Judaism's holiest day cannot erase a wrong done to your neighbour
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is a full day of fasting, prayer and confession. Yet the Talmud sets a striking limit: the day cleanses offences against God, but a wrong done to another person stays on the books until that person has been appeased. Forgiveness from people must come first.
The holiday falls on the 10th of Tishrei, usually in late September or early October. With Rosh Hashanah, nine days earlier, it forms the High Holy Days, also called the Days of Awe, and it closes the Ten Days of Repentance. Tradition pictures God writing each person's fate for the year in the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and sealing it on Yom Kippur, an image dramatised in the medieval poem Unetanneh Tokef.
The Torah names the day Yom HaKippurim, the day of atonements, and lays down its laws in three places: Leviticus 16, Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29. The singular form kippur crept in through liturgical poetry and spread in the Middle Ages, becoming the standard name in Yiddish. While the Jerusalem Temple stood, the high priest performed an elaborate ritual that included drawing lots over two goats; one was offered as a sacrifice and the other sent away to Azazel. That second animal gave English the word scapegoat. Worshippers still recite a poem describing this service, the Avodah, in the additional Mussaf prayers.
Traditional repentance, teshuva, has three parts: regret for the sin, a resolve not to repeat it, and confession before God. The liturgy contains long lists of faults to which each person can add their own. Because the day does not cover harms between people, repairing relationships beforehand is treated as essential; the prayers describe it as a day for abandoning jealousy and strife.
Not everyone frames it around guilt. Reconstructionist Judaism leans towards setting goals and intentions for the year, and some recent thinkers read teshuva literally as "return", arguing that dwelling on past sins can breed depression and that turning towards joy, prayer and love lets old failings drop away. The shofar is sounded as the day ends.
Source: Yom Kippur
