Sometimes it can be really fun to dissect Chinese character through a Jewish perspective. In the case of the Chinese character 愁 and Yom Kippur, it reveals a surprising semi-coincidental (probably) overlap between the logic of Chinese writing and the Jewish belief system.
The Chinese Character for Autumn
Meet 秋 (Mandarin pronunciation – qiū) – the Chinese character representing the season Autumn or Fall. It is an associative character consisting of two parts that are put together to create a new meaning. On the left we have 禾 which indicates grain or cereal, and right next to it is 火 which signifies fire.

Why is the combination of grain and fire supposed to make us think of Autumn or Fall? Well, this is one of many cases a Chinese character reflects the thought process and the customs of an agricultural society in ancient times. In those days, that was the time farmers used to set fire to all the cereal stalks that remained in the field after the harvest in order to eradicate all the pests that might still be nesting there, thus preparing it for sowing. In fact, in the ancient version of the character 秋 you can also see the insect itself:

About a year ago, I did a five-week backpacking trip in the center and south of China. On the eve of the Middle Autumn Festival, I found myself in a small village that still practices traditional agriculture. The next day I took this photo of burnt stalks in a field.

In Hebrew, the act of setting something on fire for eradication purposes is call בִּעוּר (bi’ur), written ביעור without niqud. It comes from the shoresh ב-ע-ר (Bet–Ayn–Resh) which signifies burning and combustion. You might recognize it from the mitzva of ביעור חָמֵץ (bi’ur chamets) – the burning of foods with leavening agents that are forbidden to Jews on the holiday of Passover.
Fall over Heart and Yom Kippur
Now that we know and understand the logic behind the Chinese character for Autumn 秋, we are ready to talk about another character, which is the one I find perfect for Yom Kippur.
If we take 秋 and add the Heart Element 心 under it, we get the character 愁 which is pronounced chóu in Mandarin Chinese. Technically speaking, this is a picto-phonetic character, in which the 心 (heart) is the semantic component implying the character has something to do with feelings and emotions, and the 秋 above it is the phonetic component which indicates how to pronounce it, though it is rather outdated for Mandarin Chinese pronunciation as it has significantly changed over time.

The meaning of 愁 certainly falls on the negative side of the emotion spectrum. As an adjective it means anxious or worried and as a noun it can mean grief or sorrow. On the that basis, one could argue that 秋 (Autumn) wasn’t strictly chosen for phonetic purposes, and that it also plays a semantic role as well. After all, The Fall is the season most associated with melancholy, and in ancient times people certainly had plenty to worry about over the coming winter.
I think it’s fair to say that Jews are a relatively anxious group of people, and around The Fall, with Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the Ten Days of Owe in between, I’d say they have good reasons to worry even more than usual. But that’s not the reason I think 愁 is the perfect Chinese character for Yom Kippur.
No, the reason 愁 is the perfect character for Yom Kippur is revealed when we look at each of its components individually. We got the heart (心) and over it there’s fire (火) set to an old stalk of crop in the field (禾) in order to eradicate remaining harmful elements from the previous year, in order to enable growth in the year to come.
If that’s not the perfect encapsulation of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement and repentance, then I don’t know what is. In Passover we clean our house and perform ביעור חמץ – the actual burning of harmful past residues, and on Yom Kippur we clean our soul and commit ביעור הלב – the metaphorical burning of harmful past residues out of the heart (lev – לֵב).
Oh man, now I have another contender for my favorite Chinese character…
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