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Atoning Alone
The concept of ‘we’ and repairing the world gets clouded by being so separated from what we want to make better.
One of the things that makes the Yom Kippur Eve service, known as Kol Nidre, so powerful is knowing that so many Jews worldwide are collectively standing together to greet and welcome the holiest day of the year.
I don’t attend religious services as much as I used to, going, at this point, no more than a few times a year.
But I have never not attended a Kol Nidre service in person. Not until this year, of course, when so many of the traditions and rituals I and the rest of the world have followed and depended upon for meaning, for connection, for orienting ourselves in time and space, have crumbled out of respect for nothing less than the value of human life and keeping us and our neighbors safe.
Synagogue and spiritual leaders have spent months conjuring ways, both religious and technological, to imbue our digitized and distanced observance of Yom Kippur and other religious services with the meaning, community and spirit that normally comes naturally by just walking through the doors of the sanctuary.
The prayers are important, as are the melodies they’re chanted to, and so too are the other rituals, such as not working, not eating and spending the day in reflection of how we, both as individuals and as…
