Rav Amnon and Unesaneh Tokef

Feeling uncomfortable in front of the king and seeking a way to put off the matter, Rav Amnon asked for three days to think about the king's request. He would never have considered it, nor did he need any time to think before refusing. He was only giving an excuse to extricate himself from the king's scrutiny. Nevertheless, the matter gave him no rest. He rebuked himself: how could he have given the king the impression that he was willing even to consider renouncing his emunah in Hashem and the Torah? His friends and family tried to console him, but to no avail.

The three days passed, and he refused to appear before the king. When the king summoned him to judgment for failing to keep his promise and arrive, Rav Amnon told the king that he would pass judgment on himself and decree the punishment for his misdeed. "My lying tongue, that even implied I might consider leaving my faith, should be cut out," he said, feeling that it would be a kiddush Hashem and just retribution for his equivocation.

"No," the king replied, "your tongue spoke well. Rather, I will cut off the feet that failed to bring you before me, and I will torture your body." As they cut off each of his limbs, piece by piece, they urged him to avoid further torture by reconsidering, renouncing his faith and accepting theirs. But despite his terrible suffering, Rav Amnon steadfastly refused. When the brutal punishment was finished, the king had the gravely injured Rav Amnon placed in a wooden box together with all his severed limbs, and sent him home in this way.

On Rosh Hashanah, Rav Amnon asked them to bring him in his aron, together with his severed limbs, to the shul, where they placed him beside the chazzan. In great and terrible pain, he accepted his suffering lovingly as penance and atonement for his misdeed. When the chazzan reached the Kedushah, Rav Amnon asked him to pause and said, "Let me sanctify Hashem's name in public." He recited the famous liturgical poem Unesaneh Tokef, and then his soul departed.

Three days later he appeared in a dream to Rabbeinu Kalonymous ben Rabbeinu Meshulam and taught him the words of the poem. He asked that it be taught and spread among Klal Yisroel and established to be recited every Rosh Hashanah, as a plea that the Jewish people be remembered favorably before Hashem.