This evening marks the start of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. It is a time for self-restraint and self-examination, when observant Jews fast for 24 hours, spend much of the time in prayer and seek forgiveness for their sins.
As a holy day, it is laden with ritual and significance, but those of a secular persuasion could also discover meaning in such a punctuation point in our day-to-day lives. We would all, surely, find value in a short period of corporeal abstinence, of spiritual reflection, and of disengagement from the temptations and distractions of the modern world.
Who among us would not benefit from that? But this misses the point. Yom Kippur has a tradition stretching back almost 3,500 years, as far as the handing down of the Ten Commandments. When Moses returned from Mount Sinai, he discovered that, instead of worshipping God (the very first Commandment), the Israelites were worshipping a golden calf.
Consumed with anger, Moses returned to the Mount to beg forgiveness for the Israelites, who in turn pledged atonement for their sins. God forgave them, and the Torah – the instrument of Jewish law – commands the observance of this day, Yom Kippur, stating that atonement for our transgressions is a solemn commitment to be made once a year.
Whether you’re a believer or not, it’s a parable that stands the test of time: no good can come from devotion to the trappings of the material world. And, given that each of us has human failings, setting aside some time to examine, if not repent for, any transgressions (whether they be to God or Man) is no bad thing.
But this year, for a large number of Jews, Yom Kippur cannot simply be a day of religious observance which harks back to Biblical times. Judaism is in crisis throughout the world, beset on one side by a shocking rise in antisemitism and on the other by a sense of disaffection, at best, and shame, at worst, at the military actions of the State of Israel. In the act of asking for forgiveness, how can the political be separated from the religious?
This is the dilemma for many Jews who are, like me, proud of our heritage, Iiberal-minded and non-observant. We may be considered, in the words of the American comedian Seth Meyers, “Jew-ish”, but we support, to a greater or lesser extent, the right of Israel to exist and defend itself.
Yet we also stand firmly against the Netanyahu administration’s continuing assault on the Palestinian people, and there seems a contradiction in submitting to a religious tradition that can be traced back to the Old Testament at the very time when the commandment that “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” is, in a political sense at least, flagrantly ignored.
So while there is a deeply personal aspect to religious devotion (never more so than in the act of atonement, or, in the Catholic tradition, confession), Jews who feel deeply about our wider obligations as members of society may feel that, this year above others, we cannot escape our obligation to undertake collective reflection of our conduct as Jewish people. Particularly if we feel a connection to the Palestinians with whom we share a land (as well as so many cultural and historical traits).
Of course, organised religion does not ordinarily allow for equivocation or doubt, or shades of opinion. But Jewish scholars have pointed to the fact that the Torah today is the culmination of thousands of years of development, and that the prayers have transformed and evolved to take into account the challenges of the moment.
The current crisis in Judaism is, like much of politics these days, characterised by divisiveness. I cannot be alone in finding it difficult to have reasonable discourse with those on the other side of the debate.
And, yes, my view that the actions of Israel in Gaza are unconscionable is just as intractable as those who see the military incursion as a necessary response to the existential threat to the Jewish people.
This is where religious leadership may be able to help. I understand how immensely difficult it is to find a scholarly answer to the schism that exists among Jews as a result of the bloodshed in Gaza.
But if ever there was a time to pray for justice and fairness and forgiveness and resolution, it is this Yom Kippur.
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