The essence of Yom Kippur

Tl;dr - it's not about fasting.

That might surprise the many people I've known in synagogues who work themselves up about the fast: preparing for it, enduring it, and how to make it easier. 

(For anyone who doesn't know: on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, Jews abstain from all food, drink, bathing, anointing, sexual relations, and wearing leather shoes, all as a sign of repenting, for a full 25 hours.)

As a rabbi serving in congregations, I began every sermon on Yom Kippur with an admonishment that those of us who are healthy adults are obligated to fast - but anyone with a health condition that makes fasting dangerous is actually forbidden by Jewish law to fast. Not a good idea to go through Yom Kippur while sinning, whether that's healthy people eating or those who must not fast trying to fast anyway.

No, Yom Kippur isn't really about the fast, and the prophet Isaiah says so in the passage we read (Isaiah 57:14 to 58:14) on the morning of Yom Kippur. It's really about repenting, about not violating the Sabbath or mistreating one's workers. It's about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Not that rituals aren't important - they are - but the rituals are there to remind us of what we really ought, and ought not, be doing in our lives.

This is the essence of Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah, 10 days before, is both the anniversary of the world's creation, according to Jewish tradition, and the Day of Judgement, where each of us is judged for the coming year based on our deeds and misdeeds of the past year. On Yom Kippur, while the judgement is what it is from Rosh Hashanah, we ask for forgiveness from God and from our fellow humans for our sins against each.

Even after the verdict has been reached, we can still ask for mercy in the sentencing, to use a courtroom metaphor.

So, this Yom Kippur, you must fast if you're in the category of those who must fast. And you must not fast if you're in the category of those who mustn't. And all of us need to soberly consider where we need to improve, not only so that we may be written and sealed in the Book of Life for the new year, as the tradition words it, but also so that we can write better pages for ourselves in the new year.

PS - Yom Kippur is really a happy holiday, strange as that might sound. Yes, in this day of fasting and abstentions, of prayer after prayer expressing regret for sins, there is a deep joy in the knowledge that if we do the work of repenting sincerely - both for our sins against God and for our sins against people - we can achieve forgiveness. That makes for one beautiful holiday.

Want to learn more about Yom Kippur and all the Jewish holidays? Sign up for my Introduction to Judaism class at Judaism Online.

Gmar hatimah tovah - may you be written and inscribed in the Book of Life for a good and sweet new year.