If you’re a Jew who has turned your back on Israel, Yom Kippur is the time to return
The Kol Nidre prayer provides a path back for those lured away
Yom Kippur offers a reset. Will Jews who have rejected Israel take the chance to change their minds? Photo by iStock by Getty Images
I remember the last Yom Kippur for which my father, Elie Wiesel, was still alive. Dressed in white, he held the Torah as the Yom Kippur service began. My son and I stood with him, concerned that it might be too heavy for his frail frame.
Then the prayer leader began the Kol Nidrei service with the annual proclamation: “By the decree of the heavenly court, and by the decree of the earthly court — we declare it permitted to pray amongst sinners.”
These words moved me every year because for most of my youth, I was not a regular participant in Jewish life. As a young man, I tolerated Jewish life, sometimes mocked it, and often fought it as a burden I had not sought. To attend synagogue was an imposition on my time and on my rational worldview.
Now a new generation is turning away from Judaism, by joining with Israel’s enemies, in the wake of Oct. 7, to unfairly malign the Jewish state. To those of you who have sacrificed your connection with your people in order to appease the God of liberal acceptance, I say, come back.
If you have turned your back on our traditions as well as your brothers and sisters in Israel: Come back. Our faith has so much beauty waiting for you.
If you wear a tallit and tefillin, and blow shofar and keep kosher, but use your Judaism to undermine the right of the seven million Jews who live in Israel to choose their own destiny: Come back. In attacking your own people, you have gone further than those who renounce all traditional observance.
Can the Kol Nidre prayer speak to you as it does to me?
I was once on the outside and looking in. I felt that in the eyes of more connected Jews, I was a sinner. I appreciated that despite this, the words of the Kol Nidre invited me into the service.
The prayer stated that I, who had once chosen to shun my cultural birthright of 3,500 years, was still welcome. Only later I learned that I was not the originally intended audience for these words. The proclamation welcoming sinners dates back to a time when Jews were forced at the point of the sword to accept foreign gods and sever themselves from our people. While I took my Judaism for granted, previous generations — whether in Alhambra, Spain or a Soviet prison — understood and appreciated the treasure they had been born into, but were forced to repudiate.
Jews were threatened with death or torture in order to renounce Judaism in favor of Christ, Allah or Stalin. Today, the pressure to assimilate in order to enjoy America’s opportunities exerts its own powerful pull.
There are more foreign gods demanding allegiance now than Abraham could ever have smashed at the dawn of our faith. Worthy ideas have been twisted since Oct. 7, against all reason, into attacks on the Jewish people.
Today, secular democracy deserves to be celebrated. Every vote matters, and minorities must be protected. Yet some elite university students, Jews among them, support the religious dictatorships seeking to destroy Israel, the only actual democracy in the Middle East, with a thriving Arab minority population amongst its citizenry. Why?
Sexual identity is revered as a crucial aspect of modern-day life. Yet some of its most vocal champions, Jews among them, side with Hamas, a group that brutally oppresses and murders LGBTQ+ individuals, and attacks Israel, home to the largest Pride parade in the Middle East. Why?
Human rights work calls to young people, Jews among them, anguished by America’s racist past, and rightly so. Yet in the name of these principles, somehow only suffering caused by the Jews is elevated, while every blow aimed at Israel is ignored or justified. Why?
We as a people deserve to be inscribed in the book of life. And we will never again let the hands of our enemies or indifferent bystanders, or of anyone other than ourselves and our God, hold that pen.
Jews do not proselytize, which is why we are only 0.2% of the population, as compared to the more than half of the world that identifies as Christian or Muslim. This means every one of us matters, including Israeli Jews who face rockets and terrorism daily.
With my father’s permission, I used to bring books with me to shul on Yom Kippur, as long as they fit inside the prayer book. He was much less concerned with whether I believed in God. He wanted me to be with my people, where I belonged.
It is not too late to come home, where you not only belong, but where you are needed.
My father wrote in 1975 about the enemy’s plan to turn us against each other: “We are told that this is not about Jews, this is about Zionists. They try to divide us, to pit us one against the other after having pitted us against the world.”
Hear his warning and come back. Bring your questions. Bring your empathy for the civilians sacrificed by our enemies. But put down your weaponized phrases that falsely accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid, and stand again within the tent.
Stand with us, fast with us, defy the haters of Israel. And return to your place in the story of our people this Yom Kippur.
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