I Know a Guy Who Can Get You Into the "Book Of Life"

"There are four ways to put your thumb on the Days of Awe scale this season. You can influence your standing (AKA — become a better person), by leaning into this framework."

By Allison Task

The fire and brimstone of the high holidays never sat well with me. Especially the Yom Kippur talk of a judgmental god, sitting on some sort of a throne, deciding who shall live and who shall die.

It reminds me of Wormtail quivering between a resurrected Voldemort. Phil Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiments reminded us all how efficiently power corrupts. I think of judgmental, vengeful folks in positions of power ending lives with casual contempt.

No thank you.

As a woman in the world, part of my lift is to reconcile centuries of generational trauma and degradation driven by a nonsensical power imbalance. My mother couldn’t apply for credit cards or have her name on a mortgage without my father’s approval. In the 1960s. In the United States.  

No thank you. 

I’m not begging or pleading with “avenu malkeinu” to accept my humble prayers and ‘seal me in the book of life.’ 

I’m not begging.

I’m not getting on my knees.

I just — can’t. 

And yet…I like this whole end-of-year taking stock thing. For my own sense of personal growth and self-improvement. To ask myself hard questions and take responsibility. To recalibrate my values and confirm that I’m heading in the direction I want to go.

I like the concept of “what gets measured gets improved,” or in John Doerr's more entrepreneurial paradigm, Measure What Matters. I like measurement, quantification, and checking in. And I deeply appreciate Jewish values as a framework for such self-examination.

So I found myself simultaneously hopeful and skeptical at a recent High Holiday workshop at my synagogue. It was promoted as a High Holiday Workshop for “Teshuvah and Reinventing Ourselves.”

I’m listening. 

When our rabbinic intern asked us how we felt about the concept of being written into the book of life, I let out an audible raspberry and a two-thumbs down (did I gesture that out loud? I believe I did). My negative enthusiasm was exactly what he was looking for. After all, one is rarely that forthcoming with a rabbi, especially so close to the Yomiest of Tovs (“poo, poo, poo”).

Here’s what I learned, and what I’ll be carrying into the season. It's my New Jersey equivalent of knowing a guy who can help you with a thing. You never lose that number, it will come in handy. 

So let me share the number.

There are four ways to put your thumb on the Days of Awe scale this season. You can influence your standing (AKA become a better person), by leaning into this framework. You can try to fit them in during your 10-day Rosh to Yom sprint, or you can use them as guideposts throughout the year. Or both.

The big four are: tzedakah, tefillah (prayer), name change,  and behavior change. Let me explain. 

Tzedakah is the act of giving. For some, it’s writing a check. For others, it’s giving chesed, loving kindness. Helping those in need, or helping before there is need. Volunteering. Find a way to recognize your abundance and share it. It can be inviting someone over for shabbat, extending kindness, and creating more love and connection in the world. You might have a strong practice of tzedakah, and you can likely increase it.

Prayer. This is a triggery one. No, you don’t have to be part of a daily minyan, though you could. You may do your daily gratitude journal, that’s a big one. My first piece on JEWDICIOUS explored the three types of prayer (please, awe, thank you)  in more depth. Take a peek. It doesn’t have to involve the Torah or the Bible, but it can. Can you spend a little more time spiritually, soulfully? Course you can.

Name change. This, along with the next (behavior change) are the yin and yang of self-actualization. Name change doesn’t literally mean name change, though it can. It’s a tangible change in who you are. Perhaps becoming a parent, a rabbi, a retiree, a rescue-dog owner. Obtaining a certification or post-doc, becoming a pianist, magician, a cook. Getting married or divorced. Whatever it is, you are shifting, or better yet, evolving your identity in some way. It’s a shift of reputation, a change that has a tangible result in who you are.

Finally, Behavioral change: You’re changing the way you do a thing. The doctor has asked you to lay off the saturated fat, and so you do. Or you’ve taken up dancing to get a little more heart healthy. You’ve agreed to call your mom once a week, or visit your great grandpappy twice a year. You’re doing a thing that’s good for you, and/or good for others. You’re choosing to make a tangible shift in your actions. These last two are related; I think it’s easier to think of them as a noun change and a verb change.

According to my workshop, these are four ways you can influence your standing with the main macher. Sounds a heck of a lot better than prostrating myself to a fuzzy judgmental other. This framework helps me take stock, take responsibility, and take action. Add it all up and it moves me down the path of becoming more of the person I’d like to be. 

That I can do. 

ALLISON FISHMAN TASK is a life and career coach and the bestselling author of Personal (R)evolution.

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