The gates are closing – short words for Ne’ilah

The gates of this awesome day are closing.

For twenty-four hours we have gathered together in song, in prayer, in contemplation. We have knocked on our hearts, imploring them to open. We have admitted to ourselves and to God where we habitually fall short. We have tried with all our might to forgive ourselves our mis-steps, our missed marks.

And now the gates are closing.

If there is something for which you still don’t feel forgiven; if there is a hurt, whether one you inflicted or one you received, still heavy on your heart; the penance I prescribe is this: work it off with the labors of your heart and hands.

 

As Yom Kippur ends, the first thing we do is light a candle.

Then we feed each other at the break-the-fast.

And then we put the first nail in the sukkah, connecting Yom Kippur with Sukkot which will begin in four short days.

Light. Sustenance. Shelter. These are our calling in the year to come.

 

Bring more light to the world: combat ignorance, homophobia and transphobia, fear and mistrust of Muslims and of immigrants, small-mindedness of every kind.

Bring more sustenance to the world: feed the hungry in our community and everywhere.

Bring shelter to those in need: welcome Syrian and Iraqi refugees to Berkshire county. CBI’s tikkun olam committee will be working with me in the new year to discern how we can best extend ourselves to support refugees. I hope that everyone in our community will take part.

The verse most oft-repeated in Torah is “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” And in more recent memory than the Exodus, many of us have parents or grandparents who fled war or persecution. It’s incumbent on us to act to care for those in need.

This morning we heard the searing words of Isaiah:

“Do you think that this is this the kind of fast that I want? A day for people to starve their bodies? Do I want you to bow your heads like the reeds, to mortify your bodies with coarse cloth and ashes? You call that a fast, a day when Adonai will look upon you with favor?”

“No! This is the fast I want: unlock the chains of wickedness, untie the knots of servitude. Let the oppressed go free, their bonds broken. Share your bread with the hungry, and welcome the homeless into your home.”

This is the work to which Yom Kippur calls us.

 

The gates are closing. This is the moment when we make the turn — teshuvah, turning our lives around, re/turning to our highest selves and to our Source — to build a world redeemed.

More light. More sustenance. More shelter.

For those in need. For refugees. For everyone.

 

[Image source.] Also posted to Velveteen Rabbi.

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Your life is your art: a sermon for Yom Kippur morning

I don’t know how many of you are MASS MoCA fans, but many of you have probably seen the building of LeWitt wall paintings — yes? It will be on view until 2033, so if you haven’t seen it, you still have time.

My favorite floor is the middle floor. The ground floor features works in pencil and chalk; the top floor features works in psychedelic colors so vivid they almost hurt my eyes; but the middle floor features geometric works in colors that are bright but not painful. That’s the floor where I spend the most time.

I’ve said for years that someday I should paint a LeWitt on a wall in my house. How difficult would it be? All one needs are dimensions and instructions. This summer it occurred to me: I could actually do it. I could make a LeWitt, and have something big, bold, vivid, and colorful to brighten my home through the winter.

Maybe it’s because of timing: I began work on my faux LeWitt during Elul, as we began the ramp-up to the Days of Awe. But as I worked on the canvases, I couldn’t help thinking about teshuvah, that word so often translated as “repentance” though it actually means “return.” The work to which we dedicate ourselves today.

Release: a sermon for Kol Nidre

We’re not here in this life to be small. Our souls yearn to expand, to live into the fullness of all of who we can become. Yom Kippur is here to help set us free.

Tonight we let go of broken promises. “כָּל נִדְרֵי  / Kol nidrei…” All the promises, and the vows, and the oaths. The promises we made that we failed to live up to. The promises we made that it turns out we couldn’t keep.

Unkept promises, both those we make and those made to us, become a weight holding us down. What would it feel like to let that weight go?

My teacher Reb Zalman — Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi of blessed memory — wrote a script for releasing ourselves from our promises. The petitioner says:

“In the last year I have from time to time made vows, sometimes speaking them out loud, or had an intention, a resolution to change something in my actions, behavior and attitude in my mind. Some of these are in relation to myself, my body, my mind, and my soul. Some of these deal with the way in which I conduct myself in relation to other people. And most of all, there are those that deal with my relation to God…”

You might imagine that he wrote these words for Yom Kippur. Actually, he wrote them to recite before Rosh Hashanah. There’s a custom called התרת נדרים / hatarat nedarim, “untangling of vows.” Here’s how you do it. You assemble a beit din, a rabbinic court of three. And then each person takes a turn being the person requesting release, while the others serve as judges empowered to grant release.

The ritual acknowledges that resolutions are a kind of vow, and that when we fail to live up to our intentions, we need a mechanism for forgiveness. What moves me is the response from the court of friends: “hearing your regret, we release you.”

To release ourselves from the promises we couldn’t keep, the first step is to name them, with genuine regret. We speak our mis-steps to someone we trust, and that someone whom we trust says “it’s okay, you can let it go.” Then? We have to believe them. That last step may be the hardest part.

That ritual is a kind of practice run for the work we’re here to do over the next 24 hours, together.

As Yom Kippur approaches…

Yom Kippur begins this year on Tuesday, October 11, at sundown. I’m writing today to share with you explanations of a few of the customs of Yom Kippur — adapted from and expanding on teachings from Rabbi Marcia Prager. A schedule of our Yom Kippur observances can be found at the end of this note.

Why do we wear white on Yom Kippur?

Some say that we wear white on Yom Kippur as an approximation of the white garments in which we will be buried. (Some of us may even wear a kittel, a simple white cotton robe, which is worn at marriage and for burial. You will see Hazzan Randall in his kittel during the holiday.) As members of our chevra kadisha (volunteer burial society) know, every Jew is buried in the same simple shroud: plain white garments, the same for everyone, men and women, rich and poor. Wearing white is a reminder of our mortality and our equality in the eyes of God. On Yom Kippur, wearing white garments which remind us of the garments we will wear when we die can serve as a reminder that we stand every day on the edge of life and death.

Others teach that we wear white on Yom Kippur to be like the angels. We yearn to ascend, to be lighter, more clear and transparent. White is a color of holiness and celebration — that’s why we only have white kippot / yarmulkes available during the holiday season.

Why do some Jews avoid wearing leather on Yom Kippur?

There is a custom on this day of avoiding wearing anything made of leather, because leather requires the death of a living creature. On this day when we make our most fervent teshuvah, we don’t want to be garbed in something which required another being’s death. For this reason, you will see some people wearing canvas shoes, or even rubber Crocs, instead of leather shoes.

Another interpretation is that we substitute soft shoes for leather on this day because we want to remove what protects us. The physical act of wearing soft shoes evokes the emotional / spiritual act of removing the covering from our hearts, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable on this day.

And, of course, you will also see others for whom these interpretations are not meaningful, and who do wear leather, and that’s fine too. Our congregation includes people with many different relationships to halakha (the “way of walking” sometimes translated as “Jewish law”) and to minhag (custom) — and we bring with us many different minhagim (customs) from our communities of origin, too.

Why do we wear a tallit at night for Kol Nidre?

Kol Nidre evening is one of the very few times in the Jewish year when a tallit is worn at night. (Though it should be donned before sunset — like the singing of Kol Nidre itself, which also must happen during the day, before Yom Kippur technically begins.) Ordinarily a tallit is only worn when it is light out and we can see the fringes.

There are many reasons why the tallit is worn at this unusual time of day. One is that we sing the Thirteen Attributes (“Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’Chanun”) at Kol Nidre services, and there is a very old custom which holds that a tallit should be worn when these are chanted. Another reason is that tallitot are frequently white, and when we wrap ourselves in white tallitot, we can see ourselves as being like the angels, garbed in white light.

For some, a tallit is also worn as a sign of transcendent consciousness; for others the tallit can be a stark reminder of death and the transient nature of physical existence, as the dead are sometimes buried in a tallit in addition to the simple white garments and kittel.

Perhaps we wear tallitot at Kol Nidre because on that night, the “light” of our prayers and our connection with God burns so brightly that it illuminates us from within, and we can see our tzitzit gleaming in that holy light.

A final reason is this: we take the Torah scrolls out from the ark for the Kol Nidre prayer, to insure that our prayers are linked to Torah. The person leading the prayers at that time is flanked at both sides with people holding Torah scrolls. This is done to create a court, a “beit din” of three, as a beit din court is needed to annul vows. And when the scrolls are removed from the ark, it is traditional to wear a tallit.

Yom Kippur at CBI

Our observance at CBI will begin at 5:30pm on Tuesday evening with beautiful music to stir the soul, followed by Kol Nidre at 6pm.

On Yom Kippur morning we’ll gather to daven (pray) the morning service at 9:30am. Yizkor (the memorial service) will take place at the end of morning services. Then we’ll regroup at 3pm for an introduction to Jewish contemplative practice (no experience required), 4pm for Avodah and Mincha services, and 6pm for Ne’ilah (the closing service of the day), with our Break-the-Fast scheduled for 7pm.

Join us in wearing white; join us in song and prayer; join us in whatever ways will most speak to your heart and soul this year as Yom Kippur unfolds.

Wishing everyone a g’mar chatimah tovah — may we be sealed for goodness in the year to come.

Rabbi Rachel

Do, Hear, and Be Changed – a sermon for Yom Kippur morning 5776

I’m doing something new with our b’nei mitzvah kids this year. (Credit where it’s due: this is an idea I adapted from my friend and teacher Rabbi Burt Jacobson of Kehilla Community Synagogue in the Bay Area.) It’s called Mitzvah Experimentation.

I brought this to our seventh graders in our first Hebrew school class of the year. The first thing we talked about was, what’s a mitzvah. Some of them said “good deed,” which is a fine answer, though not a direct translation. Others said “a commandment,” which is what the word mitzvah means. A mitzvah is something which we are commanded to do, or to not do.

Commanded by whom? The most traditional answer is God. That word raises some eyebrows. Not all of my students are certain that they believe in God. What if you don’t believe in God — does that scotch the mitzvot?

There’s a story about Reb Zalman z”l, the teacher of my teachers, faced with someone who didn’t believe in God. He asked that person to tell him about the God they didn’t believe in. Because “maybe the God you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either!” Over the millennia we’ve thought about God, talked about God, and described God in all kinds of different ways. Some of those ways work for me. Some don’t. Some might work for you; some might not. The name “God” can mean a lot of different things. And if my students want to talk about that, I’m happy to do so.

But when I go deeper into the question, what I hear is: if I don’t believe in God, do the mitzvot matter? I think they do. And I’m not alone in that. There’s a longstanding tradition of Jewish atheists and agnostics practicing mitzvot alongside Jews who have faith in or experience of God. It turns out you can be Jewish — and maybe more importantly you can do Jewish — whether or not you “believe” in “God.”

The Hebrew word mitzvah is related to the Aramaic tzavta, connection. A mitzvah is something which connects us. Doing mitzvot is what our ancestors did — maybe our genetic ancestors, and maybe our spiritual ancestors who lived Jewish lives in eras before our own. Doing mitzvot can be be a way of investing one’s life with meaning. And I believe that doing mitzvot can connect us with God — though each of my students is going to have to figure out what that means to them.

Are these reasons important enough to merit taking on the mitzvot? Our b’nei mitzvah students won’t know until they try them on. That’s what mitzvah experimentation is about. I gave my students a list of twenty mitzvot. Ten are mitzvot bein adam l’makom, between a person and God, and ten are mitzvot bein adam l’chavero, between a person and another person.

Praying in community, fasting for Yom Kippur, lighting Shabbat candles, studying Torah, building a sukkah next week and then rejoicing in it — these are mitzvot bein adam l’makom, mitzvot which take place in the space between us and God, us and our Source.

Feeding the hungry, as we do each month when our Take and Eat volunteers cook meals for 200 homebound seniors who would otherwise go hungry; giving tzedakah; making a conscious effort to respect one’s parents, both inwardly and outwardly — these are mitzvot bein adam l’chavero, between one person and another.

Each kid will choose two mitzvot from each list, and will dedicate one month of the school year to practicing each mitzvah. After spending a month immersed in each of their four chosen mitzvot, each student will give a report to the class about which mitzvah he chose, how he practiced it, what the experience was like for him, and how the month-long experiment with that mitzvah changed him.

For me, that’s a big piece of what mitzvah experimentation is about, and a big piece of what Jewish life writ large is about: openness to being changed. There’s a famous moment in Torah when Moshe has communicated to the children of Israel not only the Ten Commandments but also a list of other mitzvot which came along with them, and the children of Israel say נעשה ונשמע/ na’aseh v’nishma, “We will do and we will hear.”

The sages of our tradition seized on that phrase. What does it mean to say “we will do and we will hear” — wouldn’t you think it would be the other way around? If I tell my child to get dressed for school, he has to hear my words before he can do what I’ve asked. It’s not fair to expect him to do the thing before he hears me, is it?

Even if we expand the definition of “hearing” — maybe it’s not about literally hearing the instruction, but about understanding it — the verse is still tricky. Surely it’s better to understand something before one tries to do it? Jewish tradition says otherwise. Jewish tradition says, sometimes we have to do in order to understand.

This is a dance which has been going on for thousands of years. It’s as old as Judaism, and so is this question: when we dance with the mitzvot, when we dance with God, who “leads”? How much of it is dictated by our Partner, and how much depends on us? And what matters more: doing the steps without mistakes, or doing the steps with heart?

In the early centuries of the Common Era our sages argued: is it better to recite the words of the Shema perfectly without feeling their meaning, or is it better to focus on feeling the meaning even if one errs in saying the words? And relatedly: should one wait to say the words until the feeling is there?

The same questions might be asked of what we’re doing today. Is it better to recite the prayers of Yom Kippur without feeling their meaning, or to focus on feeling the meaning even if we don’t say all of the words? Should we wait to say these words, or wait to fast, until we “feel like it”? What if we never “feel like it”?

The tension between doing and feeling does matter. We don’t want our religious lives to be dry structures with no heart in them. But we also don’t want our religious lives to unfold only when the feeling is already there. Sometimes we need to do in order to feel. We hear the music in a different way when we give ourselves over to the dance.

I don’t know what our bar mitzvah boys (and yes, this year they’re all boys) will feel, or understand, or experience, as they try on different mitzvot. I’m looking forward to learning from them.

I invite y’all to experience a taste of what our bar mitzvah boys are doing. I’m asking them to choose four mitzvot and spend one month practicing each. My invitation to you is to choose one mitzvah this year, and dive into it as deeply as you are willing and able to go. (Here is a copy of the list of mitzvot I gave to the bar mitzvah class: Twenty Mitzvot [pdf].)

Try a new mitzvah this year in solidarity with our bar mitzvah boys, and model for them what it’s like to be an adult who’s still learning and growing. Or try a mitzvah you’ve done before, but do it now in a more sustained way. And then make an appointment with me, and tell me how practicing that mitzvah has changed you.

If you are like me — and I suspect that you are — you may be feeling some discomfort around the idea that a practice will change you. It sounds like giving up agency. It sounds like admitting that you need to be changed. Maybe, like me, you’re thinking: but I don’t want to change. I like myself how I already am. I don’t need to be changed. Actually I’ll bet it’s not even going to change me.

We all feel that resistance. Even the rabbi. Change is hard, and accepting that we might need to change is even harder. We can all come up with a million reasons why we are the way we are, why our existing habits suit us, why we can’t possibly do things differently.

We make excuses. I’ve been yearning to make havdalah every week, but then I think: I can’t possibly impose that on my family. My prayer life is perfunctory sometimes, but then I think: that’s normal for a working parent, it’s not anything I need to fix. I don’t always speak my mind and heart in all of my relationships, but then I think: better not to rock the boat. I know I should be more engaged in the struggle for social justice, but then I think: I can’t add anything else to my already-full plate…

Yom Kippur comes every year to remind us that change is not optional. Without change, there is stasis, and stasis is death. Yom Kippur comes to remind us that our habits of body, heart, mind, and soul become calcified and constricting. That each year we miss the mark in our habitual ways, and each year we have the opportunity to break free from those habits and become someone new.

Our sages see Yom Kippur as a rehearsal for our death. Some of us wear white, like the burial shrouds in which we will all someday be buried. Many of us fast from food and drink, as those who have died no longer savor the tastes of this world. We recite a vidui, a confessional prayer, as we will recite a vidui on our deathbeds.

The sages say, make teshuvah — repent; return; align yourself with God again — on the day before your death. We never know when the day before our death might be, which means we should be making teshuvah all the time. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what in your life would you wish were different? What would you wish you had changed while you still had the chance?

What are the truths you’ve been afraid to speak — to yourself; in your relationships; to God? If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, would you feel free to speak them at last, so you could leave this life with a clean slate and light heart? Yom Kippur comes to urge us: speak those truths now. Don’t wait.

Every day is an opportunity to wake up and to shake off old fears and old habits which no longer serve us. Every day is an opportunity to live more fully into the mitzvot, and to let the practice of mitzvot change us. And because it’s human nature to resist change, our tradition gives us Yom Kippur as a day dedicated to this uncomfortable life-changing work.

Yom Kippur calls us to face ourselves, in all of our imperfections and with all of our resistance. Today invites us to ask: what are we so afraid of?

Are we afraid that we’ll have to admit to ourselves that we could have been better people, we could have been truer to ourselves, we could have lived with more mindfulness and more integrity and more connection with God every moment of our lives until now?

Are we afraid that we’ll have to admit to ourselves that we’ve sold ourselves short, that we’ve been settling for less, that we’ve taken the path of least resistance instead of seeking continued change and growth in our lives?

What’s worse: having to admit that I could have been better before now, but committing myself now to embracing my changes and the fullness of who I can be — or refusing to admit that, and therefore never growing, never changing, never deepening my spiritual practice or my relationships or how I am in the world?

Yom Kippur comes to remind us: there’s no time like the present. In fact, there’s no time but the present. And Yom Kippur comes to remind us: this isn’t actually so hard. As we read this morning:

 כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹא־רְחֹקָ֖ה הִוא: לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַעֲלֶה־לָּ֤נוּ הַשָּׁמַ֨יְמָה֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה: וְלֹא־מֵעֵ֥בֶר לַיָּ֖ם הִ֑וא לֵאמֹ֗ר מִ֣י יַעֲבָר־לָ֜נוּ אֶל־עֵ֤בֶר הַיָּם֙ וְיִקָּחֶ֣הָ לָּ֔נוּ וְיַשְׁמִעֵ֥נוּ אֹתָ֖הּ וְנַעֲשֶׂנָּה: כִּי־קָר֥וֹב אֵלֶ֛יךָ הַדָּבָ֖ר מְאֹ֑ד בְּפִ֥יךָ וּבִלְבָבְךָ֖ לַעֲשׂתוֹ:

Surely, this mitzvah that I enjoin upon you today is not so wondrous for you, and it is not so far. It is not in the heavens that one should say, “Who shall go up into the heavens for us and get it for us that we will hear it and do it?” It is not over the sea that one should say, “Who will cross over to the other side of the sea for us to get it for us that we will hear it and do it?” The word is very close to you, in your own mouth and in your heart to do it.

The mitzvot are right here within our grasp. They will change us, if we let them. Just as life will change us, if we let it. Everything we experience offers us an opportunity to become more conscious, more compassionate, more mindful. Every mitzvah invites us to let go a little bit, and to let something greater than ourselves in.

Our people’s dance with the mitzvot has been going on for thousands of years. The dance is what changes us: not necessarily any given set of steps, but the fact that we’re willing to take the risk of entering into the dance, and to keep dancing.

Na’aseh v’nishmah. “We will do, and we will hear.” Yom Kippur calls us to do. Do, and then listen for the still small voice of your own soul. Do, and then hear. Dance, and let yourself be changed.

Cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.

The Dream of a Better Past – a sermon for Kol Nidre 5776

תשובה / Teshuvah is letting go of the dream of a better past.

That’s a riff off of a famous phrase. Originally the teaching was that forgiveness is letting go of the dream of a better past. Depending on who you ask, it either comes from the actor Lily Tomlin, or from noted Jewish-Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfeld.

Either way, I think it’s equally true of teshuvah. An essential part of teshuvah, of re/turning ourselves in the right direction again, is letting go of wishing that the past had been different.

If only I’d taken that job…
If only I hadn’t hurt her feelings…
If only I’d married someone different…
If only I’d known then what I know now…

We all fall into the habit of wishing that things had been different. We tell ourselves stories about how much better life might be if we had made different choices, or if we hadn’t been dealt a particular hand of cards.

The human mind loves to tell stories. We tell ourselves stories about the past; we tell ourselves stories about the future. I do this all the time! Sometimes it’s as though I am listening, in my mind, to the voiceover narration of the book of my life. “She stood at the Torah reading table in her beloved small synagogue, reading aloud the words of the sermon she had written and rewritten all August long…”

There’s nothing wrong with the mind telling stories. That’s what it was designed to do. We are meaning-making machines. We take in life experience and our minds strive to make meaning from them. But it’s easy to get so caught-up in the stories that we lose sight of the present moment. And it’s easy to get so attached to our stories that we get stuck in them.

Who am I, really? If I set aside all of my “if onlies,” what am I left with? If I set aside my stories about who I used to be, and my stories about who I might become, who am I right now?

Yom Kippur asks us to look inside and answer that question. Who am I right now? Who do I want to be, and where have I fallen short? And am I willing to let go of my fantasies about how if only something had gone differently, I would be in a better place than I am today?

It’s not an easy question to ask. Not if we ask it with our whole hearts, with no sacred cows, with everything on the table for examination.

As Yom Kippur approaches…

Dear Congregation Beth Israel members and friends,

Yom Kippur begins tomorrow night (Tuesday, Sept. 22) at sundown. I’m writing today to share with you explanations of a few of the customs of Yom Kippur — adapted from and expanding on teachings from Rabbi Marcia Prager. A schedule of our Yom Kippur observances can be found at the end of this note.

Why do we wear white on Yom Kippur?

Some say that we wear white on Yom Kippur as an approximation of the white garments in which we will be buried. (Some of us may even wear a kittel, a simple white cotton robe, which is worn at marriage and for burial. You will see Hazzan Randall in his kittel during the holiday.) As members of our chevra kadisha (volunteer burial society) know, every Jew is buried in the same simple shroud: plain white garments, the same for everyone, men and women, rich and poor. Wearing white is a reminder of our mortality and our equality in the eyes of God. On Yom Kippur, wearing white garments which remind us of the garments we will wear when we die can serve as a reminder that we stand every day on the edge of life and death.

Others teach that we wear white on Yom Kippur to be like the angels. We yearn to ascend, to be lighter, more clear and transparent. White is a color of holiness and celebration — that’s why we only have white kippot / yarmulkes available during the holiday season.

Why do some Jews avoid wearing leather on Yom Kippur?

There is a custom on this day of avoiding wearing anything made of leather, because leather requires the death of a living creature. On this day when we make our most fervent teshuvah, we don’t want to be garbed in something which required another being’s death. For this reason, you will see some people wearing canvas shoes, or even rubber Crocs, instead of leather shoes.

Another interpretation is that we substitute soft shoes for leather on this day because we want to remove what protects us. The physical act of wearing soft shoes evokes the emotional / spiritual act of removing the covering from our hearts, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable on this day.

And, of course, you will also see others for whom these interpretations are not meaningful, and who do wear leather, and that’s fine too. Our congregation includes people with many different relationships to halakha (the “way of walking” sometimes translated as “Jewish law”) and to minhag (custom) — and we bring with us many different minhagim (customs) from our communities of origin, too.

Why do we wear a tallit at night for Kol Nidre?

Kol Nidre evening is one of the very few times in the Jewish year when a tallit is worn at night. (Though it should be donned before sunset — like the singing of Kol Nidre itself, which also must happen during the day, before Yom Kippur technically begins.) Ordinarily a tallit is only worn when it is light out and we can see the fringes.

There are many reasons why the tallit is worn at this unusual time of day. One is that we sing the Thirteen Attributes (“Adonai, Adonai, El Rachum v’Chanun”) at Kol Nidre services, and there is a very old custom which holds that a tallit should be worn when these are chanted. Another reason is that tallitot are frequently white, and when we wrap ourselves in white tallitot, we can see ourselves as being like the angels, garbed in white light.

For some, a tallit is also worn as a sign of transcendent consciousness; for others the tallit can be a stark reminder of death and the transient nature of physical existence, as the dead are sometimes buried in a tallit in addition to the simple white garments and kittel.

Perhaps we wear tallitot at Kol Nidre because on that night, the “light” of our prayers and our connection with God burns so brightly that it illuminates us from within, and we can see our tzitzit gleaming in that holy light.

A final reason is this: we take the Torah scrolls out from the ark for the Kol Nidre prayer, to insure that our prayers are linked to Torah. The person leading the prayers at that time is flanked at both sides with people holding Torah scrolls. This is done to mimic a court, a “beit din” of three, as a beit din court is needed to annul vows. And when the scrolls are removed from the ark, it is traditional to wear a tallit.

Yom Kippur at CBI

Our observance at CBI will begin at 5:30pm tomorrow evening with beautiful music to stir the soul (violin, cello, and piano), followed by Kol Nidre at 6pm.

On Yom Kippur morning we’ll gather to daven (pray) the morning service at 9:30am. Yizkor (the memorial service) will take place at the end of morning services. Then we’ll regroup at 3pm for an introduction to Jewish contemplative practice (no experience required), 4pm for Avodah and Mincha services (including a radio play about Jonah!), and 6pm for Ne’ilah (the closing service of the day), with our Break-the-Fast scheduled for 7pm.

Join us in wearing white; join us in song and prayer; join us in whatever ways will most speak to your heart and soul this year as Yom Kippur unfolds.

Wishing everyone a g’mar chatimah tovah — may we be sealed for goodness in the year to come.

Rabbi Rachel