What is Yom Kippur? 

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There is a saying amongst secular Jews: Yom Kippur is the day for saying sorry, mainly going to synagogue to say sorry for not going during the rest of the year

I’m fairly impressed that the Detroit paper not only wished Greenberg a happy new year, but also pivoted so suddenly to Hebrew typeface even in the analog era before WYSIWYG digital publishing! Anyway, lovely overview. Nice presentation of mainstream rabbinic Judaism for the uninitiated, without privileging any particular sect or denomination. Well done, sir.

I grew up orthodox Jewish, and this video is just on the spot. Good job and Gmar Hatima Tova.

Growing up in Israel it was always stressed to me as a kid the importance of Yom Kippur for repairing social bonds. Other holidays are mostly about honoring god or commemorating events of national significance like the Exodus, but Yom Kippur - as it was taught to me - was also about learning to admit your mistakes, make penance, and also forgive others. Yes, there's also an important element of making penance for your sins before god (חטאים שבין האדם למקום), but equally important - and arguably harder - is repenting for the wrongdoings committed against other people (חטאים שבין האדם לחברו). In the days leading up to Yom Kippur, they dedicated a lot of lessons in school to teaching kids how to make a sincere apology, and also the importance of accepting it and learning to forgive.

As an agnostic who loves exploring different cultures and religious beliefs, I've got to admit that your channel is a gold mine for me. Great work! This inspires me to visit Israel someday to see these for myself.

This video reminds me of my Jewish roommate in college. During the High Holydays, he washed the dishes. It was the only time during the school year that he actually did any housework. I suppose that was his atonement for the year.

Very good overview, one gripe as an Orthodox Jew, I've never associated Yom Kippur (which is scarily close to today) with death. I was always told that a lot of the rituals are aimed to make one more angel-like. We do not eat or have marital relations because angels don't. We wear white like the High Priest in the Holy of Holies did because angels wear white (Ezekiel 9:2). We even chant a single line of the Shema out loud when it is usually read silently. The reason it is read silently is because of a tradition it was taken from the angels and we don't have a right to say it, but on Yom Kippur, we are like angels so we must chant it out loud. This imagery seems to fit with me a lot more than that of death.

Thanks for this. You were spot on. The only critique that I have, and this is in general regarding the channel, is the overwhelming emphasis on Ashkenazi ritual, custom and liturgy. It would be nice to see more representation of Mizrahi Jewish traditions as well, as varied as they are. Many thanks for your videos, and גמר חתימה טובה

Having grown up Catholic, went to a Presbyterian school, having Hindu and Muslim family, and lived my whole life in a country with little to no Jewish presence (Trinidad and Tobago), this is massively informative to me. So much of this feels reminiscent of Islamic tradition, of doing right by others.

This is very interesting, I grew up quite secular (my mum's an Ashkenazi kibbutznik with a secular upbringing who moved to England, and my dad's Christian-ish) and Yom Kippur was for some reason not too important to us (perhaps because it's easier to engage children with a feast than with a fast), but as I'm learning more and connecting more with the religion and community, I love videos like this that really give a good look for beginners. I probably won't fast for health reasons but I'll be nice to observe other parts of the day a bit more informed

One of the most interesting things about ancient Yum Kippur is what the high priest would ask god in the Holy of Holies. He would ask for two things: That there will not be any miscarriages for Jewish women and that if people in the two weeks following Yum Kippur pray to god that it will not rain will they are walking the back home from the temple that god will not listen to them.

I’m not sure if it’s carried over into modern times but one particular thing I find interesting is that in ancient times Yom Kippur was more about communal atonement and the sins of all of Israel than it was personal atonement for the sins of the individual. I think Christianity represents a shift from a communal religion to a personal one, as it emphasizes ones personal relationship with god and their own salvation. A similar thing can be seen in the evolution from Hinduism to Buddhism. Traditional forms of hinduism seem to be conserved heavily with the karma of the community and maintaining dharma within society. Buddhism and some more modern forms of hinduism focus on ones own enlightenment. It’s interesting and I think it may be an effect of urbanization.

Awesome video Hands-down the best religious educational channel on RU-vid Please keep this excellent work! Cheers! 🙌🏻 Thank you! ❤️

Thank you for representing us so well. Have fun everyone riding the roads! Stay safe and gmar chatima tova💜

Two religion for breakfast videos in a week? Great

You might have mentioned Tashlikh in relationship to the scape goat. Not only are we casting our sins into the water with the breadcrumbs, but bread has taken on some of the ritual characteristics of the sacrifices of old. As I understand it, that we cover the bread while we bless the wine is connected to the practice of not allowing the next sacrifice to witness the previous sacrifice's death. Therefore, with bread already symbolically linked to sacrificial animals, the casting off of crumbs ties into the same concept of sending sin away with a spared sacrifice.

I'm Jewish and I often find it cumbersome that so few non Jews are aware of the existence of Yom Kippur. It then falls on me to explain to them why I can't do something on that day. In contrast, Chanukah is not a particularly important Jewish holiday, yet knowledge of it is ubiquitous among non Jews, purely due to its proximity to Christmas. While a minor holiday like Chanukah is erroneously believed be one of our most important holidays, the actual holiest day of the year for Jews is completely unknown to them.

That's my chaplain in bootcamp at 9:48! It's Lieutenant Commander Yonina Creditor, she's the only female conservative sect rabbi in the Navy - She holds over the jewish services at MCRD San Diego and personally made sure I was doing okay when I dropped from panic attacks and making sure I was coming home to something good, genuinely one of the most caring people I have met in my life.

Thank you for answering most every question I had about the holiday. Your content is always very informative and thorough

Love all these religious vids. Great channel

Thank-you Andrew. I anxiously wait for you to drop new videos. To get two in one week feels like Christmas. Awesome content.

Thank you for putting this together! It never ceases to amaze me how similar religious experiences and traditions are across faiths, even if the rituals themselves are different. In their own unique ways they are all calls for contemplation, with ceremonies being the more direct ways to facilitate that contemplation. Thank you again sir for posting and for all of your work.

Two videos in one week, you’re spoiling us.

גמר חתימה טובה! Great video, and thank you for mentioning the secular tradition of riding bikes on Yom Kippur. It's very important to us, Secular Jews.

Thank you so much for taking the time and doing the research share this so we may hope to understand what our Jewish brothers and sisters going through this time of year.

Great video! Gmar Chatima Tova

Hey, I just discovered your channel and I wanted you to know that your work is a breath of fresh air and I really appreciate what you're doing.

i've been meaning to learn more about jewish holidays, thank you for making this - i love your content!

Woot finally a collaboration with Esoterica! I've been hoping for one for a while!

Note that though I am Ashkenaz, I know that the Sefardim/Edut Hamizarachim have a reduced Avodah service, as they see the recitations of the verses in Tanach relating to the High Priest's service as more important than the long recitation of a compilation of the Talmudic sources about the service that we Ashkenazim engage in.

Another great video! Thank you!

A season of making amends and a day of return. As an outsider of this faith, what a beautiful belief and practice to behold. It is a beauty that evokes longing in me.

Thank you so much! great video. As one who practices the orthodox tradition, we don't just fast for 25 hours, but pray in our synagogues all this time (if we are fast enough there is a break of 3 hours between morning prayer and afternoon prayer). Secular and traditional Jews in Israel usually appear at the synagogue for Col Nidre (first prayer of the holiday) and Neila (last prayer of the holiday) while fasting the whole day. Yep, we get very, very hungry at the end🙃 but the magic in the air and the sense of unity and cleanness you can fill in this day are unforgettable (as long as you believe in the tradition, you won't get the same feeling if you don't, from personal experience.) Your videos on Judaism are so informatics and very, very comprehensive with the time you are bound to. great work and ברוכה והצלוחה!

One of your best videos. Thanks for the attention to detail

Thank you for the clear description. It helps me understand.

I just love you and this channel so much

amazing video! thanks. you reinvigorated my interest in the study of religion

super cool! I've always wondered about the importance of this holiday. The Moroccan Kol Nidre melody reminds me very much of Greek orthodox chants.

This really helped me with my homework! Tysm!

amazing video!! this helped so much for my gcse judaism paper, much love

I’m Israeli and I’m learning about the holiday for the first time from your video, very cool

Wonderful as usual.

I really appreciate your videos. I like learning about other people.

Good video - Ty for furthering our education :P

You helped me realize a connection between Tashlich and the scapegoat. And to add a comment about Vidui, not only is the poem in first person plural, the words are in the order of the Hebrew alphabet with three sins for the last letter.

Thank you. I just saw a Yom Kippur service for the first time and this explains a lot of what was going on. It's quite interesting

Kol Nidre made me think of The Jazz Singer. Excellent film and excellent video! Thank you

Also could have mentioned that the famous (and beautiful) Leonard Cohen song "Who by fire" is taken directly from one of the central prayers (Unetaneh Tokef) in the Yom Kippur liturgy.

A great video with highly accurate information!

Excellent informative video!

Thank you for your works. Bless you. J

I grew up catholic with a family that wasn't really honoring of their beliefs and used religion as a shield for their shortcomings, and so I'm impressed at how positive of a message this custom has. It emphasizes everything that's absent in the environment I grew up in. Your narration is very engaging. Subbed.

Years ago I was doing some work as joke writer, and bet a secular Jewish friend I could write a good Yom Kippur joke. He took the bet, and I thought for a couple of days. Finally I had it. Me: Would you like to hear my joke about Yom Kippur? Him: Sure. Me: (sternly) What kind of Jew are you to joke about something like Yom Kippur?! I got him.

There was a Mad Magazine article called "Office Workers Hall of Fame". An award was given to an office worker for taking a day off for religious observance and actually went to a house of worship!

I have 25% Jewish blood and yet I know nothing of that side of my family. Thank you for helping me connect even a small bit to that side of my heritage.

Funny enough, I just discovered Esoterica thanks to the algorithm, and then you mention the channel here!

Great thanks for explaining the details.

I think that as kid i both liked Yom kippur for giving me 2 days of from school, but hated it for having nothing on on t.v. during it, or maybe having gaming consoles made that less of an issue. But one I started being online, yom kippur wasn't an issue for me

great video!

Enjoyed this a lot of information.

Fascinating! Thanks.

Very well done. As a Jew, this was a very thoughtful and good encapsulation of Yom Kippur. These are very minor mispronunciations but just so you will know, the confession is not the Vee do E as you pronounced it. We say Vee doy (rhymes with soy) and the concluding service is pronounced Neh E la with the accent on the E. Overall, It really was an A+

Hearing the "holy of holies" I couldn't help but to be reminded of that movie, Year One, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera. There is a scene where Michael asks a bunch of questions about the doors leading to the Holy of Holies. It cracked me up. Always a mystical answer to a logical question.

Always stimulating and illuminating RFB.

Excellent, thank you!

Excellent. So well done.

Great video! Keep it up

Just letting you know that yizkur is said for other Jewish holidays as well, really well researched video though, very impressed

Amazing video, and in the perfect timing.... Love all your videos they are so interesting... Even topics like this that I already know all about...

I've been following the channel for a while and the content had always been great, but I wasn't a Patreon supporter. There are so many great informative channels on RU-vid that I was uncertain about which to support with my limited resources. When I watched you clearly stating your mission for this channel, I made my mind. I'm proud to be a Patreon supporter of this channel and it's mission now.

"days of awe" is a rather interesting translation The word "nora" means terrible, awe-inspiring, fear-instilling and divine all in one wrap. It's impossible to translate accurately, but I would say Yamim Noraiim is better translated as "days of tremble", as in 'trembling before god'. It's just a little example of how much is missed in translatio PS great vid. Always interesting to look at my religion from the outside

Very interesting, thanks.

Great job...learned a lot....Shona Tova!

Wow, your upload times are just perfect :D

Kind of like how Ash Wednesday, which is not even a holy day of obligation, draws some of the highest mass attendance in the Catholic world.

Hey man! Love the videos, think you could do a video on some of popular closed off religions like Mormons, Amish/Mennonite, or Seventh Day Adventist stuff like that!

Thank you I have learned so much

My wife is Jewish. This and similar topics are very helpful in explaining her heritage.

Should do a similar episode on the Good Friday rituals of Orthodox Christians.

The traditional Catholic Ember Days in September (which used to be on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday after 14 September) also recall the feasts of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Ember Wednesday recalls Rosh Hashanah in the Introit ("blow the trumpet in the beginning of the month") and the second Lesson (Nehemiah 8:1-10), Ember Friday recalls Yom Kippur implicitly with its themes of repentance and atonement in the Lesson from Hosea, the Gospel, the Secret (offertory prayer) and the Communion verse, and finally the Ember Saturday recalls Yom Kippur explicitly in the first Lesson from Leviticus 23:26-32 and the Epistle to the Hebrews (9:2-12), and implicitly in the 3rd and 4th Lessons. The feast of Sukkot is also recalled on Ember Saturday in September in the second Lesson (Leviticus 23:39-43) and the Communion verse (Lev 23:41, 43).

Extremely well said and loved how Scripture is quoted more as a historical text as to how Yom Kippur is celebrated by Jews rather than as a traditional religious document. Another little factoid about Yom Kippur is that in traditional Judaism, Yom Kippur is also the only day of the year that the high priest (and high priest only) can say the holy name of the Lord God, Yahweh. The reason is that the Lord's holy name is held as sacred and invoking it any other day of the year would bring untold horrors.

I love every video you make, whether it be a serious video like this or one like the Super Mario video! And speaking of religions in video games, another game franchise that includes a type of religion is Dragon Quest. The creators of the game modeled certain aspects of the religion in the games after Christianity, like having places of worship named _churches_ or _chapels,_ serviced by a person who is made to seem like a priest or a nun, who refer the player as a disciple. In these places, the game gives you various options, like saving your game, healing a party member of a curse, or bringing a character back from death, which, in the game, are referred to as _Confession,_ _Benediction,_ and _Resurrection,_ respectively. So, as you can see, the creators borrowed terms common in Christianity. The games also have iconographic allusions to Christianity, like stained glass, a cross symbol (which has been changed in the latest installments), and, upon entering a church, background music that can be said to sound like “church music,” with a prominent organ-like sound. Even in a spiritual aspect, the religion is made to emphasize the belief of one sole deity, a statue that represents this deity, and the veneration of a _high priest._ I've been fascinated in these games for only about 2 years since I first played a game from the franchise, Dragon Quest 8, and the different designs of the churches in every region of the game especially held my interest.

Great work! A video on first century Messianic figures such as Judas the Galilean would be amazing.

Great! as usual

I was literally searching this up yesterday what are the odds 😳

So cool!

Nice vídeo! Keep on!

Another good video. You should make a video about Apostle Paul, he's one of the most interesting personas for me (and important people when it comes to understanding early Christianity in general).

wonderful. thank you.

Perfect Timing, Or Should I Say Divine Timing.

Great video. The only thing i dont completely agree with is that rosh hashanah and yom kippur arent the entire High Holidays, but they also include Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah, but it was still very great and well presented

Awesome!!! Todah.

Thank you for such an informative explanation of Yom Kippor. What strikes me so profoundly is we are told to observe this day of Atonement since centuries back. I interpreted also this is a divine appointment and the gates will be closed at sundown. The way the world is at this time it seems this is a more critical time of fasting, prayer and repentance. Thank you again and G-d Bless.

Thank you❤️

fantastic!

Thank you 🙏

thank you so much!

I highly enjoy your content. But what started my following of the channel is the Mario Star religion. Please keep making all kinds of content

thank you. very comprehensive and interesting. it is the only holiday that really is meaningful. in another way, Pesach is meaningful. the whole family and friends share stories and a delicious dinner. the moror and the choroset sandwich is my favorite :) 🌷🕯