Yom Kippur

Person wrapped in a white and gold prayer shawl, holding it close to their chest.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, falls ten days after Rosh Hashanah. When the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the High Priest effected atonement for the entire people through an elaborate ritual. Today, in the absence of the Temple, each of us stands, alone, together, naked as it were, before God. Yom Kippur is the dramatic culmination of the entire season of teshuvah, repentance. On Yom Kippur, Jews abstain from eating, drinking, bathing, sexual relations, and the wearing of leather (a sign of luxury) for 25 hours. Jews dress in white and traditionally spend most of the day in synagogue.

Latest Rituals

A poem preparing oneself for Yom Kippur

Person holding hands up toward ocean sunset, with warm colors in the sky and hair blowing gently.

To see what it looks like to put ourselves together again.

several birds fly across a darkening sky lit by a half moon

Envision a shofar made of pure light

Person with long hair wearing a colorful kippah and playing a shofar.

Who will make chicken soup for the dejected?

chicken soup with a spoon

I smashed my father’s statues and stood alone in the fragmenting dark

pieces of broken teal ceramic

“When I feel most broken / pulled apart / when every door unhinged / is opened / but feels closed”

abstract image of wire shapes filled with prismed bubbles

A full ritual to help you practice atonement and cleansing going into Yom Kippur

Woman in a white top floating peacefully on her back in clear blue water.

The El Maley Rakhamim prayer reconstructed to honor the lives lost to racial violence

a person in shadow bent in grief

An original, dramatic Avodah service for Yom Kippur

silhouette of a person clasping their hands above their head against a sunset

A new version of the traditional confession prayer

a person rests their clasped hands on an open book

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