Day of Atonement: Yom Kippur

Sep 25, 2004, 12.00am IST
Ezekiel Isaac Malekar.

Yom Kippur, eight days after Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is observed as the Day of Atonement, of Divine Judgment, and of "affliction of souls" so that the individual may be cleansed of sins. The Bible terms fasting as mortification of the flesh, and intimate spiritual discipline must include abstention from food and drink.


In achieving atonement, nothing comes between the individual soul and God. The obligation rests inescapably on each one to cleanse his own soul through his own communing and his own inward struggle. While every Sabbath and every day is invested with religious character, the Day of Atonement stands out as Yoma, the day par excellence. The Bible calls it Shabbath Shabbathon, the Sabbath of Sabbaths.


Yom Kippur's appeal is uniquely strong because it responds to one of the profoundest longings of the human soul — to free oneself from all mundane exigencies and distractions, to shut out alike the engrossing call of work and the allure of pleasure and rising above physical appetites and the disturbing trivialities of the daily routine, to take refuge


within the sanctuary of God and penetrate into the Holy of Holies, into the secret places of the soul. Yom Kippur is consecrated to a fearless intros-pection and weighing of our habits, tendencies and manner of living. We scrutinise our record of the past year, and ask the help of the Divine to correct the flaws in the texture of our soul, and we lay on His Altar the suffering of remorse for the past and determine to achieve amendment in the future. With all its solemn consciousness of sin, Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement and underlying it is a philosophy of invincible optimism. The Jew looks out on the world with a wholesome conviction of man's ability by his own efforts to attain virtue. He believes profoundly in the possibilities of purity of the human soul.

Yom Kippur is the culmination of the entire High Holiday period. After this, the old year is ended and the new one begun. Before all holidays, it is good to give tzedakhah or charity, but it is particularly important to do so before Yom Kippur. Tzedakhah alongwith prayer and returning represents a central theme, and the moral/ spiritual quality for the day and by extension, throughout one's life. Yom Kippur like Rosh Hashanah, is universal in appeal. The Maariv Service, during which Kol Nidrei is chanted, is begun before sunset and tallit, a religious shawl, is worn. During Amidah service — prayer recited in silent devotion — the Jews confess their wrongdoings. Thereafter the Jews plead to Almighty to grant forgiveness by saying, "May it be Thy will, Lord Our God, God of our Fathers, to deal with us in mercy, forgive us all our wrong-doing, pardon and condone all our sins and help us atone for all our transgressions."


The final service of Yom Kippur concludes with a prolonged call on the shofar, the ram's horn: Tekiah Shevarim Teruah Tekiah Gedolah, which means the final sealing of the heavenly gates. At the end of the day, it is customary for one to greet the other. The greeting used during the day is "Gemar Hatimah Tovah" — May you be finally sealed for good in the Book of Life, that is, the sealing of the year just beginning. Every householder on his return home, repeats the greeting, after which he starts building the Succah, in order to begin the New Year with some pious deed. Everyone is in high spirits, confident that a happy year has been granted to him.