There is a belief in Judaism that between Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur, G-d or the Heavenly Court decides who is written in the Book of Life and who is not. I also read that on Rosh haShanah the very wicked are immediately written in the Book of Death while the very righteous are immediately written in the Book of Life: the Days of Awe between and including Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur are for the rest of the people to be judged so that it can be determined where they will be inscribed.
If this is true, does this mean that according to Judaism G-d knows who all will die in the upcoming year? Wouldn’t this make praying for someone’s safety or recovery futile since it has already been decided who will live and die? Does this also mean that G-d knows whom amongst His People will be victims of terrorism? If so, does this not kindle His wrath? (And if so, why hasn’t He done anything yet?)
WRS - May all the people of Israel be inscribed and sealed for a happy, joyous, healthy, sweet, and mitzvah-filled new year and life!
WeRS: *If this is true, does this mean that according to Judaism G-d knows who all will die in the upcoming year? *
Don’t all believers in an omniscient omnipotent Deity (which AFAIK includes not only all theistic Jews but all Christians and Muslims, just for starters) acknowledge that the Deity knows exactly when and how everybody will die, not only in the coming year but in all futurity?
If you can figure out how to reconcile the concepts of divine predestination and human free will at that level, you’ll have solved your comparatively piddling little problem of how to deal with the annual report cards in the Book of Life.
Most Jews understand the Book of Life and Death to be metaphor, or poetry, rather than a literally accounting of records. On the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement, we look back at the past year and how many things happened that we could not anticipate, for good and for ill, and we look ahead to the future year and know that we do not know what will happen. And that fills us with awe and dread, that for all our human power and knowledge, the future is completely unknown to us. So we express, in poetry, that God knows the future and it’s in His hands.
When you’re dealing with poetry or metaphor, it’s perfectly OK to have seemingly inconsistent views at the same time – that God knows all the future, and that human beings have free will. We don’t understand how it works, although various great rabbis and scholars have tried to provide analogies and explanations. God does not exist in (or is not subject to) time and space as we understand them, and we can’t comprehend how absolute foreknowledge is reconciled with free will.
If you’d like, think of the Judgements being something like a very stern warning, and a reminder that repentence, prayer, and charity (deeds of lovingkindness) can cancel the stern decree.
If you look in the Unetanah Tokef prayer in the Rosh Ha-Shanah liturgy – an additional to the Mussaf Amidah, it says there:
“U-teshuvah, u-tefilah, u-tsedakah, ma’avirim et ro’a ha-g’zeirah”
“Penitence, prayer and righteous giving temper the baneful decree”
This medieval prayer is rooted in statements in the Mishnah and Talmud that the decree can be averted. I would call this the normative position in Jewish theology.
In other words, we do not have determined, ineluctable fate.
The idea of a completely omniscient God is controverted in rabbinic sources, although Aristotelean based medieval sources tried to defend the idea.
Medieval kabbalistic sources did not try to defend the idea of God’s omniscience, as far as I can tell.
Oh, He knows. He knows about all the “terror” inflicted on various peoples. Maybe that’s why he sent those airplanes into those buildings… or maybe He wouldn’t do something like that in response to “terrorism.”
How does this compare to the use of the phrase “Book of Life” in Revelations? There it seems to be referring to a final Book of Life, in which all the saved will be listed and all those not will be damned or annihalated for eternity.
The book of Revelations is part of the New Testament, not the Old and is therefore part of a different theology: Christian and not Jewish.
Regardless, according to mainstream Orthodox Jewish thought, G-d is all-knowing, including all things that will happen in the future. Though one is sealed in a book of life or death by Yom Kippur, Judaism always leaves room for repentance, so there is always the possibility of changing one’s fate.