The day after Yom Kippur, the synagogue service really should be a completely different experience from what people are used to. Yom Kippur should still be in the bones of all synagogue participants. Its spirit should still be felt with every prayer. It should be completely impossible for synagogue services to return to their old ways, in which prayers are said as if “nothing happened.”
Yom Kippur, Family, and Time-Traveling
Two new podcasts, plus an essay for Yom Kippur.
Yom Kippur: Do We Deserve Life? The Art of Spiritual Administration
The call of the hour on Yom Kippur is this: a full day is given to us to realize that our lives are undeserved. Life is only great when it is earned through a dignified response.
Rosh HaShana: Fairy Tales and Humor
It is Divine humor that tells us to live with absurdity, and supreme holy witticism that asks us to live with laughter. We are asked to enjoy the journey and realize that there is no arrival.
Yom Kippur – Ultimate Love and the Danger of Religious Exhaustion
What is the source of religious passion? It is the awareness that something cannot become exhausted. To appreciate Judaism and see it as a blessing is to understand that just as the ocean is unfathomable, so Judaism transcends all interpretations. Understanding Judaism cannot be attained in the comfort of observing its laws or studying its texts. It occupies infinite space, beyond the limitations of the human mind and heart.
Yom Kippur: Who is Able to Eat?
This awesome thought is the focal point of Yom Kippur. Am I worthy to have a claim on life? Or, have I been born but lost my right to live? This is by far the most important question for man to ask. The trembling of the earlier generations on Erev Yom Kippur was indeed that of great pachad (fear) – not fear of punishment or death, but of not rising to the challenge of living in God’s presence and fulfilling one’s destiny!
The Secret of Kal Nidrei – We Are All Marranos
I would like to suggest that in the last few hundred years nearly all Jews have become marranos. Although no longer forced to convert to Christianity, or any other religion, they willfully adopt philosophies that estrange them from their Jewish roots. Alienation has become the very condition under which most Jews today live their lives. They believe that Judaism is outdated and needs to be replaced. Often they arrive at such conclusions due to a lack of Jewish knowledge and a greater familiarity with non-Jewish sources.
Erev Yom Kippur: Are We Worthy?
In former times, no hours were more extraordinary in our forefathers’ lives than those just before the onset of the awesome day, Yom Kippur. These comprised moments of such intense religious upheaval in the human soul that it was as if the world became a different planet, one in which all normal human needs and worries fell away.
Yom Kippur – To Dream Harder
In former times, no hours were more extraordinary in our forefathers’ lives than those just before the onset of the awesome day, Yom Kippur.
The Trouble with Kal Nidrei – We Are All Marranos
Kal Nidrei (1) is by far the most celebrated prayer in all Jewish Communities around the world and the most attended throughout the Jewish year. Tens of thousands of Jews who would otherwise never participate in a synagogue service will make sure