Kol Nidre Sermon – 2020 / 5781

On Yom Kippur in the year 2000, I had a decision to make. My rabbinical school classmates and I had traveled down to the Negev desert, to celebrate the Day of Atonement with the Arava Institute at Kibbutz Keturah, less than an hour from the beach resort of Eilat.

As you can imagine, being so far south, it was going to be hot. The year before, temperatures had hit well over a hundred – dry heat, but nonetheless hot – a few people had fainted and had to be taken to the hospital. Rabbinic opinion held, drinking water in such circumstances, even on Yom Kippur, was not only acceptable, it was being encouraged. Pikuch Nefesh – that all encompassing principal that put saving a life before almost any Jewish law – was being employed.

So, I had a decision to make: would I knowingly violate my Yom Kippur vow and take a sip of water or not?

All day, I vacillated. A full bottle of water sat on the desk of my room. Evening passed, morning passed. The temperature was hovering close to a hundred, if not higher. And, still the bottle sat unused.

Toward the mincha service in the early afternoon of the holiday, I decided to take a swig. “Better safe than sorry,” I said to myself.

This would be the first drink of water I had on Yom Kippur since I first started fasting after my Bar Mitzvah.

No one else was in the room with me, and yet, I still looked side to side, scanning to see if anyone was in the vicinity. Was God watching?

I put the bottle to my lips and let a few drops enter my mouth and then waited. Nothing happened, the world had not ended, I had not been stricken down, and I, rabbi-to-be, was going to be okay. More importantly, the commitment I had made to my people, to Yom Kippur itself, was still intact.

Tonight marks the 33rd year of that personal vow. Some of you have vows that extend many more years longer, while, for some of you, this is only the beginning of your own journey, having just celebrated your Bnei Mitzvah this past year.

All the vows we make on Yom Kippur – our Kol Nidrei – may stay the same year after year after year, but we are not the same, and neither is the world.

In the year 1848, when a 30-year-old Lithuanian rabbi, named Yisrael Ben Ze’ev Wolf Lipkin, saw the devastation a cholera epidemic was inflicting on his home town of Vilna, the heart of 19th Century Judaism, he did the unthinkable – he broke Jewish law.

Not only that, but he advised anyone who would listen do the same, encouraging his students to openly violate the Sabbath to save lives. And, when fish was considered forbidden by medical authorities for fear that it helped spread the disease, Rabbi Yisrael went as far as to permit them to eat pork.

So, when Yom Kippur came around that year, it was only fitting that he would take the outlandish step of not only encouraging people to eat and drink, but insisting they do so.

He hung posters on every synagogue in Vilna, instructing people to eat, take walks, and for rabbis, to keep services short, on the holiest day of the Jewish Year.

And, he took it a step further, he went in front of his own synagogue on Yom Kippur and made Kiddush, openly breaking Jewish law by drinking wine and eating challah.

As you can imagine, this made quite a few people very angry, but despite the outcries from other leaders, Rabbi Yisrael would not leave his station until everyone in the synagogue had eaten and drunk their fill.

Yisrael Ben Zeev Wolf Lipkin, or as he is better known, Israel Salanter, was the founder of modern day Mussar, a practice that prioritized good values over strict observance of the law.

For him, Pikuach Nefesh, “saving of a life,” was at the top of the list. So when doctors advised eating, drinking, and walking, he made sure his community followed through.

While the circumstances in 19th century Europe are very different from 21st century America, the unease we feel as we begin Yom Kippur is similar. This year we must re-explore what our vows mean, and how to best keep them in these most trying of times.

For many of you, gathering with family, friends, and community, is as central as the fast itself, perhaps more so. But, I talk to you from an almost empty sanctuary. The pandemic has changed us, altered our vows, and even altered the way we celebrate our holiest of days.

But, vows on Yom Kippur are not only meant to be broken, but encouraged to be.

Kol Nidrei, the central prayer of our evening service, openly announces that all “vows, sworn promises, oaths of dedication” that we have taken upon ourselves and that we have sworn to God, should be “discarded and forgiven, abolished and undone.” They are, as the prayer tells us, no longer binding.

Why? Because those vital commitments that we made to ourselves and to others, were never intended to be burdens that tie us down no matter what. Circumstances change, life happens (and, pardon my French – so does drek!). We need an out and, only by doing so publicly, will we give ourselves one.

Covid is the great destroyer of vows. We want to do right by those we love, but we cannot not possibly do so as we originally intended. Completing our work tasks, educating our children, supporting family members, being a good community member and member of society, is so much more challenging under the constraints of the pandemic.

Yom Kippur affords us an opportunity to start again, wiping the slate clean, so that we can fully immerse ourselves in the year ahead. What we will face in 5781 will no doubt require our full attention and our full selves, unencumbered by guilt for that which we have no control over.

As we consider how to face our maker today and every day, a few key quotes from Rabbi Salanter may come in handy in guiding our decision making:

Number One: “Someone else’s material needs are my spiritual responsibility.”

Number Two: “Promote yourself, but do not demote another.”

And, Number Three, something that is more of a story than a quote, but is perhaps Salanter’s most enduring statement: “When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town, so, as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize that the only thing I can change is myself. And suddenly I realize that if, long ago, I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family could have made an impact on our town. The town’s impact could have changed the nation, and I could indeed have changed the world.”

We cannot, ultimately, change the world. All we can do is try to change ourselves.

I will never know if the drops of water I ingested made a difference. I stayed that year in, largely, air conditioned, facilities, and encountered the heavy seething Negev air only in bursts on my way to and from the synagogue. But, I drank nonetheless, and am glad that I did.

In doing so, I was making a statement to myself, that my needs were as important as anyone else’s. And, as Rav Salanter suggests in his famous allegory, by changing myself in that slight way, perhaps I also changed the world.

Preserving life, as the great rabbi advised and as our tradition emphasizes again and again, is worth any cost, even the most precious of our traditions.

Addressing an empty sanctuary is not our preferred method of celebrating the holiday, but if it relieves any one soul of its suffering, it has all been worth it.

A safe and easy fast and Gemar Chatimah Tovah, a good final sealing in the Book of Life.

For more information on Rav Salarer’s Yom Kippur dilemma during the cholera epidemic of 1848 go to: