Thread by @GREENESJ333

Roger Froikin @rlefraim wrote, "YOM KIPPUR
יום. כיפור
Sometimes it is interesting to play around with Hebrew terminology and see what happens.
1)

Take Yom Kippur – לכפר The Day of Atonement - and the term “to atone”, which itself means to do something responsible to make up for something one did irresponsibly or wrong...
2)

and hopefully, everyone will make the כפר – the village or area, a better place to be once people have acted responsibly & atoned & ended an atmosphere of coldness & frost (כפור) that destroys good relations, or worse leads to outright heresy (כופר) & division & hurt.
3)

Think about all of that. Because if one notices, in the Makhzor (the book traditionally of prayers for this Holiday) the prayers are collective.
4)

We pray that the transgressions, of all of us, individually and collectively, like a Jewish cultural Gestalt, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, atone, realize what was wrong, and make it right,...
5)

and realize that this is not for each of us to somehow get into what some religions would call Heaven, but to make the community, the collective, better and stronger in this life by making its components (us) better people through our promise to do better.
6)

That is what Yom Kippur is about. All the trappings - the communal prayer, the fasting, the preparation, the writings chosen for reading on that day, are directed to that end.
7)

And the start of the Observance with a recitation of Kol Nidre, sets the stage and the mood, but there is something generally ignored in this format.
8)

“Kol Nidre” is not in Hebrew. It is Aramaic, the trade language, the lingua franca of the Middle east from 2500 BCE to 2100 BCE, a language spoken & used by both Jews and Gentiles from the Mediterranean to Persia.
9)

Sure, other Jewish texts also were in Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, so Jews everywhere, whose Hebrew had deteriorated, or been lost, would be able to be part of this collective observance, of this event, ...
10)

and even though Hebrew has been substantially revived, and Aramaic as a language has died, and the world language is now English, not Aramaic, Greek, or Latin, we keep this custom because of the emotional and historical attachment we have to it.
11)

It is part of us, though in the first 800 years of the Observance of Yom Kippur, we did not have Kol Nidre.
But, all of us will have a large pre-fast meal, then the mundane world, for us, will stop, & for 25 hours we will take stock of ourselves, & of our people,...
12)

we will dwell on the sins we have committed, negligently or on purpose, & those others may have committed negligently or intentionally, & we will understand we cannot change the past, but we can do better in the future, & we will enjoy the quiet and the calm & think, ...
13)

and 25 hours later, we will be cleansed, forward-looking, and with family and or friends, celebrate with company and food a fresh start.
14)

This is not a day to be sad. The Book is already closed on who shall live and who shall not. This is a time to actually be happy, because next, once the contemplation is done, we have a fresh start to make better choices.
15)

And thousands of years ago, this time was also a time for young people to meet. One source claimed that at least 1/3 of all marriages in the year following Yom Kippur were made between young people who met on Yom Kippur. A beginning to be happy about, not an end to mourn.
16)

A fresh start for each of us individually, to be responsible mature people, and just maybe a fresh start for us collectively as a people where ever we live."
17)

@threader_app compile