Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

לחיים טובים/LeChayim Tovim

To a Good Life

It was upon reading his obituary, the story is told, that Alfred Nobel was moved to change his life.                                       

The press had mistakenly reported his death rather than that of his brother. When seeing that he would be remembered as the “dynamite king”, he resolved to being remembered in a more constructive way. He founded the Nobel Prizes for chemistry, literature, medicine, peace and physics, by which he is known today.

At this time of the Jewish year, we reflect, as well, upon our life and how we might be remembered. The Book of Life (Sefer HaChayim) is seen as a central motif for the High Holy Day season. During these days from Rosh HaShanah until Yom Kippur, known as Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance, we repeatedly say in our daily prayers “Remember us for life..and write us in the Book of Life”. When we sing together the words “On Rosh HaShanah we are inscribed and on the fast day of Yom Kippur we are sealed”, we are hoping that it will be in the Book of Life.

Yet, Judaism is aspirational, we look beyond the Book of Life to the Good Life and we seek to live another year so we may be Zachur LaTov, Remembered for Good. At the conclusion of Rosh HaShanah, we wish each other LeShanah Tovah Tikatev VeTeichatem – “May you be written and inscribed for a good year” and in the renowned Alvinu Malkeinu prayer, sung on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, we say “Write us/seal us in the Book of Good Life” (Chayim Tovim).

With great audacity, we say, during these High Holy Days, “Write us in the Book of Life, for Your sake, Living God”. We are saying, You God are compelled to write us in the Book of Life, for the life we promise to live will bring You life. It is the good and noble life, which brings the presence of a living God into the world, that we seek and to which we commit on these Days of
At-one-ment. As we enter a New Year, may we all be blessed to live as God’s partners in writing our shared Book of a Good Life.

נזכר ונכתב לחיים טובים

May we be remembered and inscribed for a good life