Today is Yom Kippur
It is the most solemn holiday for Jews. For the observant and particularly for the Orthodox, it involves fasting and atonement and is usually spent entirely in a synagogue.
This is a Leonard Cohen song that’s based on one of the Yom Kippur prayers:
“Who by fire” is Leonard Cohen’s version of the Hebrew prayer “Unetanneh Tokef”, chanted on Yom Kippur. It was released in the 1974 album “New Skin for the Old Ceremony.” This is one of the main songs of the album and one of Cohen’s best known songs.
The prayer Cohen heard as a child in the synagogue describes God reviewing the Book of Life and deciding the fate of every soul for the year to come – who will live, who will die and how. The line: “And who shall I say is calling?” can be understood as a break from faith in God. According to Cohen that element of doubt is what made the song into a personal prayer for him.
Here’s the relevant part of the prayer’s text:
On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die after a long life and who before his time; 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. 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. But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity mitigate the severity of the Decree.”
May you have an easy fast, Neo, and may you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.
I thought the chickens were looking a bit on edge of late. All makes sense now!
And pinging off the reference to Leonard Cohen, I’d like to add a link to Scott Alexander’s most excellent essay Who by Very Slow Decay.
A sweet and healthy year to all.
@Eric Brown:
I don’t normally like Scott Alexander, but that is a very good essay. Material like this which describes accurately and clinically how we live and die now is all too rare.
It also may have some value for the future — when needful things need doing, it’s as well to have some motivation:
“Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,”
Hunde, wohlt ihr ewig leben?! (Not today… Thanks, but no thanks. Not if you have seen how the Sausage is Unmade.)
Walter @8:39pm,
“Three thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Koufax.”
Eric Brown,
Thank you for linking that essay. It is a thought provoking read.
A doctor friend tells me when he gets a patient to understand that their illness is at a point where, if they go to a hospital they will not return home, the vast majority choose to forego additional care and die at home, typically with hospice.
@ Zaphod > “Hunde, wohlt ihr ewig leben?! ”
Kind of an odd reference for the topic, but I think I get your point about not wanting to live forever in the kind of world that’s trending these day.
I knew the original quote, but not the film’s version.
“Der Titel ist eine Anspielung auf ein Zitat von Friedrich dem Großen. Dieser soll während der Schlacht bei Kolin, die Preußen gegen Österreich verlor, seinen fliehenden Soldaten im Zorn zugerufen haben: „Ihr verfluchten Racker, wollt ihr denn ewig leben?“[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad:_Dogs,_Do_You_Want_to_Live_Forever%3F
Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (German: Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben) is a 1959 West German film, directed by Frank Wisbar and based on the eponymous novel by Fritz Wöss. The movie revolves around the Battle of Stalingrad. The title is drawn from Friedrich the Great’s words when he saw his soldiers fleeing at Kolin: “You cursed rascals, do you want to live forever?[1]”
The Prussian king’s attitude is of the same vintage as this:
Comte de Lassale, the famous “Hussar General” of the French army said, “Any hussar who is not dead by the age of 30 is a blackguard.”
https://www.rbth.com/history/327840-why-were-hussars-considered-imperial
AesopFan:
There’s also the Marine Corps version from the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918: “On June 6 the Marines suffered heavy casualties while attacking the German positions in and near the forest. In one of the many skirmishes that made up the battle, Gunnery Sergeant Ernest A. Janson forced twelve Germans to retreat. He became the first Marine during the Great War to win the Medal of Honor. Later that afternoon Gunnery Sergeant Daniel Daly urged his comrades forward with another memorable phrase:
‘Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?'”
http://www.americanrealities.com/home-page/-come-on-you-sons-of-bitches-do-you-want-to-live-forever
Here’s my previous post on that “Hunde” quote as well as the Daly quote.
@AesopFan:
It’s not just the nature of our present world.. it’s that the way that we on average age and die under present conditions of modernity has little to recommend it. Mind you I doubt the Bubonic Plague or the Sweating Sickness had much to recommend them except that they were speedy. Still, Celerity FTW.
I wonder if TPTB have given much thought to the fact that there’ll soon be an aging population of Gulf War II and Afghanistan Veterans with health issues who have seen at first hand the Islamic Approach? Hasn’t yet been tried by folks with an IQ above room temperature, except for too little too late in the Pacific Theatre way back. Hard to say. It’s not really the Western Way. But then again it has been under battlefield conditions when there’s unit esprit-de-corps (Obama Pronunciation Optional). I just don’t know.
Although there were the Very Bad Spanish who learned a few things in North Africa.
!Viva la muerta!
@ Eric Brown > “And pinging off the reference to Leonard Cohen, I’d like to add a link to Scott Alexander’s most excellent essay Who by Very Slow Decay.”
Very sad, very true. I could never be a doctor or a nurse.
I did spend the last four months of my mother’s life with her, watching her die of lung cancer (slowly from the cancer, and then quickly of radiation pneumonia). It wasn’t pleasant, but not so bad as it could have been if she had lingered.
Did you see this comment at the post?
Attacked right away, he was sitting around waiting for this post.
Important to complement this prayer with the teaching of Maimonides and others:
G-d determines the material situation of a person’s life – but not whether one shall be good or evil. That depends entirely on personal choices and desires.
“Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”
Yes; yes, I do–provided in decent health and prosperity. As long as there’s a book unread that I want to read, I’ll want to live.
I want to be Lazarus Long.
I hope all Jewish commenters had an easy fast and will have a good year to come.
Hope your fast was easy and meaningful, Neo.
“Who by water
Who by fire
Who by crazy Uncle Meyer?”