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As fulfilling as it was to engage in Shavuot programs, a lot weighs on me. With COVID-19 continuing to ravage Black communities and racist violence all over the news, I almost feel like it’s Yom Kippur instead – the time when Jews are supposed to be most aware of their own mortality.

This week, I tell a friend I’d love to chat but actually I have to run Yom Kippur services are starting soon and I’ve got to repent for my sins before the gates are closed. She laughs. “Well, you’re gay, so you’ve definitely got a lot of repenting to do.”

When the words of liturgy are taken too literally, the sacred power of prayer is often lost. In his latest book, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman offers a way worshipers can transcend the limitations imposed by language.

Jewish law says we are to fast on Yom Kippur. This is based on the biblical law that on the Day of Atonement, “You shall afflict yourselves” (Lev.

It is for good reason that Jews close Yom Kippur — just before the blowing of the shofar — with the triumphant cry from the wonderful passage (First Kings, Chapter 19) in which Elijah vanquishes the prophets of Ba

For many Jews, the Yom Kippur fast is one of the hardest and most meaningful Jewish acts they will perform during the year.

Yom Kippur has concluded. The break-the-fast has been consumed, and the prayers about becoming the person we could be are now a memory.

The hard work is behind us.

We prayed, chanted, cried, healed, remembered, re-aimed our arrows of good intentions toward the target of new priorities, and reflected on trying not to deflect.

We focused.