CLAL Holy Days
Welcome to CLAL Holy Days, the place where you will find the latest thoughts and reflections by CLAL faculty and associates on upcoming Jewish holidays.
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YOM KIPPUR
Jewish festivals are generally connected to events in ancient Israel's history. For example, on Pesach we reenact the Exodus from Egypt, on Shavuot the revelation at Mount Sinai, and so forth. Reenacting these historical dramas on our holy days not only creates a seamlessness between past and present, but enables us to feel more powerfully the inner meaning of these sacred days. But what historical event do we reenact on Yom Kippur?
The rabbis claim that on the first day of Elul, Moses ascended the mountain to receive the second tablets, having smashed the first tablets at the sight of the golden calf. Forty days later, on Yom Kippur, having gained forgiveness for the people, Moses returned with the second tablets. Why should the holiest day on our calendar be connected to the giving of that which had already been offered? Why should the giving of the second tablets have this central role?
Perhaps it is because the second tablets represent a renegotiated covenant between God and the Jewish people. For forty days before Yom Kippur, we reexperience the shattering of the relationship between God and the Jewish people as if we were Israelites worshipping the golden calf. We confront the golden calves we worshipped during the past year that alienated us from God, other people and our task of perfecting the world.
Then on Yom Kippur, we reexperience the giving of the second tablets. In reenacting this historical drama, we feel the unbounded optimism of Judaism. However far we think we have to go in our lives to restore wholeness, however distant we feel from the goal of renewal, we need only recall where we started -- worshipping a golden calf -- and where we are -- receiving a second set of tablets. This is the message of Yom Kippur: we can return, there is a way home. No wonder the rabbis claimed there was no more joyful day on the calendar than Yom Kippur.
(Irwin Kula)
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