30 | SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023
W
e ought to
devote the entire
month leading
up to Rosh Hashanah in
introspection, according
to rabbinic tradition. We
ought to devote that month
to working at improving our
deeds and practices. Then
comes Rosh Hashanah,
known as the Day of
Judgment, when we see
ourselves as accountable, the
first of the 10 days of even
more intensive repentance. At
the close of the 10 days, we
should come into Yom Kippur
fully intending to remake our
lives for the better.
Except that we realize
we have tried to repent in
previous years and achieved
uneven results. Last year, we
promised to improve our lives,
to keep the commandments
better, to act with more
compassion, and how well
have we done? Thinking
about this, we could become
discouraged. Maybe we have
failed at our enthusiastic
commitments.
So, we begin Yom Kippur
with Kol Nidre, at which
we declare that we want
absolution from all the private
commitments we made this
past year, which we intended
with all sincerity, but that we
may have failed to fulfill. Bad
enough that we have failed to
improve; we do not want the
additional guilt of spoiling last
year’s commitments.
Or maybe we declare
that, going into Yom
Kippur, we do not want to
be held accountable for the
commitments we are about
to make. We make these
commitments because we
hope to succeed, but if we
fail, we do not want the
additional guilt for spoiling
our promises.
Kol Nidre, the text we use
for that declaration, mostly
uses the past tense, focusing
on the promises that we have
already failed. In the center of
the declaration, though, most
congregations use the phrase,
“from this Yom Kippur to
the next Yom Kippur,” an
emendation recommended by
Rabbi Meir ben Shemuel (who
lived in France in the 1100s).
The literally confused tenses
express one coherent idea: We
want absolution from both
past and future failures.
Kol Nidre, as recited in
most congregations, includes
phrases in Aramaic and in
Hebrew. The late Professor
Gene Schramm (who taught
semitics and linguistics at
the University of Michigan)
cited Kol Nidre as an example
of the rule that poetic texts
typically employ mixed
languages as a device to
heighten solemnity. Kol Nidre
also gains solemnity from the
heart-rending tune used in all
Ashkenazic and many other
congregations.
Kol Nidre may have gained
additional poignancy after
recurring incidents of forced
conversions, such as those
in medieval and renaissance
Spain, when Jews who had
sworn allegiance to other
faiths managed to return to
the synagogue.
How powerful it must have
felt to proclaim that they
could renounce their previous
oaths, that there even existed
an old formal ritual for
renouncing the painful oaths.
Kol Nidre had been in the
prayer book long earlier. Rav
Amram Gaon mentions Kol
Nidre in the prayer book in
ninth-century Iraq.
Though he mentions those
who recite Kol Nidre in his
prayer book, Rav Amram
opposed doing it: “… it
is a silly custom, and it is
YOM KIPPUR
The Mysteries
of Kol Nidre
RABBI LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER