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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg.

Good Morning

This evening Jewish communities will gather in synagogues across the world to begin Yom Kippur, the twenty-five hour fast of the Day of Atonement.

Tonight’s service is named after its opening prayer: Kol Nidrei, ‘All Vows’. But it’s the music, more than the words, for which people love it. The text is a declaration before the community that any vows we make to God from now until this time next year should not be held against us. It’s a puzzling prayer. It’s open to misuse by anti-Semites to suggest Jews can’t be trusted. But it doesn’t apply to promises and commitments we make to other people, only to God. It’s had its Jewish opponents too. It has no legal sense: one can’t unmake a vow one hasn’t yet made.

Yet Kol Nidrei has maintained its place in the liturgy, and its hold on the soul.

That’s because of the music; without it Kol Nidrei isn’t Kol Nidrei. It was composed by Bruch, for cello and orchestra, for Liverpool’s Jewish community when he took up his post as Principal Conductor of the city’s Philharmonic Orchestra. Bruch wasn’t himself Jewish, but Protestant. He was inspired by friendships with Jewish musicians.
It's impossible to describe the wonder of the music; it needs to be heard. It fathoms the soul; it rises to the horizon of human aspiration. It takes the words of the meditation and carries them on its wings.

Together they say: God, we will vow and strive. We will fall short and fail. We know it. But don’t hold that against us. For we will not cease from aspiration. We shall put our whole heart into our lives.