Adath Jeshurun

His­tory of Yom Kippur

Reprinted with per­mis­sion. For more about Jew­ish hol­i­days and Jew­ish life, visit MyJewishLearning.com.

The bib­li­cal account of Yom Kip­pur describes a day ded­i­cated to atone­ment and absti­nence. Leviti­cus 23:27 tells us that on the 10th day of the month of Tishrei, “You should do no work through­out that day. For it is a Day of Atone­ment (“Yom Kip­purim”) on which expi­a­tion is made on your behalf before the Lord your God. Indeed, any per­son who does not prac­tice self-denial through­out that day shall be cut off from his people…”

In addi­tion to the abne­ga­tion alluded to above, we are also told in Leviti­cus that on this day the High Priest would per­form sacred rites in order to achieve expi­a­tion of the people’s sins. These rites included a lot­tery to choose two goats–one to be con­se­crated to God and one to “Azazel.” While the exact mean­ing of the word Azazel is uncer­tain, the rit­ual required the High Priest to con­fess the sins of Israel on this Azazel-goat, and to set it free in the wilder­ness so that it “shall carry on it all their iniq­ui­ties to an inac­ces­si­ble region.” (Lev. 16:22) The goat con­se­crated to God was offered on the altar as a purifi­ca­tion offering.

In rab­binic lit­er­a­ture, Yom Kip­pur is given an addi­tional name, Yom HaDin ( Day of Judge­ment). This solemn day is the cul­mi­na­tion of the aseret y’mei teshu­vah (10 days of repen­tance) fol­low­ing Rosh Hashanah. To the rab­bis, Rosh Hashanah marked the begin­ning of a spir­i­tual trial for the souls of Israel, the 10 days of repen­tance could then be seen as a time for appeals, and Yom Kip­pur marked the climax–when the ver­dict was handed down. At this time God, the true judge, would decide the fate of all of Israel as indi­vid­u­als and as a com­mu­nity, and hope­fully inscribe them into the Book of Life.

The rab­bis fol­low through on the bib­li­cal theme of self-denial in their dis­cus­sions of the daily plea­sures from which one must abstain on Yom Kip­pur. Among them are eat­ing, drink­ing, bathing and anoint­ing one­self, wear­ing leather-soled shoes (at the time the most com­fort­able option), and abstain­ing from sex­ual rela­tions. These lim­i­ta­tions are debated at great length in the Tal­mu­dic trac­tate devoted to Yom Kip­pur, enti­tled Yoma (lit­er­ally, “the Day”).

The shift in focus from the High Priest-centered rit­ual to the idea of a trial exam­in­ing the sins of Israel is a per­fect exam­ple of rab­binic inge­nu­ity in the face of polit­i­cal tur­moil. In a text from the midrashic col­lec­tion Avot De-Rabbi Natan we learn a story of Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai walk­ing with his col­league, Rabbi Joshua. Upon see­ing the ruins of the sec­ond Tem­ple, Rabbi Joshua said, “Woe to us, that the place which granted atone­ment lies in ruins!” Rabbi Yohanan replied, “Do not be dis­tressed, there is another kind of atone­ment which is like it–and what is that? It is the doing of good deeds.” With the Tem­ple in ruins, the rab­bis devel­oped a new, more portable agenda to allow for the expi­a­tion of sins far removed from the Tem­ple cult.

While most of the hol­i­days orig­i­nat­ing in the Bible have their log­i­cal place on the agri­cul­tural cal­en­dar, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kip­pur do not nec­es­sar­ily fit that mold. The rab­bis tell us that the 10th of Tishrei was the day on which Moses com­pleted and brought down the sec­ond set of com­mand­ments from Sinai, sig­ni­fy­ing that God had granted atone­ment for the sin of the Golden Calf. This rab­binic inter­pre­ta­tion lends his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance to the oth­er­wise unex­plained place­ment of the hol­i­day 10 days after Rosh Hashanah.

In The Jew­ish Way, Rabbi Irv­ing Green­berg explains that the High Holidays–the period includ­ing Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kip­pur, and the 10 days of repen­tance between them–concentrates a person’s mind on themes of mor­tal­ity and the mean­ing of life. This period is a time to take stock and do Hes­h­bon HaNe­fesh (an account­ing of one’s life) and to take action by doing teshu­vah (repent­ing from one’s sins). This is the cru­cial mes­sage that we take with us from the begin­ning to the end of Yom Kippur.