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Jewish Life & Celebrations

Kol Nidre and Yom Kippur

Kol Nidre: A Declaration That Holds Us In Its Grip

© Excerpted from the Kol Nidre Service of Memory and Contemplation Through Literature and Music of The City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism in New York.

This extract was written by Daniel Radosh and Rabbi Peter Schweitzer.

For hundreds of years, dating at least to the 8th century, the Yom Kippur service has begun with the chanting of Kol Nidre, not a prayer but a legal formula that released Jews from their vows. At first, the text canceled vows that we made since last Yom Kippur and were unable to fulfill in the year gone by. Later, the text was re-written to nullify vows that we will be unable to fulfill in the year that lies ahead.

One popular explanation for this change is that the rabbis devised it for the coming of the Crusades to counteract coerced vows of conversion when Jews were forced to renounce their Judaism publicly. Certainly, during the Spanish Inquisition many Jews disavowed their faith, yet persisted in preserving their heritage secretly. The rabbis, in effect, offered a way to make a vow without really meaning it, like keeping your fingers crossed behind your back when making a promise.

Not surprisingly, many people have had a problem with this text and the loophole it offers. A ninth century sage called it “a foolish custom.” Antisemites seized on the notion that the oath of a Jew is worthless. In response, apologist rabbis scurried to defend the integrity of Jews and said that Kol Nidre was not meant to apply to oaths made before courts of law, but only before God. Many modern Jews have denounced the passage altogether.

Nonetheless, Kol Nidre survives, even among some secular Jews whose efforts to expunge it from their services are often overruled by popular appeal. So why have we clung to what so many learned authorities have proclaimed to be unhealthy? To what we ourselves may find disagreeable? To a legal formula devoid of any poetry? To something we may not even understand?

Perhaps we are moved less by the words, in the ancient tongue of Aramaic, than by the haunting melody composed in 16th century Germany. But there is also something compelling about the very paradox of Kol Nidre: that our vows are not our vows.

Yom Kippur is the time of year when we seek inner perfection. That can be quite stressful if we take it at all seriously. Kol Nidre provides some relief. It’s a formal recognition that nobody is perfect, that our best intentions can go astray. Think of the resolutions we make on Yom Kippur as the North Star by which we set our moral course. Kol Nidre is a reminder that we are never going to reach that star, but that is okay. What is important is that we are headed north.

And if Kol Nidre still sounds like a way to let ourselves off the hook when we break our promises, at least it reminds us to cut our friends the same slack. If I cannot be perfect, I can hardly expect other people to be.

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