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Yom Kippur blends reflection, atonement
Consider your actions from the past year: How many of them have harmed yourself, other people or God? People around the world are asking themselves questions like these today during Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur, or “Day of Atonement” in Hebrew, is one of the most important holidays in the Jewish faith.
Yom Kippur takes place on the 10th day of the month of Tishrei in the Jewish calendar. That date moves around the Gregorian calendar and began at sundown last night.
“We come together as a community to think about the ways we’ve gone astray in the last year,” said Rabbi Laurence Groffman of Temple Sholom of West Essex. “It’s not about what we did right, but what we could have done better.”
“We look into what we do and we blow the shofar, or ram’s horn, it goes beyond words when it makes a wailing sound,” Rabbi Aaron Kriegel of Congregation Beth Ahm of West Essex said. “It’s almost an attack to get behind our masks….”
Yom Kippur is the end of an entire period of reflection, which includes 10 days of penitence after Rosh Hashanah.
“God won’t forgive unless you’ve said you’re sorry for what you’ve done, that you’ll try not to do it again and change your ways and make up [to those you’ve wronged] and atone before Yom Kippur,” Kriegel said.
Most people observing the holiday will be fasting until sundown tonight.
“We don’t eat or drink, we don’t wash or wear perfumes. We don’t do these things to remind ourselves that we’re human and mortal,” Kriegel said. He added medicine is allowed but wearing leather shoes is not, because they are made with the skins of animals.
Groffman said while the point is to focus on the spiritual, anyone who is ill, pregnant or under 13 years old cannot participate in the fast.
The holiday begins with the Kol Nidre services, named after the main prayer.
From there, services continue the next morning and take an intermission before picking up again in the afternoon.
“There is repentance and this idea to turn back to God,” according to Groffman. “The Hebrew word Teshuvah [the 40-day period prior to Yom Kippur] means to turn and that’s what we’re doing–turning back to the right path.”
He said during one prayer in the service, the congregation reads a confession prayer.
Kriegel said the sinful behavior is divided by refrain and at the end of each one the group asks for forgiveness.
Some sins are individual while others are communal, such as not “caring for the poor and society, polluting the earth and getting rid of waste,” Kriegel said.
He added that the holidays are good for most types of repentance. “For some sinful behavior one isn’t forgiven until death, such as murder, or if you can’t adequately be forgiven,” he said. “Say you stole something and you can’t repay it all back.”
Yom Kippur ends with a long sounding of the ram’s horn.
“It’s like a spiritual alarm clock, calling us to wake up and live honestly and do good,” Groffman said.
“It’s a powerful time for people,” he continued. “People who may not attend the synagogue often make an extra effort to be there for Yom Kippur. Its message is so powerful–getting back on the right path– that many people relish the opportunity.”
Kriegel said Yom Kippur, a synagogue-based holiday, is followed by the joyous holiday Sukkot five days later.
“Most take it seriously,” he said. “At the beginning of the day the synagogue is filled. At mid-day it is filled again and we take a break from 2 p.m. and come back at 4 p.m. Then it’s pretty filled until night.”
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