Yom Kippur

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Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is a holiday that relates to the Jewish community. Yom Kippur, which means "Day of Atonement," is the holiest day of the Jewish year.
Yom Kippur is a day of "self-denial" so that they may be cleansed of their sins. It is observed eight days after Rosh Hashanah. It is believed that on Rosh Hashanah God inscribes all of their names in the "books", and on Yom Kippur the judgment entered in these books is sealed. The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are called the Days of Awe. Yom Kippur is, essentially, their last chance to demonstrate repentance and change the judgment.

Repentance is the theme of Yom Kippur. While sins alienate people from God, our repentance reconciles us with God. On Yom Kippur, they will ask for God to forgive them for their sins.
The first Yom Kippur occurred when Moses descended Mount Sinai with the second set of Tablets, a symbol of the renegotiated covenant between God and the Jewish People.
God decreed the tenth day of the month of Tishrei as a day of atonement:
Let it be a statute for you forever: in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, you shall starve your vital energies and do no manner of work.... For on this day it shall bring atonement upon you, to purify you, before God shall you become pure of all your aberrations. (Leviticus 16: 29-30)

Yom Kippur is the only fast day decreed in the Bible. It is a complete, 25-hour fast beginning before sunset on the evening before Yom Kippur and ending after nightfall on the day of Yom Kippur. The Jewish communities are supposed to refrain from eating and drinking (even water) on Yom Kippur. It is a day set aside to "afflict the soul," to atone for the sins of the past year.

On Yom Kippur they focus on spiritual elevation. One way to do this is to abstain from the physical such as food, sex, work, material possessions, and superficial pleasures. More specifically, these five physical activities are forbidde...