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Sep 18, 2018, 6:03 PM

For Yom Kippur: Go Set a Watchman

Illustration by Tom Clohosy Cole made for The Guardian in anticipation of the release of Harper Lee's second book in 2015.

For the sin we have committed against You by running away from the chance to do good in order to make our lives easier. “I can’t live in a place that I don’t agree with and that doesn’t agree with...

Sep 18, 2018, 4:19 PM

Yom Kippur Thoughts On Recent Conviction of My Attacker on Appeal

It is now permitted to reveal that the State Prosecutor succeeded in its appeal, and a conviction has now been added to the sentence of the young man who attacked me with a knife in 2015, while other Israelis...

Shira Pasternak Be'eri

Sep 18, 2018, 3:18 PM

The lesson of my empty window

How a pigeon family encouraged me to change the way I take in the world

Bracha Goldstein

Sep 18, 2018, 2:32 PM

Shattered belief

I confessed my sins to God. I also took Him to task. That's all over now.

Dena Freundlich

Sep 18, 2018, 1:13 PM

Reflect, repent, but don’t berate yourself

Illustrative. Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, by Maurycy Gottlieb, 1878. (Wikipedia)

Jewish holidays revolve around historical events, so why doesn't Yom Kippur?

David Bogomolny

Sep 18, 2018, 2:35 AM

The skeptic’s kaddish for the atheist, 7

Last Shabbat was Shabbat Shuva, which is the Shabbat between Rosh HaShanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), and a member of the community shared a brief drasha (words of Torah) with the kehila (congregation) on Friday evening. To my mind,...

Sep 18, 2018, 2:26 AM

A Yom Kippur Lesson Dad Taught Me on His Deathbed

I was close to heaven two years ago, on the night before Yom Kippur. I slept on a rickety cot in a Brooklyn hospice, alone with my terminally ill dad and the experience was unexpectedly transcendental. My dad has been...

Benjamin Laniado

Sep 18, 2018, 2:24 AM

Kintsukoroi and Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is not only a time for repentance, forgiveness and introspection, but also a time for reparation. By taking time off from our daily chores to reflect on our faults, we emerge from the fast with a feeling of...

Yitzchak Ginsburgh

Sep 17, 2018, 11:58 PM

Yom Kippur: Fasting. And Enjoying it.

We fast on Yom Kippur. We do not eat, we do not drink and we also abstain from other physical pleasures. Yet Yom Kippur is the “Shabbat of all Shabbats” – and Shabbat is a day of pleasure. Furthermore,...

Sep 17, 2018, 11:49 PM

Let’s Abuse Animals for Our Sins

Chickens being killed for a so called "good cause."

First off all, just so we’re on the same page, let’s say the definition of Kapparot is, “The tradition of atoning for your sins on Yom Kippur by swinging a chicken above your head while it’s still alive.” Why do...

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