Maurycy Gottlieb, ''Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur'' - Vienna 1878
Yom Kippur (“Day of Atonement”) is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Jews traditionally honor the holiday by fasting, praying, and attending services at a synagogue.
The holiday of Yom Kippur closely follows Rosh Hashanah (which took place from September 13 to September 15 of this year). According to Jewish tradition, Rosh Hashanah marks the occasion when God begins the process of inscribing the fate of every person into the Book of Life. The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are known as the “Days of Awe”, during which Jews give deep consideration to the sins they committed the previous year. This involves honest introspection, sincere repentance, doing good deeds and giving to charity, and making amends for all wrongdoing. Yom Kippur marks the day when the entries in God’s books are finalized and each person’s fate for the coming year is sealed.
This year, Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Tuesday, September 22 and ends at sundown on Wednesday, September 23.
A message from Rita Glassman, Cantor, Composer, and Interfaith Chaplain, clarifying the meaning of "sin":
The Hebrew word for sin is “Cheyt”. It is used in archery terms, as in “missing the target” or “missing the mark”. As used in the liturgy of Yom Kippur, it refers to the ways we as individuals have “missed the mark” in our own lives. Perhaps we have done this by maintaining old, unconstructive habits, being led by our egos instead of our hearts, by not always following through on the hard choices we need to make in order to live responsibly and compassionately in this world. Where we have “sinned” from a contemporary Jewish point of view is where we have "fallen off the path" of living with authenticity, with righteousness, holiness and integrity. Seeing our “sins” as having “missed the mark” as opposed to committing some evil and destructive act, (although that would also constitute a sin) we are better able to recognize and accept our human fallibility and imperfections. Since we view G-d as All Merciful and forgiving, we believe that on Yom Kippur we are given another chance to reframe our lives, to begin again, to come back into alignment with our higher, better selves and in accordance with G-d’s will. Yom Kippur serves as a day of purification whose transformative process began ten days earlier on Rosh Hashanah. We pray, sing, meditate, fast, come into silence, listening for G-d’s voice, hoping to hear G-d’s message for us. We pray for the strength and courage to forgive and hope that we ourselves are forgiven. We celebrate our lives and pray that we will be sealed in the book of life for another year. Our tradition teaches us that it is each of our responsibility to “bring peace where there is strife”, to repair what is broken in the world, to create peace among all the peoples of this earth. Before we can do that, we have to take up the task of making peace with ourselves, our families, our neighbors-we must do our own individual work to heal what needs healing. This is what I understand Yom Kippur to be about. A very special gift we are granted every year in the fall season, at the start of the Jewish New Year.