Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Yom Kippur, Educational Companion to the Questions
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YOM KIPPUR IN A NUTSHELL
On Yom Kippur we stand before the King of kings in judgement in a court of law that He has convened, and we confess our shortcomings, while He decides what will happen to us in the next year. This focuses us on who we are and who we can become. As we plead with God for a good year and ask to be written in the Book of Life, we can’t help but consider whether we truly deserve this, and how we can become more deserving of it in the future.
Before the Temple was destroyed, and the Temple service abolished, the sins of the entire nation were atoned for by the kohen gadol (high priest), through the performance of the rituals and service of the day. This happened on the holiest day of the year, in the holiest place in the world, on behalf of the nation as a whole. Once this ritual was lost, the Rabbis recreated Yom Kippur in a way that each Jew could engage in their own atonement process, through tefilla, together with their community in their Mikdash me’at (mini sanctuary – the synagogue). They no longer had to rely on a service that took place centrally on their behalf. Instead, they were each empowered to take responsibility for their own spiritual well-being.
Until this point in history, Jewish worship of God had been focused on the Temple service in Jerusalem. There was a danger that the destruction of the Temple, and the expulsion from Jerusalem, would spell the end for Judaism and the Jewish people. Yom Kippur’s transformation represents Judaism’s transition to a religion that could survive exile and dispersion. Every individual Jew from now on could worship God privately in synagogues that could be built anywhere in the world. It is no understatement to suggest that when the Rabbis created this pivot in Jewish worship, they saved Judaism as a religion and the Jewish people as a civilisation.
DEEP DIVING INTO THE TEFILLA OF THE DAY
It is important to face our mistakes so we can grow from them and ensure we don’t repeat them in the future. If God can forgive our past sins then we can and must forgive them ourselves so that we can build a better future.
The Viduy represents a generality of sinful behaviour. The Alef-Beit as a poetic expression represents the entirety of sinful behaviour (from alef to tav), just as the boy in the story used the Alef-Beit to represent all possible words for his tefilla, pleading with God to arrange them in the correct order, promising that his intention was correct.
Tefilla is not the whole story of repentance on Yom Kippur. While the tefillot, including the Viduy, are there to help us repent, there is also plenty of opportunity during the day to reflect on our past mistakes in our hearts. This is the essence of repentance and we should find time for this introspection during Yom Kippur.
IT ONCE HAPPENED ON YOM KIPPUR…
Perhaps the boy understood responsibility and leadership from his work as a shepherd, in much the same way as Moshe and King David were fitting leaders because they were also shepherds.
He was illiterate. He could not read, but he knew the Alef-Beit. He said each letter over and over again with intense and pure kavana (intention) instead of saying the words of the tefillot, which he could not read. He was also asking God to rearrange the letters he was saying into the correct order so they would make up the words of the tefilla, and this could be considered as if he were saying the tefillot also.
Saying all the words of all the tefillot is not the most important thing on Yom Kippur (or any other day of the year). What is in your heart is more important, and we believe God sees that. This may mean that you can say the tefillot in a language you understand if your Hebrew is not fluent, or even use your own words to approach Hashem and pray. What is most important is that your intention is pure and you take the opportunity to stand before God and open your heart.
ḤIDON ON THE ḤAG (A QUICK QUIZ)
- Day of Atonement (atonement means to make amends for a wrong).
- Tenth of Tishrei.
- Our fate is sealed.
- Moshe came down from Mount Sinai with the second Tablets of stone (signifying God’s forgiveness of the sin of the Golden Calf).
- Viduy (confession) – in case one chokes at the special meal before Yom Kippur and does not have an opportunity to confess, we add Viduy to the Minḥa service.
- Lots were drawn to choose between the goats. One was sacrificed on behalf of the people, and the other was sent into the wilderness, symbolically taking the sins of the people with it. (This is where the idea of a scapegoat comes from.)
- Sins committed against other people – the sinner must ask for forgiveness directly, as God cannot forgive these sins.
- The book of Yona, because the theme of repentance and forgiveness runs through the story. The repentance of the people of Nineveh serves as an inspiration to us to repent, and shows us that repentance can overturn a divine decree.
- Ne’ila.
- The mitzva to build a sukka.