Invest the Holiness of this Day with Urgency

An interpretation of the Unetaneh Tokef

This day where awe and dread fall together

As individuals can we face a judgement

That causes angels to tremble?

Must we not commit ourselves

To establishing the kindness

upon which you are enthroned?

For while each presents before you alone

Is each human being not sealed

Recorded, remembered, counted and recounted

Together in one Book?

So this day let it be written and this year let us seal

That the lives of each are precious, and each who passes leaves a mark

For who will not live and who will not die?

And who knows the length of their allotted days?

Who is above the rising water and who unburnt by fire?

Who may escape violence and who outlive the animals?

Who need not sate hunger and who can thirst unquenched?

Who is not shaken when the earth quakes and who is untouched by sickness?

Who has never been where others were once choked and beaten

And who rests easy in places of agitation

Who does not wander even in search of tranquility

And whose calm is not bought by another’s torment

Who measures not their rise against those who fall

And whose portion is not diminished envious that others have what they lack

So this day let it be written and this year let it be sealed

That whatever the decree, we respond to our selves with teshuva

That whatever the decree, we respond to G*d with tefila

That whatever the decree, we respond to others in tzedaka

Made of dust, blowing leaves, passing shadows, fleeting dreams

We are named with Your name and impressed with Your image

Each of us unique, none of us able to be replaced

Let our intentions be written this day, and let us seal them with deeds this year.