add to our own. We live in competition for limited resources, whether material or emotional. (If this passage has you coming up with counter-arguments, please wait until section III; for now, just go with this.)

We live not only by love, but also by violence, by severity. Riffing off Sartre’s “We are condemned to be free,” I’d say that we are decreed to make morally questionable choices, to choose a way of life and in doing so choose which beings must ‘take one for the team.’ I’ll eat this, and live instead of it. I’ll take this job, and you’ll have to keep looking. I do not believe that America is currently threatened by immigration, but I can imagine (because I consume dystopian sci-fi) scenarios in which overpopulation becomes an actual problem. At many points in our lives, we are forced to decide what we will and will not accommodate, and this can be a pretty severe choice.

I’ve been meditating on this fact about the severity of life, as I observe and participate in current political debates. I’ve got a friend (just one) who supports the current administration, and when we talk/debate, I heap my righteous indignation on him, asking how can he be so callous towards human life, towards others who don’t share his privileges. And this goes pretty well, until he brings up some counter-example-- some statistically-less-likely-but-still-existing violent criminal migrant, or the similarly-less-likely-but-still-happens victim of a false sexual assault accusation-- at which point I find myself shrugging, and now I’m the callous one.

I’m not bringing this up to make a moral equivalence between the two of us, but to recognize that both of us construct our moral positions by, at some point, drawing a limit to our compassion and willingness to accommodate others.

III. Averting Severity

Re-enter Unetaneh Tokef!

But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity avert the severity of the decree.

We are condemned to be free; how do we avert the severity of our choices? As a secular psychotherapist, I (loosely) translate the triad above to: self-critical analysis, intentionality, and generosity. I believe these practices can mitigate the severity in the (ultimately unavoidable) violence of life.

To respond to my own comment above about competition for limited resources, it’s often the case that we’re driven to compete not by actual scarcity but by the fear of scarcity. I’ll hoard food and keep it from you, not because I’m hungry but because someday I might be hungry. Self-critical analysis may help me distinguish between rational and irrational fear of others. Reflection on intention may help me recognize that I need to find a way of life that serves myself as well as others. And the practice of generosity challenges me to expand my circle of benevolence, and in doing so recognize how I only live by the grace of others.

Self-critical analysis, intentionality, and generosity avert the severity of life.