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Rabbi Elie Kaunfer

ON YOM KIPPUR

I remember the first time I saw people dancing on Yom Kippur. The fast had ended, the final shofar blast sounded, but instead of running for the exits, everyone broke out into spirited dancing. They were communicating with their feet: “The break-fast can wait.” It was time to feel the joy. This was quite different from how I had previously experienced Yom Kippur: as a solemn day filled with apologies, existential questions, and acute experiences of mortality. The only joy, in fact, was in making it to the breakfast.

Yom Kippur as a day of joy dates back to the earliest rabbinic legal text, the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4:8): “R. Shimon ben Gamliel said: Israel had no better days than the 15th of Av and Yom Kippur.” There is so much joy at the section of the service known as Avodah. It is the reenactment of the High Priest’s encounter with God. It is also a moment when people sing and dance, remembering the ways in which we used to be so much closer to the Divine. Yom Kippur offers a glimpse of a pathway to return. It is a moment to enact—with joy—the possibility of a deeper connection with all that is holy. Isn’t that reason to dance?