Yom Kippur Text Study 5784 Kol Nidrei

The Magic of Kol Nidrei, by Bruce Siegel

I look at the people milling around the sanctuary and know that finally, I

understand the magic of Kol Nidrei. All these years, the answer was around me

and I didn’t see it.

It is the people. The people who every year on Yom Kippur fill the

synagogues of the world to hear a simple, sad melody sung in a language most

of them hardly know. Still they come, often not knowing why. Not

understanding what draws them. Knowing only that this is what Jews do.

Religious Jews and Jews who don’t believe. Jews who come to synagogue

every week, and Jews who come but once a year. Jews for whom the holidays

are a joy, and Jews for whom the holidays are a mystery.

The Observant Life, by Martin Cohen

One of the most fascinating parts of the Kol Nidrei service is the section at the

beginning, before the actual Kol Nidrei prayer is chanted, when the

congregation grants itself permission to worship with sinners. Some have

explained this strange declaration with reference to people who were forced to

take blasphemous vows: as these “sinners” sought absolution from their sinful

oaths on Yom Kippur, the community expressed its understanding of their

plight and affirmed their right to prayer together with other members of the

community. Today these lines resonate with additional meaning. The

synagogue is called a “sacred community” — a k’hillah k’doshah. As a result,

people sometimes do not understand why congregations are not more

particular about whom they allow to join. Why should someone who has

been convicted of embezzlement, or who is known to have been unfaithful to

his or her spouse, be accepted into a community that claims to be striving for

holiness? Indeed, why do people who do not follow the laws of kashrut strictly

or who do not strictly embrace the laws of Shabbat have a place in the

sanctuary, and why should such people be given honors and even called to the

Torah? The answer can be found in the humble declaration that it is

permitted, indeed expected to pray with “sinners”. Perfection is not a

prerequisite of joining a holy community. We are all imperfect, and the

synagogue, therefore, is at best a collection of people who are “works in

progress.” What unites the faithful is not what they have accomplished, but

what they are striving to accomplish. We join together on Yom Kippur in

recognition of the fact that we we want to be better, that we need to be better,

and that we understand that, in accepting imperfections in others, we can

hope that they will in turn accept and forgive our own imperfections.

Dr. Annette Boeckler, "The Magic of the Moment: Kol Nidre in

Progressive Judaism," In All These Vows (2011)

For many Jews, Kol Nidre provides the sound of atonement that is the core

experience of Yom Kippur and that could not otherwise be put adequately into

words. Nevertheless, progressive Judaism, which began in nineteenth-century

Germany, started overwhelmingly without Kol Nidre. As we shall see, the tune

remained, but without the familiar words, which were reintroduced only with

the American prayer book Gates of Repentance in 1978.

Classical Reform of the nineteenth and early twentieth century sought to

justify Judaism to modern Jews and to the society in which they lived. It was

deemed important to say only those prayers that could be recited honestly,

without offending the enlightened, rational, scientific mind. The entire notion

of annulling vows was against modern ethical consciousness.