Yom Kippur Sayings Quotes

For white Americans (whiteness itself a societal construct that has changed in it definition over time), this new national holiday of Juneteenth, this day off from work, should be like an American Yom Kippur, a Day of Atonement, a day of reflection, a day to keep learning more about how we have failed as a society to live up to our ideals, and what we as individuals can do to make it better, more real, closer to our vision of justice and liberty, a vision that our founding forefathers could not even imagine. 'Do better' should be what all who carry any kind of privilege in this society should say to ourselves and to each other - what can we do, what can you do, to 'do better'?

Three modern rabbis are arguing about which of the three is the most progressive. “I am definitely the most progressive,” says the first rabbi. “We allow smoking during services.” “That’s nothing,” replies the second rabbi. “We serve pork spareribs during Yom Kippur.” “Not bad,” replies the third rabbi. “But I have you all beat. During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we post signs at my temple—closed for the holidays.

In October, she barged in while I was watching Working Girl. “This again?” she huffed and threw herself down in the armchair. “I’m fasting for Yom Kippur,” she sighed boastfully. This was not unusual. She’d been on some truly insane diets in the past. A gallon of salt water a day. Only prune juice and baking soda. “I can have as much sugar-free Jell-O as I want before eleven A.M.” Or “I’m fasting,” she’d say. “I’m fasting on weekends.” “I’m fasting every other weekday.

I don’t know how I didn’t see it for so many years of Bible reading, but I didn’t.  Paul didn’t teach the Gentiles not to follow the law, he didn’t teach people not to have their sons circumcised (in fact he himself had Timothy circumcised in Acts 16:3).  And Paul himself kept the law.  Otherwise, James would have been telling Paul to lie about what he was doing.   So we traded Christmas for Sukkot, the true birth of Messiah during the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a shadow picture of Him coming back to reign for a thousand years.  When we keep that feast, we are making a declaration that we believe He was, is, and is coming.  We keep Yom Kippur, which is a declaration that we believe that Yeshua is the salvation of the nation of Israel as a whole, that “all Israel shall be saved.”  We keep Yom Teruah, the day of Trumpets, which occurs on “the day and hour that no man knows” at the sighting of the first sliver of the new moon during the 7th biblical month of Tishri.  We traded Pentecost for Shavuot, the prophetic shadow picture of the spirit being poured out on the assembly, as we see in the book of Acts,  just as the law was given at Mt Sinai to the assembly, which according to Stephen was the true birth of the church (Acts 7:38) – not in Jerusalem, but at Sinai. We also traded Easter for Passover, the shadow picture of Messiah coming to die to restore us to right standing with God, in order to obey Him when He said, “from now on, do this in remembrance of Me.”  We traded Resurrection Sunday for First Fruits, the feast which served as a shadow of Messiah rising up out of the earth and ascending to be presented as a holy offering to the Father.  In Leviticus 23, these are called the Feasts of the LORD, and were to be celebrated by His people Israel forever, not just the Jews, but all those who are in covenant with Him. Just like at Mt Sinai, the descendants of Jacob plus the mixed multitude who came out of Egypt.    We learned from I John 3:4 that sin is defined as transgression of the law.  I John 1:10 says that if we claim we do not sin we are liars, so sin still exists, and that was written long after the death of the other apostles, including Paul.  I read what Peter said about Paul in 2 Peter 3:15-16 – that his writings were hard to understand and easily twisted.  And I began to see that Peter was right because the more I understood what everyone besides Paul was saying, the more I realized that the only way I could justify what I had been doing was with Paul’s writings.  I couldn’t use Yeshua (Jesus), Moses, John, Peter or any of the others to back up any of the doctrines I was taught – I had to ignore Yeshua almost entirely, or take Him out of context.  I decided that Yeshua, and not Paul, died for me, so I had to

Everything’s awful,” said Jessie, picking at a corner of her bedroom wallpaper that was peeling. She explained to her grandmother about the trial yesterday and the basketball game and Scott kicking the ball into the swamp. She told her how Evan had to hunt for the ball for half an hour before finally finding it, and how he told all his friends to just go home, he’d find it himself, just go home. So they did. And how Evan and Jessie were left to look for the ball, and how Evan didn’t talk the whole time they did. “And today he’s not even eating, or anything,” said Jessie. “Did you know that it’s Yom Kippur?” “Yom Kippur, is that the one where the kids dress up?” asked Jessie’s grandmother. “No, that’s Purim.” Grandma was always mixing up things like that, things that sounded kind of the same, but were different. During their last phone call, she was talking with Jessie about the sequoia trees in California, but she kept using the word sequester instead. “Yom Kippur is the day when the Jewish people ask for forgiveness and they don’t eat.” “Is Evan Jewish now?” asked Grandma. “No, but he’s not eating. He says he’s not hungry,” said Jessie. “Sometimes that happens to me,” Grandma said. “I practically forget to eat.” “But Evan’s always hungry,” said Jessie. “Mom says he’s a bottomless pit.” “He’ll eat when he’s ready,” said Grandma. “Let it go.” Jessie hated it when her grandmother said that. She was always telling Jessie to let it go and be the tree. Crazy yoga grandma. How could anyone be a tree? “But

Quanta. On Yom Kippur Eve, the quanta went to ask Einstein for his forgiveness. “I'm not home,” Einstein yelled at them from behind his locked door. On their way back, people swore loudly at them through the windows, and someone even threw a can. The quanta pretended not to care, but deep in their hearts they were really hurt. Nobody understands the quanta, everybody hates them. “You parasites,” people would shout at them as they walked down the road. “Go serve in the army.” “We wanted to, actually,” the quanta would try to explain, “but the army wouldn't take us because we're so tiny.” Not that anyone listened. Nobody listens to the quanta when they try to defend themselves, but when they say something that can be interpreted negatively, well, then everyone's all ears. The quanta can make the most innocent statement, like “Look, there's a cat!” and right away they're saying on the news how the quanta were stirring up trouble and they rush off to interview Schrödinger. All in all, the media hated the quanta worse than anybody, because once the quanta had spoken at an IBM press conference about how the very act of viewing had an effect on an event, and all the journalists thought the quanta were lobbying to keep them from covering the Intifada. The quanta could insist as much as they wanted that this wasn't at all what they meant and that they had no political agenda whatsoever, but nobody would believe them anyway. Everyone knew they were friends of the government's Chief Scientist. Loads of people think the quanta are indifferent, that they have no feelings, but it simply isn't true. On Friday, after the program about the bombing of Hiroshima, they were interviewed in the studio in Jerusalem. They could barely talk. They just sat there facing the open mike and sniffling, and all the viewers at home, who didn't know the quanta very well, thought they were avoiding the question and didn't realize the quanta were crying What's sad is that even if the quanta were to write dozens of letters to the editors of all the scientific journals in the world and prove beyond a doubt that people had taken advantage of their naiveté, and that they'd never ever imagined it would end that way, it wouldn't do them any good, because nobody understands the quanta. The physicists least of all.

The Talmud distinguishes between huqqim (laws) and mishpatim (statutes). While the reasons for the mishpatim, such as “Do not murder,” are perfectly clear, the reasons behind huqqim—for example, not mixing wool and linen, or sending out the scapegoat on Yom Kippur—are opaque. The Talmud says about them, “I, God, decreed it and you do not have permission to question them” (BT Yoma, 67b).

But since my actions are not in accordance with my true goal, I am not accomplishing my life’s mission, and I am still not worthy. Things have changed; I am now needed. And yet I go on living as if nothing had changed and I were not needed.59 What we confess on Yom Kippur, says R. Kook, is not our lack of worth, but precisely the opposite: we take responsibility for the fact that we insist on living as if we were worthless, and as if the hour did not need us.

Like the nuns in Assisi, one of whom cooked a huge meal for hidden Jews to break the fast on Yom Kippur, the sisters had a respect for the religious beliefs of their wards. Only the mother superior allegedly knew they were Jewish, although others clearly did as well; as Goldenberg recalled, “it’s not logical that an Italian child between eight and ten doesn’t know any Catholic prayers.” The sons of the chief rabbi of Genoa were also hidden there, and the nun who put them to bed each night, Mother Marta Folcia, would tell them to secretly kiss her finger rather than the cross she held and then to say the Shema Yisrael quietly before falling asleep. When German soldiers inspected the boardinghouse every few months, looking for Jewish children, the boys carefully recited Catholic prayers such as the Ave Maria and Pater Noster that had been drilled into them several times a day at the convent. The mother superior stood behind the officer, mouthing the words, in case any of the children forgot in their panic.

The effort of religions to inspire a sense of community does not stop at introducing us to one other. Religions have also been clever at solving some of what goes wrong inside groups once they are formed. It has been the particular insight of Judaism to focus on anger: how easy it is to feel it, how hard it is to express it and how frightening and awkward it is to appease it in others. We can see this especially clearly in the Jewish Day of Atonement, one of the most psychologically effective mechanisms ever devised for the resolution of social conflict. Falling on the tenth day of Tishrei, shortly after the beginning of the Jewish new year, the Day of Atonement (or Yom Kippur) is a solemn and critical event in the Hebrew calendar. Leviticus instructs that on this date, Jews must set aside their usual domestic and commercial activities and mentally review their actions over the preceding year, identifying all those whom they have hurt or behaved unjustly towards. Together in synagogue, they must repeat in prayer: ‘We have sinned, we have acted treacherously, we have robbed, we have spoken slander. We have acted perversely, we have acted wickedly, we have acted presumptuously, we have been violent, we have framed lies.’ They must then seek out those whom they have frustrated, angered, discarded casually or otherwise betrayed and offer them their fullest contrition. This is God’s will, and a rare opportunity for blanket forgiveness. ‘All the people are in fault,’ says the evening prayer, and so ‘may all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the strangers who live in their midst’.

But my own style, I'd say, is more homestyle, with Jewish influences? Not kosher cooking; that's a different thing. I'm inspired by traditional Jewish cuisine." Paper rustled on the other end. "Right, the matzah ball ramen you cooked in your video looked fantastic. We were all drooling in the room!" I perked up. Forgot that I was naked. Forgot that lately I was a walking disaster. "That's one of my go-tos and will definitely be on my future menu. I've been experimenting lately with putting a spin on kugels..." As I chattered on, I could practically see my grandma shaking her head at me. Grandma Ruth had cooked up a storm for every Passover, Yom Kippur, and Chanukah, piling her table till it groaned with challah rolls, beef brisket in a ketchup-based sauce, and tomato and cucumber salad so fresh and herby and acidic it could make you feel like summer in the middle of winter.

Every year, Yom Kippur goes like this: all the Jews of the world spend hours and hours praying that the wicked will be vanquished and that evil will evaporate from the Earth. Now, for the first time in my life, I felt bad for the wicked. What if they didn't want to be vanquished, even though that would be better for the world? What if they didn't want to evaporate?

A Jewish immigrant is at Ellis Island entering the United States. He has, among his belongings, four sets of false teeth. All the sets are made of gold and are being examined by an immigration officer. The officer informs the immigrant that he cannot bring in all the gold. There is simply too much. Whereupon the Jewish immigrant tells the officer in English that he is Orthodox and needs all four sets for dietary purposes. The immigration officer looks skeptical. “I know some things about Jews and kosher eating. Why would you need four sets of gold teeth?” The Jewish immigrant responds, “I am very Orthodox. Extremely pious. I use one set for milk products and one for meat and a third for breaking the fast on Yom Kippur, the holiest of all days on the Jewish calendar.” “I see,” says the immigration officer, now looking less skeptical. “You are obviously a very religious man. But you only mentioned three religious occasions. What is the fourth?” “Oh,” the Jewish immigrant muses, “that’s just for when I want a ham sandwich.

Although Bubby doesn’t like to talk about the past, sometimes she can be convinced to tell the story of her mother. Her name was Chana Rachel, and a lot of my cousins are named after her. Chana Rachel was the fifth child in a family of seven, but by the time she got married, she only had two siblings left. A diphtheria epidemic had passed through their small Hungarian town when she was younger, and Bubby’s grandmother had watched one and then another of her children die, as their throats closed up and oxygen no longer reached their lungs. When four of her children were already dead, and little Chana Rachel developed the same high fever and mottled skin, my great-great-grandmother wailed loudly in desperation and with the rage of a lunatic rammed her fist down her daughter’s throat, tearing the skinlike growth that was preventing her from breathing properly. The fever broke, and Chana Rachel recovered. She would tell that story to her children many times, but only Bubby lived on to tell it to me. This story moves me in a way I can’t quite articulate. I imagine this mother of seven as a tzadekes, a saint, so desperate to save her children that she would do anything. Bubby says it was her prayer to God that helped her daughter recover, not the breaking of the skin in her throat. But I don’t see it that way at all. I see a woman who took life into her own hands, who took action! The idea of her being fearless instead of passive thrills me. I too want to be such a woman, who works her own miracles instead of waiting for God to perform them. Although I mumble the words of the Yom Kippur prayers along with everyone else, I don’t think about what they mean, and I certainly don’t want to ask for mercy. If God thinks I’m so evil, then let him punish me, I think spitefully, wondering what kind of response my provocative claim might elicit in heaven. Bring it on, I think, angry now. Show me what you’ve got. With a world that suffers so indiscriminately, God cannot possibly be a rational being. What use is there appealing to a madman? Better to play his game, dare him to mess with me. A sudden feeling of peaceful resolution washes over me, that traditional Yom Kippur revelation that supposedly comes when one’s penance has been accepted. I know instinctively that I am not as helpless as some would like me to think. In the conversation between God and myself, I am not necessarily powerless. With my charm and persuasiveness, I might even get him to cooperate with me.

This is the beginning of social criticism and one of the beginnings of democratic thought. Most ancient literature on democracy comes from Athens. But the Bible is also a primary source. The prophets horrify us with visions of destroyed cities. But then they rain magical poetry down on us and make us believe we can change the world. Take a song by Second Isaiah, a song read every Yom Kippur. He is singing to people who feel imprisoned, even if they also are economically doing well. He says they can do morally better: liberate the captives, open the prisons, share your clothes, feed the hungry, satisfy the desire of the afflicted. Acts of empathy will bind people together and give them the collective power to rebuild their ruins, “to raise the foundations of many generations.” Till the 1970s I never noticed the urban ending of this song: “And you will be called the restorer of streets to dwell in.