KOL NIDRE - ALL VOWS

The prayer service on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins with a ‘pneuma’ or a soul-breath at the start of the recitation of Kol Nidre. It is indeed a breath-taking experience.

Kol Nidre is at base nothing more than a formulaic legal declaration which says that all vows between people and God are from this night until the next Yom Kippur, null and void. Vows between people remain intact. It contains no poetic language, no professions of faith. Despite this, it is one of the most stirring and emotional parts of the Yom Kippur service. Through almost a millenium of recitation it has taken on meaning far beyond its mere formula. It has become an opening of gates, an entrance into a space of quiet and calm.

Although I am atheist, Kol Nidre is one religious ritual that I partake in every year. I must hear the chant, the soul-breath, I must allow it to open a gate in my mind to reflection, meditation, thought. In the same way as a dry formula can take on an intense and exquisite meaning, so too can seemingly empty rituals become important – and often for reasons which have little to do with the rituals themselves. The prayers themselves may not stir me, I do not give obeisance to any god, but the Kol Nidre chant always makes me reflect on vows, on love and loss, and on restitution.

Kol Nidre is an absolution of vows between a person and God, and very importantly not an absolution of vows between one person and another. It is clearly stated in various learned commentaries that such intra-personal vows cannot be absolved until restitution is made between the individuals concerned. Immersed as I am at the moment in peace education, this need for restitution strikes a particular chord with me. So much of what I am doing here questions the idea of absolution, of amnesty and of how to gain reconciliation. I think that the need for restitution is vital if true and lasting reconciliation is to take place. Restitution can take myriad forms and I am deeply inspired at the moment by the efforts of the National Homecomers’ Academy to make restitution. The Homecomers are people returning from often very long stretches in prison who have decided that their incarceration was not true restitution. In an effort to rebuild their own sense of purpose and worth, they in turn help to build and repair the communities they once hurt. Through various programmes they have dedicated the rest of their lives to ensuring that their communities become whole, strong, and safe. I feel deeply privileged to have met some of these wonderful people who are striving for true goodness. They also display what in Judaism is called chesed (loving kindness) and in Christian traditions agape. This is a love which is based on kindness, on empathy, on unconditional acceptance. It is, I believe, an essential part of reconciliation. That people who have had such hard, breaking experiences can develop this chesed gives me such hope. I want to thank them. I thank you all for the chesed you displayed towards me and the wonderful work you are doing to help fix a broken world.

I take another soul-breath and turn my thoughts now to love and loss. I am privileged to have known and continue to know so many forms of love. Tonight, though, it is not the joyous love I think about, but love as it ties in to loss. I think about my father every day and most of those memories are delightful and funny. I have so much to thank my father for. On Kol Nidre night, I cry for the loss of my father. There are no words that can properly express the hole that has been left in the universe with his passing.

In pain there is also hope, out of harm can come love, out of ritual can come meaning. What a wonderful world we live in.