Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a Jewish day of repentance, prayer and fasting. It concludes the ten Days of Repentance that begin with Rosh Hashanah. Fasting practices include exemptions, including for children and people whose health would be endangered ³.

The Torah gives the day in one sentence: for on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before the LORD (Leviticus 16:30). It comes on the tenth of Tishrei, ten days after Rosh Hashanah, and closes the Ten Days of Repentance that begin with the new year; in the Jewish picture of those days, the Book of Life opened on Rosh Hashanah is sealed at the end of Yom Kippur ^1,2.

The Mishnah draws the line that the day is known for: Yom Kippur atones for sins between a person and God, but for sins between a person and another it does not atone until the wrong has been put right with that person (Mishnah Yoma 8:9). That is why the days before are spent asking forgiveness of people, and the day itself asking it of God. The same passage ends with Rabbi Akiva's words: happy are you, Israel, before whom are you made clean, and who makes you clean? Your Father in heaven ³.

Leviticus describes the Day of Atonement and its Temple service. Rabbinic teaching and later liturgy shape the fasting and prayer associated with Yom Kippur today.

Leviticus 16 is the chapter of the day. It tells how Aaron, the first High Priest, was to enter the Holy of Holies once a year, on this day alone, with incense and the blood of a bull and a goat, and how two goats were brought and lots drawn: one for the LORD, offered as a sin offering, and one for Azazel, on whose head the priest confessed all the sins of Israel before it was sent away into the wilderness, the scapegoat (16:7-10, 16:21-22). The chapter ends by making the day a statute for ever: in the seventh month, on the tenth day, ye shall afflict your souls and do no work (16:29-34) ⁴.

Leviticus 23 repeats the command in the calendar of festivals, calls the day a sabbath of solemn rest, and fixes its hours from evening to evening; Numbers 29 gives its offerings. Leviticus 25:9 adds that the shofar announcing the jubilee year was sounded on this day, which is why a single blast of the shofar ends the fast today ^4,1. Jewish tradition holds that the first Yom Kippur was the day Moses came down from Sinai with the second tablets after the golden calf, and that God's forgiveness that day is what the day remembers.

The service of the two goats was performed in the Temple until its destruction in 70 CE; the Mishnah's tractate Yoma preserves it in detail, and the Musaf prayer of Yom Kippur, the Avodah, retells it step by step, with the congregation bowing to the ground where the priest once did ^3,1. Rabbinic teaching explains the Torah's instruction to afflict oneself: the Mishnah spells them out as five prohibitions, eating and drinking, washing, anointing, wearing leather shoes and marital relations (Mishnah Yoma 8:1) ³. The confession of sins, said aloud ten times through the day, the white clothing, and the five services are rabbinic and medieval; Kol Nidre is the declaration concerning vows that opens the evening service. Its precise origins remain uncertain. Accounts connecting it with forced conversion are interpretations of its history, rather than an established explanation of its composition ⁵. ¹⁰

Who keeps it Many Rabbinic Jewish communities, with a twenty-five hour fast, five prayer services, the Kol Nidre and Ne'ilah, and white clothing; the most widely observed day of the Jewish year.

The fast begins before sunset with Kol Nidre and ends after nightfall the next day with a single blast of the shofar; in between are five services, white clothes, and no food, drink, washing, leather or perfume.

The day before, families eat a festive meal, ask forgiveness of one another, and light a memorial candle. Just before sunset the fast begins, and the congregation, many in white and wearing canvas shoes instead of leather, hears Kol Nidre sung three times before the open ark. The morning service reads Leviticus 16 and Isaiah 58; Yizkor, the memorial prayer for the dead, follows; the Musaf service retells the Temple's Avodah; the afternoon reads Leviticus 18 and the whole Book of Jonah; and Ne'ilah, the closing of the gates, ends the day as the sun sets, with the congregation standing, the ark open, the Shema said aloud, and one long blast of the shofar ^1,2. Then the fast is broken with a meal, and five days later Sukkot begins ².

Orthodox and Conservative communities keep the whole of this. Conservative synagogues often shorten the Avodah; Reform synagogues keep the fast and the services in a shorter form, read Deuteronomy 29 and 30, the renewal of the covenant, in place of Leviticus 16 in the morning, and see their largest congregations of the year on this day and Rosh Hashanah ^1,6. Karaite Jews keep the fast from the Torah's text alone, and the Samaritans keep the Day of Atonement as well ¹.

In Israel the day stops the country. There are no broadcasts, no flights, no public transport and no open shops; the roads empty and children cycle down the middle of the highways; about six in ten Israeli Jews say they fast, many of them people who keep little else ¹. In 1973 the afternoon of Yom Kippur was broken by air-raid sirens when Egypt and Syria attacked, and the war that followed carries the day's name ¹.

The morning reads the chapter of the two goats and the prophet who asks whether a fast is only bowing the head; the afternoon reads the Book of Jonah, because God forgave a city that repented.

Morning: Leviticus 16, the service of the day, with Numbers 29:7-11 as the maftir; haftarah Isaiah 57:14 to 58:14, in which the prophet says the fast God chooses is to loose the fetters of wickedness and share bread with the hungry. Afternoon: Leviticus 18; haftarah the whole Book of Jonah, ending with Micah 7:18-20, who is a God like unto Thee that pardoneth iniquity ^7,8.

Jonah is read as the sun goes down because it is the story of a whole city, Nineveh, and a reluctant prophet, both forgiven when they turned; a Jewish source says that as Jonah is answered from the belly of the fish, the congregation is reminded that it too can be answered, even as the day wanes ⁸. Reform congregations read Deuteronomy 29 and 30 in the morning, the covenant made with those standing there and those not there that day, and begin the haftarah at Isaiah 58 ⁶.

In brief Morning: Leviticus 16 and Numbers 29:7-11, haftarah Isaiah 57:14 to 58:14. Afternoon: Leviticus 18, haftarah the Book of Jonah and Micah 7:18-20.

Christians and the Day of Atonement

The Letter to the Hebrews interprets the Day of Atonement's Temple service in relation to Jesus. Yom Kippur remains a Jewish observance with its own continuing meaning.

Hebrews 9 describes the Holy of Holies which only the High Priest entered, once a year, with blood, and then says that Christ entered the greater sanctuary of heaven once for all with his own blood; 9:24-28 and 10:1-14 contrast the yearly sacrifices with one sacrifice for sins for all time. A Protestant commentator of the seventeenth century, Matthew Henry, states the reading in its classic form: the high priest entered but once a year into the holiest, and in this the antitype excels the type, for he has entered once for all ⁹. That is the Christian reading of the chapter, held by Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches alike, ; Judaism reads Leviticus 16 as the service of its own Temple and keeps the day the chapter commands.

The goat sent away in Leviticus 16 is the origin of the English word scapegoat, and it has entered Christian speech and art as a figure for Christ bearing sins away ¹. Some Christians, among them the Seventh-day Adventists, give the Day of Atonement a place in their own teaching about judgment; Messianic Jewish congregations and the churches of the Armstrong tradition keep the fast on the tenth of Tishrei as a commanded day ⁴.

Acts 27:9 refers to 'the Fast,' generally understood as Yom Kippur, when describing the dangers of Paul's autumn voyage. This reference helps locate the narrative in the Jewish calendar; it does not institute a Christian observance ⁴.

Yom Kippur is the tenth of Tishrei, nine days after Rosh Hashanah, and falls in September or October.

The Torah fixes the date, the tenth day of the seventh month, and the hours, from evening to evening (Leviticus 23:27-32); the fast runs about twenty-five hours, from a few minutes before sunset on the ninth to nightfall on the tenth ². Because the day depends on Rosh Hashanah, and the fixed calendar keeps Rosh Hashanah off Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, Yom Kippur never falls on Friday or Sunday, so the fast is never beside the Sabbath ⁴.

Yom Kippur is a single day everywhere, in Israel and outside it and in every movement; it is the one festival the diaspora never doubled, since two days of a full fast were judged too much to ask. Five days after it comes Sukkot.