Our Father, Our King

Jewish High Holiday Liturgy

Holidays and the Jewish Calendar

The timing of Jewish holidays is determined by the Jewish calendar, which is lunar. Since one lunar month comprises 29.5 days, a twelve-month lunar year is only 354 days long. But many Jewish holidays are seasonal, e.g., Sukkot, the festival of booths, is associated with the fall harvest. Every three years, a leap month is added to the Jewish calendar to bring the lunar years back into alignment with the solar years.

The leap years ensure that the High Holiday period always occurs in late summer or early fall. The High Holidays begin with Rosh Hashanah (literally "head of the year"), which starts on the eve of first day of the Jewish month of Tishre. The High Holiday period lasts ten days, ending with the fast day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Most Jewish holidays are celebrated for one day in Israel and two days in the Diaspora, but Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are exceptions: Jews everywhere celebrate Rosh Hashanah for two days and Yom Kippur for one day. Yom Kippur observance cannot be extended for two days, because it involves a total fast from both food and water.

The "Fearful Days"

The Hebrew name for the High Holidays is "Yamim Nora'im," which translates as "Days of Awe" or "Fearful Days." On Rosh Hashanah, God "takes out the books" and does an annual moral assessment. After considering the balance of each person's good and bad deeds during the previous year, God writes each person's name in one of two books: the Book of Life (also called the Book of Blessing or the Good Book) or the Book of Death (also called the Book of Curse or the Bad Book). Once the writing is done, humans have ten days to repent, ask forgiveness, and make amends for any evil they've committed. On Yom Kippur, the books are sealed, and no more changes are made until the next annual assessment period.

Although this moral accounting imagery need not be taken literally, the High Holidays provide a time to reflect on one's sins and to repent. The Hebrew word most commonly used for "sin" is chet, an archery term that literally means "missing the mark," i.e., it implies failure rather than malicious intent. There are two types of sins: sins against God (e.g., eating non-kosher food) and sins against other people. In response to repentance, God willingly forgives sins against Himself. In the case of wrongs committed against others, however, one must seek forgiveness both from God and from those whom one has hurt.

Daily Prayer for Divine Mercy

1) V'hu Rakhum
God, being merciful, grants atonement for sin and does not destroy.
Many times, He restrains wrath, and does not uncover all his anger.
Save us, O Lord, the King who answers us, on the day we call.

V'hu Rakhum is not specifically a High Holiday prayer; it is sung every evening as part of the daily liturgy. With a bit of chutzpah, this part of the evening prayer service reminds God of His mercy, encouraging him to forgive whatever sins may have been committed during the previous day. The words are from Psalms 78:38, 20:10.

Examples of Non-liturgical High Holiday Songs

2) L'shanah Tovah
For a good year, may you be inscribed,
may you be inscribed.
For a good year, may you be inscribed,
and may you be sealed.

This short song is based on the traditional High Holiday greeting, "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year." Recalling the moral accounting imagery described above, the greeting expresses a wish for the hearer to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life.

3) Tapukhim Ud'vash
Apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah.
A good year! A sweet year!
Apples and honey for Rosh Hashanah.

Although most of Rosh Hashanah is spent in the synagogue, festive meals at home are also customary. The loaf of challah, the braided egg bread traditionally eaten on the Sabbath, is shaped into a circular crown to symbolize God's kingship. Foods that haven't been eaten for a long time (e.g., pomegranates) are traditionally eaten on Rosh Hashanah. Apples and other foods are dipped in honey to symbolize the hope for a sweet year. The song "Tapukhim Ud'vash" is about the apple and honey tradition.

Examples of Liturgical High Holiday Songs

The Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services last for most of the day. A special prayer book called a machzor is used for the High Holiday services. The machzor is 754 pages long, and all the prayers contained in it are recited between the beginning Rosh Hashanah and the end of Yom Kippur. The short excerpts discussed below were chosen to convey some of the important concepts expressed in the High Holiday liturgies.

Excerpts from the Rosh Hashanah Liturgy:

4) B'rosh Hashanah
On Rosh Hashanah, it is written,
And on the Fast Day of Yom Kippur it is sealed.
How many will pass away, and how many will be born,
Who will live and who will die.

This prayer can be a scary one, especially for people who are ill. Taken literally, it suggests that those whose names have been written in the Book of Death are doomed to die during the following year. But another interpretation is that, when a person dies, God tallies up the "annual results" for all the years of the person's life. Based on the total balance of good and bad behavior, God decides whether or not the person should live on eternally with Him. Those who are found unworthy remain in the ground.

5) Ut'shuva
And repentance, and prayer, and righteous deeds
Will overturn the seriousness (sometimes translated "evil") of the decree.

The appropriate response to the fear generated by the idea of divine judgment is repentance, prayer, and good deeds. These will reduce the seriousness of any judgments against us, though they cannot completely reverse the effects of our bad deeds.

6) Zokhrenu L'hayim
Remember us for life, King who loves life,
And write us in the Book of Life,
For Your sake (repeat), God of Life.

In this prayer, we ask God to remember us for life, i.e., to write our names in the Book of Life, on the grounds that (a) God is a lover of life and (b) it would better serve God's own interests to write us in the Book of Life. After all, it would not look well for God to destroy His people by writing their names in the Book of Death. (Moses presented a similar argument to God on behalf of the Israelites in the desert.) Like the V'hu Rakhum, this prayer requires some chutzpah.

7) Hayom T'amtsenu
Today strengthen us.
Today bless us.
Today enlarge us.

This is the last prayer of the Rosh Hashanah service. The cantor sings "Today strengthen us, today bless us, etc.," and the congregation adds "Amen" after each petition. After this prayer, the congregants go home to enjoy a festive Rosh Hashanah meal.

Excerpts from the Yom Kippur Liturgy:

8) V'al Kulam
And for all, God of Pardons,
Pardon us, forgive us, grant atonement for us.

In this prayer, we ask God's forgiveness for all sins. This is a bold request, because we often cannot undo the effects of our sins. There's an old Jewish story about a man who asked his rabbi's forgiveness for gossiping. The rabbi told him to take a pillow stuffed with feathers and open it, releasing all the feathers into the wind. After doing this, the man returned to the rabbi, who then told him to go and pick up every one of the feathers. The moral is that the words we speak are like feathers that we release into the wind. Once we say them, we cannot take them back or control their impact, so gossiping is one of the sins for which we can never entirely make amends.

9) Kol Nidre
All vows, prohibitions, bans, penalties, and promises that we have vowed and by which we have bound ourselves and are responsible, and by which we have bound our souls, from this Yom Kippur to the next, shall be nullified.

The service on the eve Yom Kippur is called the Kol Nidre Service, because it begins with the singing of the Kol Nidre prayer. This prayer originated in 14th century Spain, during a period of intense efforts to convert Jews to Christianity, often by force. During this period (roughly 1391 to 1414), many Jews accepted baptism under duress and continued to practice Judaism in secret. The Kol Nidre was developed to preemptively nullify any forced baptismal vows or professions of Christian faith.

In Reform Judaism, there was once a movement to remove the Kol Nidre prayer from the Yom Kippur service, on the grounds that it was no longer relevant. By that time, however, it had become an established tradition, and people loved the beautiful melody, so it was retained.

[Editor's note: The forced conversions mentioned above took place during a complex and tragic period in Spanish history, which began with the aggressive missionary activity of Ferrand Martinez, an archdeacon in Seville, and led eventually to the Spanish Inquisition. For a detailed historical account, see, for example, Fr. Edward Flannery's book, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, Paulist Press, 1985, pp. 131-141.]

10) Avinu Malkenu
Our Father, our King,
Be gracious to us, and answer us, although we do not have deeds.
Deal with us in righteousness and kindness, and save us.

In this prayer, we ask for God's mercy and humbly admit that "we have no deeds," i.e., we have no right to forgiveness on the basis of our own merits. According to Jewish tradition, the only merit we can claim is the merit of our ancestors. This is one reason that the shofar, an instrument made from a ram's horn, is blown during the High Holidays (and, in preparation, every day during the month of Elul, which precedes Rosh Hashanah). It serves as a reminder of the faith displayed by Abraham and Isaac, when God asked Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice (see Genesis 22).

Rabbinic tradition embellishes the Genesis story to include a conversation between God and Abraham after God had provided a ram, with its horns caught in the bushes, to serve in Isaac's place as the sacrifice. Abraham asked that whenever God judged Abraham's descendents, God should be merciful, remembering what he and Isaac (who was a young man and consented to be sacrificed) had been willing to do. God replied that he would remember, as long as the people blew the ram's horn as a reminder. Thus the sound of the shofar not only commands the attention of the people but also serves as a reminder of Abraham's faith and of God's promised mercy.