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Yom KippurFrom: Mike Freedman [mfreedman@portables1.ngfl.gov.uk] Rosh Hashanah is over and we now move on towards Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. (Yom = Day, Kippur = Atonement - simple, huh?) Yom Kippur is the most serious day of the Jewish calendar. It falls on the 10th day of Tishri (Rosh Hashanah was 1st/2nd Tishri) and so this year it will fall next Monday. Yom Kippur picks up the theme of repentance that began in the month leading up to New Year and runs with it with a vengeance. Jews see Yom Kippur as the final chance to make amends for the wrongs we have done in the past year and to convince the Almighty of our genuine intention to do better this year. The day is one of total fast (no food or drink) from before sundown on Sunday until after sundown on Monday, a fast of slightly more than 25 hours. The Erev (evening before) service is known as Kol Nidre (pron. nid-ray), which are the opening words of the opening prayer of the service and mean "All Vows..". In this prayer we negate all vows made to God (but not those made to other humans) over the past year, clearing the way (I suppose) for a renewed attempt at living right in the next year. The service is a long one lasting from about 7.30 - around 10.00 after which we go home to sleep and / or meditate. In our synagogue the morning service on Yom Kippur begins at 10 am and continues throughout the day. (No need for a lunch break! :-)). There are actually 5 separate services, with two separate episodes of reading from the Torah scrolls, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. During the morning there are usually services and activities for various age groups of younger people and a place is set aside for those too young to fast to be fed. In fact, many families take children home at lunchtime and although the synagogue is packed in the morning it is usually much less well populated in the afternoon. (In many congregations there is a pause of an hour or two in the afternoon for people to go home and have a nap. In ours there is a pause between two of the services in the early afternoon when those of us who are still have the pleasure of listening to a story with a theme relevant to the day - we have one or two members who are excellent story readers). Things build up again later on and it usually gets pretty packed again for the last hour or two. Staying in for the whole day is hard going and most people take some breaks. Many of us spend an hour taking part in the security rota (it is a sad fact that Jewish congregations feel the need to maintain a security watch whenever we have a service) which also serves as a meeting and greeting party. I also like to go off at sometime during the day for a quiet reflective walk. We are lucky that our synagogue is right across the road from Wimbledon Common where it is possible to walk in peace and quiet. (I remember as a teenager in North London, where there are many synagogues, that I and my friends used to spend part of the day walking from one service to another, sometimes covering several miles in the day, and always spending part of the day walking in Highgate Cemetery, an ideal place for the kind of Life-the-Universe-and-Everything conversations that people that age have). Yom Kippur may sound like rather a marathon, and in some ways it is, but much of the service is very beautiful and moving and the atmosphere is like no other day of the year. Like any long event, the tone of the Yom Kippur service is varied. It begins with a feeling of energy (Jewish services are marked by frequent episode of standing up - followed of course by sitting down - sometimes you can be up and down several times in the space of a few minutes!). As the day moves on things become quieter. The middle part of the day is calm, and deeply introspective with some really heavenly music. As the day moves towards its close things build up again, although by now many of us are beginning to flag a little (I usually get quite a bad headache towards the end). The final flourish is a mega-long blast on the shofar. I make no apologies for recommending an old favourite as my first Yom Kippur site of the day. It's Judaism 101. (Click it - it's a hyperlink). The page about Yom Kippur is full of information and, as always with this site, clearly expressed with good glossary references.
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