Seal Yourself in the Book of Life this Yom Kippur

As Jews, we are told that on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, "it is written" and on Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentence, "it is sealed." What is "it"? Our fate for the next year. Where is it written and sealed? In the proverbial Book of Life.

While I do believe that God has a hand in our destiny, I also believe that we were given free choice about how – and possibly when – we create that destiny. In other words, I believe that the choices we make get us to that destiny. I also believe we are cocreators of our lives, the combination of our thoughts, feelings and actions manifesting the things we experience day to day. That said, we are all cocreating, and sometimes – maybe more often than we would like – our manifestations collide creating a fair amount of chaos. In any case, we constantly experience a combination of destiny or fate and conscious or subconscious creation and cocreation.

So, is the Book of Life figurative or literal? Is it a poetic or a concrete use of words? I believe it is both. If God plays a hand in our destiny, then it might be that our fate is sealed already. However, we are told that "t'shuvah, tefillah and tzedakah" (repentance, prayer and charity) can change God's decree. If this is so, we can create – or co create – our fate for the year. We can change God's mind, if it were. We help God write our page in the Book of Life for the coming year – or for our whole life.

And we can do the same every day of every year. We can write our own page in the Book of Life today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. How do we accomplish this? By reviewing our actions and goals from the last year, noticing where we fell short of achieving our desired outcomes and then setting new targets for the new year. However, we must take another step: We must write on the blank pages of the book by visualizing our new goals in fine detail and feeling exactly what it would be like if we had already manifested these results. In other words, we must imagine the life we want, the behaviors to which we aspire as if they had been published in that book – sealed, already done, accomplished.

On Rosh Hashanah, at the beginning of the year we begin the process of introspection – looking back over the year and beginning to conceptualize what we want in the New Year. By the time Yom Kippur draws to a close, we have clarified our desires in all areas of our life. We have written them in fine detail as if they had already happened – in the past tense. And, like the scribes of old who blotted the ink to "seal it," we do the same and then close the book.

Our destiny, our fate for the next year remains sealed not until next Yom Kippur, however, but until we make a new choice, think a new thought, get into a different emotional pattern…or God feels the need to take us in hand. That's cocreation at it's best.