PENINA MOÏSE, 1838.
WRITTEN AND SEALED
‘TO be inscribed in the Book of Life.’ This must be understood in a spiritual sense. When a man clings to the love of God, and, putting his trust in His infinite mercy, takes upon himself the yoke of the Kingdom of heaven—he therewith inscribes himself in the Book of Life. Whereas the man, a slave to his passions, who so loses his belief in the all-embracing love of God that he fails to repent and return to his Father in heaven, this despairing of the love of God is equivalent to his being inscribed—God forbid—in the Book of Death.
ISRAEL BAALSHEM, 1700.
IN a higher than their literal sense the words of the liturgy are true. Our destiny—our spiritual destiny—is written down on New Year’s Day and sealed on the Day of Atonement. We write it down in the penitence with which we greet the dawn of the year, we seal it with the amendment which we solemnly vow on the Fast of Kippur. The time for penitence is with us; the Fast with its supreme task awaits us. Let our endeavours to see ourselves as we really are, our sorrow for our shortcomings, the unrest of our unshriven soul, prepare us for the final act of atonement. The Day of Atonement shall lead us, with hearts bowed in submission, to the Divine throne; and God will lovingly lift us up, absolved, forgiven, filled with the spirit of faith and loving obedience. We shall begin to live at last, to live before Him, to live the true life which is inspired by the constant thought of His presence.
MORRIS JOSEPH.