“Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not?” asks the Unetaneh Tokef, that eerie and lovely liturgical poem that Jews recite on the Day of Atonement. And when we do each reach our end, “who by sword and who by wild beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by earthquake and who by plague, who by strangulation and who by stoning?” Those lines are evocative but incomplete, and it is easy to lie awake at night adding our own verses.
