Kol Nidrei

According to kabbalah, the Kol Nidre is more than a technical vow-annulment procedure. Rather, by releasing our vows we are asking G‑d to reciprocate in kind...

Orthodox. Conservative. Reform. Reconstructionist. Secular. Religious... Where did all these labels come from? Did Moses organize the people around Mt Sinai in accordance with their denominational affiliations?

Kol Nidrei, the prayer which ushers in the holy day of Yom Kippur, is perhaps the most famous one in our liturgy...

In 1951 my father, Rabbi Moshe Greenberg, was twenty years old and a prisoner in a Soviet labor camp in Siberia. That Yom Kippur, he faithfully prayed all the day’s prayers. All, that is, except for Kol Nidrei.

"The problem began," at this point Esther's voice is lowered into almost a whisper, "when my wonderful daughter met a man whom she planned to marry—and he wasn't Jewish..."

This confession is recited silently, and with each sin that we confess we lightly knock our chest–the domicile of the heart, the seat of our passions and impulses . . .