This is the seventh in a Sisterhood series on women, apologizing and Yom Kippur. I didn’t know about the custom of asking mechila — for forgiveness — when I was growing up. When I eventually learned about it, early in my career writing about religion, I thought it was a great concept. The message, after…
The High Holidays don’t work for me. I know that Yom Kippur is supposed to be the holiest day of the year, and I’ve read and listened to many great ideas about how Yom Kippur is supposed to work on supreme spiritual issues and in sanctifying relationships and community. And I’ve been trying it out…
For the most part, Jews celebrate good things with lots of food. Holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Passover bring to mind full bellies and bubbie’s matzo ball soup, perhaps even more than the feelings of repentance and liberation they are supposed to invoke. On the other hand, to commemorate sad events, we fast. The temple…
Sixty-four percent of Jewish Israelis will fast and 46 percent will pray on Yom Kippur, according to a survey. According to Ynet News, which conducted the survey along with a social dialogue organization called Gesher, more than 80 percent of Jewish Israelis would spend the day either praying, reflecting or spending time with family. A…
This is the sixth in a Sisterhood series on women, apologizing and Yom Kippur. As a professor of Jewish Studies, I find that moments of inspiration present themselves to me readily, like gifts I don’t quite deserve. I read furiously, I attend lectures and intellectual events like clockwork, and I spend time listening to my…
With the days of Yamim Noraim almost at their beginning not only have my thoughts turned to the dishes I want to make for all the glorious holiday meals that are coming up, but also to the fast of Yom Kippur that will end this time of introspection and atonement. Fasting is a ritual that…
This is the fifth post in a Sisterhood series on women, apologizing and Yom Kippur. As we get closer to Yom Kippur and muse on atonement — what it means, what we should atone for — it’s worth probing the gendered nature of apologies. To begin with, it seems obvious that women in our society…
When I was growing up in the 1960s on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, “awe” was a word to be memorized for spelling tests. My High Holy Day memories were of new patent leather shoes, Lichtman’s round raisin challah dipped in honey and a synagogue service that was more “night at the opera” than a meeting…
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