Every year, when Yom Kippur rolls around, I try to pretend it isn’t there. It is by far the least fun Jewish holiday to celebrate. You have to fast, which is never fun, sit in services all day, and focus on all the wrongs you’ve done over the past year.
Every year up to now, I have rationalized various ways of getting around Yom Kippur’s strict commandments. I have convinced myself that God wouldn’t really want me to fast, that a forgiving God wouldn’t want me to punish myself for simply being human and making mistakes. Why must I be hungry because Eve ate an apple? I have objected to the entire nature of the holiday, which I saw only as an occasion to wallow in guilt (something everyone with a Jewish mother knows a lot about), believing that it was more important to go on with my life rather than focus on the mistakes I’ve made.
This year, however, I have no desire to make excuses for myself. After a year of rediscovering my roots as a Jewish woman, and reflecting on what it really means to be Jewish, I now understand the true meaning of Yom Kippur and am honored to be included in this highest of Holy Days.
Yom Kippur is the “day of atonement,” the culmination of the ten Days of Awe begun with Rosh Hashanah. During the holiday (from sundown to sundown), we as Jews are forbidden to eat or drink, wear leather shoes, bathe, or have sex. These are very difficult proscriptions for me to abide by, but understanding the meaning behind them eases their inconvenience.
The holiday begins at sundown with the Kol Nidre service, a beautiful and poignant call of humbleness and awe before God. According to tradition, the heavens open during this service so that we can directly feel His presence. It is His energy that nurtures us throughout the following day; we need no mortal sustenance for we are in the presence of the divine. We fast to cleanse ourselves physically, as well as emotionally, as we atone for our human errors, so that we are pure before the Lord. Though I do not necessarily accept this ascetic ideal in its entirety, I do find it a beautiful spiritual picture and am proud that it originated in the hearts and minds of my ancestors.
