Rosh Hashana: Betting on Ourselves while Arbitraging the Angels
Human Potential and Freedom are Undervalued
And the great shofar will be sounded and a still, thin voice will be heard. Angels will be frenzied, a trembling and terror will seize them — and they will say, “Behold, it is the Day of Judgment, to muster the heavenly host for judgment!' — for even they are not guiltless in Your eyes in judgment. (Unetaneh Tokef)
And in every place where one asks for “life” in prayer, apart from the profound secrets that touch upon the Divine Presence and the sparks of holiness, it also refers to the vitality of the soul, that one may feel alive in awe and love of the Divine Name every day. Furthermore, it pertains to the vitality of the body, that one desires to live in order to serve their Creator and fulfill the rectification of their soul, spirit, and essence, so that there shall be no pain or anger towards the Blessed Holy One and His Divine Presence on account of them. And for this intention, one must seek greatly for the life of the body, for it is more precious to spend even one hour in Torah study and good deeds in this world than all the life in the World to Come (Avot 4:17). And this should be one's intention when saying, “Remember us for life,” and so forth, for Your sake, O Living God. Delve deeply and extensively into this matter, for this is the essence of every person. (Pele Yoetz 345:12)
Every Rosh Hashana, we imagine that God opens up God’s ledger, and writes down and revises our good deeds and misdeeds, taking note of our spiritual assets and liabilities, as it were. We further imagine that by the end of Yom Kippur God closes the books and seals us in—at this point the ledger can’t be changed. I’d like to offer a new interpretation of this imagery. What is this book of life, after all?
Imagine God is a bookie and the angels sports betters. Every year the angels congregate in heaven to place their bets. Will Zohar have a good year this year? Will his character improve? Will he be a net giver to society? How much value will he generate for others? Will he succeed in realizing his purpose? Some angels take the thesis for, others against. There’s a spread between those angels long Zohar and thsoe angels short Zohar. A price equilibrium is reached and God records the bets. Then by Yom Kippur the book value of Zohar is sealed. In a year, the angels will check their portfolios and decide if it was a good year. Some angels think my odds of success are a coin flip, others more like three heads in a row. Some think I’m a slam dunk. This is all based on track record and historical performance, plus general trend analysis—how is humanity as a whole doing this year? Are they a good asset to hold? The book of life marks a record not of our deeds, but of our projected value based upon metrics like top-line and bottom-line growth, margins, defensibility, etc. (We are speaking metaphorically, of course).
What do the angels miss in their fundamental analysis? In a word, optionality. They operate on the assumption that past performance indicates future performance, but fail to appreciate “convexity,” the idea that in a given moment a person can become an outlier. They don’t see outliers, they only see the average. Angels see probabilities within an average distribution, but their minds can’t grasp tail events—neither tail risk nor tail opportunity. The human word that captures what the angels miss is Teshuva. We know that the main thing that distinguishes man from angel is free will, agency, bechira. This is the principle of life. We can’t dismiss a human life, even one that is down and out because there is always the principle of hope—unappreciated by the angels—of a radical turn. Life itself is optionality. Life itself, with the capacity for teshuva, holds out the possibility of an outlier, an outlier act of heroism or courage, an outlier epiphany or breakthrough, an outlier act of creativity or reproduction.
Angels assume linear growth; teshuva suggests exponential growth. The reverse is also true, without deep introspection, we are a hair’s breath away from collapse. Self-sabotage is more of a risk than we think, especially when we think we’re doing well and trending up.
I’d like to offer a new interpretation of the phrase “Zachreinu l’chaim,” “Remember us for life,” inspired by the Pele Yoetz. To be remembered for life means that we remember the principle of life in ourselves and others—that we hold open the deep hope that life itself is an incredible call option, that free will exists, if only as a possibility. Sure, most of the time we are predictable. Most of the time we are average. Most of the time, the algorithm knows what we’ll buy. But such analysis is shallow. For you only need to be right every so often to win big, and that is the difference between the judgment of God and the judgment of angels.
Judgment is scary for the angels, but not for God. The angels tremble at God’s judgment, but God’s judgment is sweet, for it is mixed with the mercy that knows that as long as we live we have an uncapped upside.
The real question is not what does God write in the book, but what will we do to prove the angels’ bets wrong? What will we do to ensure that when God opens up the book of life next Rosh Hashana, the angels must acknowledge that their models failed to integrate our hidden potential. The purpose of the book of life is to give us a chance to bet on ourselves, to take the other side of the trade against our naysayers, and to make use of our information asymmetry: our own freedom.
Jewish law permits the sacrifice of life in only a few exceptional instances. Mainly, we are enjoined to choose life (“v’chai bahem”) rather than die following the commandments. Now we know why. So long as we survive to live another day we have an opportunity to serve God and create unprecedented value. May we be remembered for this “life.” L’chaim.
Wishing us all a Shana Tova,
Zohar Atkins