Some Background on Yom Kippur

Though it's only been a couple of strange words on the calendar for me until now, Yom Kippur is actually the big one--the Holy Day of Holy Days, the Sabbath of Sabbaths. It's the end of the high holy days, the end of the blowing of the shofar, and the end of your chance to get your name in the Book of Life for the coming year.

I'll share some in my next post on my personal expeience with a toned-down version of the day, but once again I find it useful to lay out a little background.

Yom Kippur is all about atonement and repentance. The instructions for the day appear in Leviticus 16 and in Leviticus 23. Of course, tradition has taken the instructions even further.

The original day of atonement involved the High Priest (Aaron) entering the Most Holy Place to present a sin offering and a burnt offering for himself before bathing, dressing in sacred clothes, and presenting a sin offering and burnt offering on behalf of the whole nation. One of the two goats he brought to sacrifice would be a burnt offering. The other would be released, alive, into the desert as a scapegoat. The sin offering and burnt offerings for the people would atone for the uncleanness and rebellion of the community of Israel. There's a lot more detail in Leviticus about what Aaron was to do, but that's the gist of it.

Nobody was supposed to work on the Day of Atonement. It was a day of sabbath rest, a day to deny yourself. Once a year, every year, you get a chance at atonement. That means you only get once chance this year to repairing the damage done by your sins.

The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., so for the past 2000 years, the Jews have not had a place to sacrifice burnt offerings. Here's what Yom Kippur looks like today.

Remember that the Jewish day starts at sunset, so Yom Kippur starts in the evening, after a shared meal. At sunset, everyone begins their fast which continues until the beginning of the next day (the following evening). The Torah does not say the day is a fast, but it is a day to deny yourself, so the Jews deny themselves of these five things:

1. Food and drink
2. Bathing (with the exception of washing hands)
3. Wearing leather
4. Perfumes and lotions
5. Marital intimacy

In addition to abstaining for these five things, they go to synagogue for five services. Here's what they cover:

1. Nullifying any promises made the year before
2. Confessing sins as a community
3. Reading the Torah
4. Remembering family members who have died
5. Blowing the shofar to symbolize the Books of Life has been sealed, the gates of heaven have been closed until next year

The day ends with the breaking of the fast. (This usually involves bagels!)

Volumes have been written about the significance of this day. I didn't even mention the importance of wearing white, why you should give money to charity and not just perform acts of service, or the reading of the book of Jonah. I imagine it would take a lifetime to unpack the ancient and prophetic meanings of this holy day. These few sentences are only a nutshell.

Photo credit: Rob Sheridan via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA