Jewish leaders reflect on Yom Kippur’s traditions, significance
It starts with water and yeast, bubbling together in a bowl.
Then mix in flour, eggs and more, and begin kneading the dough. After time to rise, shape and bake, you’ll have goldenbrown, crispy, rich challah.
In its braided, oval form, challah is a staple at weekly Jewish Sabbath meals. During the High Holy Days — taking place in early October this year — families lovingly fashion the dough into circles.
As the new year begins on Rosh Hashana, the round challah reminds Jews of the cycle of life, the importance of beginning a new year smoothly.
It’s a tradition that staff at the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center wanted to share with anyone interested. In late September experts taught a Milwaukee class: how to make a good challah — both round and braided types.
The class was in the spirit of Yom Kippur, a holiday when believers amend relationships with God and their neigh
bors.
“We’re living in a time of increasing hatred amongst people and vitriol that is unacceptable,” said Jewish Community Center President Mark Shapiro. “And so uniquely we are focusing this time of year … on making everything accessible: making us realize the ways we are very much the same, not the ways in which we are different.”
As Wisconsin’s Jewish community observes the 10 “days of awe,” leading up to the solemn Yom Kippur beginning sundown Tuesday, its leaders spoke about the meaning behind the holiday’s sacred traditions and their significance in a chaotic world.
What’s Yom Kippur all about?
It’s the holiest day of the Jewish year, serving as a bookend to Rosh Hashana celebrations and as a way to begin the year with a clean slate. Observers fast for 25 hours and spend much of the day praying in synagogue services.
Yom Kippur means “day of atonement,” and on the holiday Jews must repent for their sins and ask God and others to be absolved of their wrongdoing. It’s a step further than forgiveness, said Rabbi Michoel Feinstein of the Orthodox Chabad of the Bay Area in Green Bay.
“It’s as if the negative occurrence never, ever happened at all,” he said.
Essential to the holiday is the concept that one must love their neighbor and God as themselves. It’s a time to strengthen connections and transcend differences between people, Feinstein said.
“The day is actually a very profound expression of love,” said Rabbi Joel Alter of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel Ner Tamid in Glendale.
How Yom Kippur is observed ties closely with its significance.
Some Yom Kippur traditions remain fairly consistent across denominations. In general, Jews do not work during the 25 hours of observance — for some, this includes putting aside technology and electricity. It’s a somber occasion meant for contemplation on one’s life.
Families eat a meal together before sundown begins the holiday, and then they go to the synagogue for Kol Nidre, or “All Vows,” a prayer that’s repeated three times. It’s meant to wipe the slate clean and start fresh for the new year.
On the holiest holiday of the year, Kol Nidre is the holiest service, Alter said.
At Mount Sinai Congregation in Wausau, Kol Nidre this year will be a musical masterpiece. Peter Rotter, the president of the Reform congregation’s board of trustees, said he’s looking forward to hearing a cellist from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point play. The performance evokes the beauty of the holiday amid the heaviness of confronting one’s failures, he said.
“Yes, these things are somber and reflective, and yet they’re also beautiful,” Rotter said.
As Jews pray on Yom Kippur, they’re meant to distance themselves from worldly comforts and become closer to God — acting like angels, Feinstein said. Many observers wear white on the holiday.
Yom Kippur has become a way for communities to unite.
Services the following day conclude at sundown with the sounding of the shofar, or ram’s horn.
“Then it’s just joy and great relief, and the sense that ... the burden is lifted, and here I am going into the new year,” Alter said.
A meal to break the fast follows. At Mount Sinai in Wausau, some of the nearly 100 families in the congregation travel long distances to reach the synagogue: from Minocqua in the north to the Adams-Friendship area in the south. For this reason the synagogue hosts a communal meal that’s “a pretty big deal,” Rotter said. Everyone brings a dish to pass.
For many congregations, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services see the highest attendance of the year. In the small Green Bay orthodox community Feinstein helped establish a decade ago, he expects about 40 to 50 people to attend services this week.
And in Glendale, Alter is finalizing preparations for services in a longstanding congregation he said is growing with young families and single people. Yom Kippur’s well-attended services highlight a distinctive shared experience in today’s “highly niche, highly atomized” world, he said.
“In the embrace and company of your community, you’re having this very private reflection,” he said.
At the Jewish Community Center in Milwaukee, staff are sharing some of Yom Kippur’s basic messages and symbols with all who enter, both Jewish and non-Jewish. There’s a plate of apples and honey at every doorway, Shapiro said — a reminder of a sweet new year ahead — and an emphasis in classrooms on doing good deeds.
It’s a lesson embedded within a common expression during the High Holy Days: g’mar chatimah tovah. May you be inscribed in the Book of Life for the new year. On Rosh Hashana, Jews believe, one’s fate is written in the book and on Yom Kippur it’s sealed.
Ultimately, Yom Kippur and the days of awe serve as a reminder to do good in the world, Shapiro said.
“If ever there was a time you should hold the door open for someone more, or help somebody who’s struggling … these are the 10 days,” he said. “We should not just take stock with what we do wrong, but also take stock with what we do right.”