Concluding Kedushta Poem (Silluk) for Rosh Hashanah

U-netaneh tokef (Let Us Speak of This Day’s Sanctity)

4th–6th Century

About This Entry

“U-netaneh tokef” is perhaps the best-known ancient piyyut, still recited in synagogues today on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The poem is Byzantine, from the land of Israel, and may have been written by the sixth-century poet Yannai. (A twelfth-century Ashkenazic legend, which aims to justify the poem’s recitation by Ashkenazic communities, attributes the authorship to an apocryphal martyr, Rabbi Amnon of Mayence, who appears in a dream to Rabbi Kolonymos ben Meshullam ben Kolonymos, urging the poem’s recitation.) The piyyut expands on the tradition in m. Rosh Hashanah 1:2 that “on New Year’s Day, all humans pass before God [in judgment] as in a military muster.”

Formally, the poem is the concluding unit (silluk) of a kedushta, a series of nine poems that relate to the first three blessings of the Tefillah and transition into the recitation of the Kedushah.

And now may the Sanctification rise to you, for you are our God and king:

Let us speak of this day’s sanctity,

For it is terrifying, fearsome—

the day your kingdom is established,

your throne set firmly in mercy,

and you take your seat upon it in truth.

Truly: You are the judge, the accuser, the omniscient witness.

You write and seal, count and enumerate,

call to mind all things forgotten.

You open the book of records,

order it read, and—Lo!—

Every man has signed his name therein.

The great horn sounds;

A thin, dim echo rebounds.

Angels, panicking,

seized by terror and shaking, say:

“The day of judgment is here!”—

For you bring the hosts of heaven to judgment,

and even they cannot count on being cleared in your judgment,

when all who dwell in the world pass before you

like those who dwell in the heavens.

Just as a shepherd examines his flock,

passing his sheep beneath his staff,

so you make pass, count, and enumerate,

consider every living thing,

fix the fate of each creature,

write down his decree.

On the New Year these things are written, and on the Day of Atonement sealed:

How many will come into being,

how many will pass away—

who will live and who will die;

who in his time and who too soon;

who by fire and who by flood,

who by sword and who by beast,

who by hunger and who by thirst,

who by earthquake and who by plague,

who by the rope and who by the stone;

who will be still and who will go wandering,

who will be calm and who will be anxious,

who will be tranquil and who will suffer,

who will find poverty, who will have riches,

who will sink and who will rise—

but repentance, prayer, and charity cancel the harsh decree.

For you are praised for what you are:

Hard to make angry, easy to appease.

You do not want a man to die,

but to turn back from sin and live.

You wait while his life runs its course;

if he repents, you accept him right away.

Truly, you made them;

you know how they are made—

made of flesh and blood.

Man is made of earth and returns to earth.

He expends his life in earning his daily bread.

What is he like? A broken shard,

a heap of dried-out grass,

a withered blossom;

a passing shadow,

a wisp of cloud,

a blowing breeze,

a puff of dust,

a fleeting dream—

but you are the king, the God who lives forever.

Your years have no end, your days have no measure,

your chariots cannot be numbered,

your name’s mystery cannot be known.

You are your name,

and by your name you have called us.

Act now for the sake of your name;

Sanctify your name for those who sanctify your name,

for the sake of your glorious name, fearful and holy,

in the words of the seraphim, holy,

who sanctify your name in the place holy—

those who dwell in the heavens

together with those who dwell in the world,

all repeating the words of your prophet:

“Holy, holy, holy, the Lord of Hosts!

The whole earth is full of His glory!”

Translated by Raymond P. Scheindlin.

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Credits

U-netaneh tokef (Let Us Speak of This Day’s Sanctity), trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin, in Raymond P. Scheindlin, “The Unetaneh Tokef: A New Translation,” Conservative Judaism, vol. 50 (Summer 1998): 48–50. Used with permission of the Rabbinical Assembly.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.