A Yom Kippur Lesson on the Stoic Dichotomy of Control and How to Take the Reins for the New Year

We are currently in another year of the Jewish High Holiday period, which starts on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) and ends after Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). It is within this ten-day period (עשרת ימי תשובה) that Jews traditionally lean into introspection, reconnection, and improving oneself. There are a sheer amount of services and prayers that take place during this holiday period. There is one liturgical poem (פיוט; piyut) that is read both on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur that I want to focus on today: Unetaneh Tokef (ונתנה תקף).

The premise of this liturgical poem is that G-d is Judge and He is judging our actions. He has a Book of Life and a Book of Death. On Rosh Hashanah, it is written in which Book we will be inscribed. On Yom Kippur, the Books are sealed. As we see in the poem, the Books act as a metaphor of who is going to live and going to die in the upcoming year. When I analyzed this piyut nine years ago, the framework presented in Unetaneh Tokef is figurative because, well, this is a poem. As we will see, this poem has great insight, even though there are not literal Books. 

This is a poem that helps us to come to terms with our own mortality. One of the ways it inadvertently does so is by using the dichotomy of control. The dichotomy of control, which is most commonly associated with Stoicism, is the idea some things are in your control and others are not. This is true when you divide a task, goal, event, or occurrence into small enough pieces. The dichotomy of control framework has us categorize things into either being in our control or not. We are then to focus on what is within our control. This concept exists in the well-known Serenity Prayer:

G-d grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

This dichotomy plays out in Unetaneh Tokef. The piyut list a series of ways that people die, including by water, by fire, by hunger, by earthquake, and by plague, e.g., COVID-19. It also says that it will be determined who will be at ease and who will suffer, who will become poor and who will become rich, and who will be cast down and who will be raised high. We have no control of whether death comes from us. It is not a matter of if we will die, but how, when, and where. As for becoming poor or rich, that one is trickier. We can have control over our performance at work, but we cannot control whether economic conditions shut down our place of employment or certain other dynamics in the workplace. There are many external events over which we do not have control. After this list of events over which we have little to no control, the poem creates a "but" statement to counter a feeling of fatalism:

ותשובה ותפלה וצדקה מעהירין את רע הגזרה

But repentance, prayer, and charity avert the evil [severity] of the decree. 

While there are a myriad of events and actions outside of our control, Unetaneh Tokef reminds us that there are things we can do to help mitigate the circumstances, whether they are our fault or not. The poem provides us with three solutions. As the Lubavitcher Rebbe aptly illustrates, the English translations do not capture the profundity of what these options actually entail:

• Repentance (תשובה). What is interesting about the Jewish concept of teshuvah is that it has the same root as the verb "to return" (לשוב). Rather than become a new person, one is "returning" to one's original self. In Judaism, that original nature is deemed good. I have theological qualms believing everyone is good deep down. I think being human means that there is potential to be good, but that is not the same as being fundamentally good. Perhaps that is what we are returning to: actualizing our potential to be good in the world. In any case, I still like the concept of teshuvah. Whether it is Greek tragedies, Calvinist predestination, Marxism, Freudian thought, or genetic determinism, there has been many schools of thought that believe that we are puppets of fate. What is great about teshuvah is that with effort, discipline, and will, we have the ability and freedom to change for the better. 
• Prayer (תפלה). There is a separate verb that means "to pray, request, beseech" (לבקש). The word comes from the reflexive verb "to judge oneself" (התפלל). While there is an element of interacting with the Divine, there is a major aspect of self-evaluation and self-judgment. This is not about a process of asking for what we need. This is about developing the self-awareness to become better people. 
• Charity (צדקה). The idea of charity comes from the Latin word caritas, which means "from the heart." The closest Hebrew gets to this idea is the word חסד. In Judaism, the word צדקה comes from the root of צדק: justice. We give not because we feel warm-hearted, but because it is the right thing to do. It reminds us that we have a responsibility to help out other human beings. It also reminds us that nothing ultimately belongs to us. While the concept of צדקה is traditionally about how one gives money, I believe that giving one's time or effort, or even extending a kind word, is also an extension of the concept of צדקה. Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler said that the extent to which we love is the extent to which we give. 

Through the actions of self-reflection, changing our behavior, and doing acts of kindness, Unetaneh Tokef teaches us that we turn abstract values into the fulfillment of what Jewish values are supposed to exemplify. By becoming better people through our thoughts, speech, and action, we can bring about a year of sweetness, joy, and abundance.