Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar – Day of Atonement is the peak of the period of repentance. Forty days which include the month of Elul and the ten days of Awe, starting with Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and ending up with Yom Kippur.
In the Torah, following the sin of the Golden Calf, Moses pleaded with God to forgive the people. Finally on Yom Kippur, atonement was achieved and Moses brought the second set of Tablets down from Mount Sinai.
As our sages teach us in the Midrash [ Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 46, 6]: " Moses spent forty days on the mount, studying with God and explaining the meaning of the words of the Torah, and examining its letters. After forty days he took the Torah, and descended on the tenth of the month, on the Day of Atonement, and gave it as an everlasting inheritance to the children of Israel…"
The focus of the sacred day is our repentance and the forgiveness which we ask of God to bestow on us as it says in the Book of Leviticus [23, 26-28]: "And the Lord spoke to Moshe, saying: Also, on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be a holy gathering to you; and you shall afflict your souls, and submit an offering made by fire to the Lord. And you shall do no work on that very same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God".
Thus for 25 hours we make an effort to devote ourselves with all our hearts and minds, to our relationship with God. We are commanded to stay away as much as possible from the mundane and our daily life. We fast and refrain from washing, intimate relationships and wearing leather shoes. We spend most of the day praying in the synagogue which includes extra, unique prayers. It is customary to wear white garments symbolizing purity from sins.
On the eve of Yom Kippur, the liturgy, starts with a powerful and ancient prayer called Kol Nidrei (All Vows), in which all people, including the sinners, are invited to join us, and asks that all vows made under pressure during the coming year, may be considered null and void before God.
During the morning service, much prominence is given to the liturgical pieces in which the ancient Temple ceremony is recounted. It is a symbolic reenactment of the High Priest's rituals which included entering the site of the Holy of Holiest, the scapegoat and the prayers for forgiveness which took place in the Temple in Jerusalem. A major component of the liturgy is the repeated communal confession of sins. The afternoon service includes the reading of the Book of Jonah teaching us the power of true repentance.
The day is concluded with a unique and emotionally powerful service called Neilah, Closure - during which the liturgy imagines the gates of heaven closing at the end of the High Holiday period. The holy ark is opened as we plead to God to inscribe us all into the Books of Life. The day ends with a long blast of the shofar, the ram’s horn, signifying our trust that God heard our cry, our true repentance, and pardoned us.
With joy and happiness we immediately move on to fulfill the commandments of the upcoming festival - Sukkot - the Feast of the booths and soon after breaking fast people will start to build Sukkot, the booths.
I wish us all to be inscribed into the Books of Life.
About the Author:
Rabbi Oded Peles is the Rabbi of 'Shevet Achim' Conservative congregation in Jerusalem.
Cantor, musicologist and Israeli educator, Rabbi Peles was born in Israel to a Dutch-German Jewish family. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, a renowned cantor in the Netherlands, Oded has served and performed as a Cantor in communities worldwide. He specializes in the unique musical traditions and liturgy of Western European Jewry.
For over twenty years Rabbi Peles has been active in interfaith dialogue both in his work and through his academic studies. For many years, he is leading the Christian-Jewish Hebrew learning group in Jerusalem, which studies the Bible, Old and New Testament.