Our Deeds Are Recorded

Valcav Havel, the playwright, poet and dissident who became president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of communism, often spoke about his goals in loftier terms than most politicians.  Speaking before the Polish Parliament in 1990 he suggested that leaders should “bring spirituality, moral responsibility, humanness, and humility into politics, and, in that way, make clear that there is something higher above us, that our deeds do not disappear in the black hole of time but are recorded somewhere and judged.”

Too often we think our actions don’t matter or that they have little consequence.  But they do.  They matter very much.  They matter to our families.  They matter to our friends.  They matter to the world. 

Other times we think that because we are not world leaders our actions will not be recorded in any history books.  They will not be remembered.  We believe once we are gone, and those who knew us are gone, our deeds will be forgotten.

On Yom Kippur we refute these beliefs.  We proclaim, God notices our deeds.  They are remembered.  They are judged.  God takes note!  This is the essence of our prayers on Yom Kippur.

The Untaneh Tokef prayer proclaims,

In truth,
You are judge and plaintiff, counselor and witness. 
You inscribe and seal.  You record and recount. 
You remember all that we have forgotten. 
And when you open the Book of Memories,
it speaks for itself—
for every human hand leaves its mark,
an imprint like no other.

Our actions leave an imprint.  They are recorded for all time.  No matter how big or how small we are, everyone’s actions matter.

And so, on this Yom Kippur we will look at our sins.  We will recount them together.  We will examine our past.  We will make amends.  We will seek to do better.

We will affirm even if no one else notices, God takes note.  Yom Kippur restores our faith in the weight of our actions, in the worthiness of our deeds. 

We enter these days striving to leave an even better imprint—for all time.