Kol Nidrei | Rabbi Anthony Manning | Sep 16 2026

Midash program here in Raavia is dedicated uh for the academic year. Daniel Ben David and Liram Strauss Morai Ben Mosha Raisel um sorry Mosh Morai Mosha and Rael bas Marcus currently parents of Judy and Marcus. Um also the SH is sponsored for this year Brandit and Zelik Bena. Um the Shia this morning is also dedicated by Miriam Marcus. Thank you Miriam. In memory of her beloved father Morai ben Yeshua on his 62nd y site the 11th of tre. And also for a for grandson should have shala pel shapai ben kava who is having a procedure this week. We wish him a shala and thank everybody for their sponsorship. Okay. Um, for those of you who have been missing the big saw sheets, today is for you. Um, as always, there's more information on this source sheet than we're going to get through. Um, somebody said to me as I was walking in, "How on earth are you going to get through 14 pages in an hour?" To which I responded, "There are only 13 pages. 14 would indeed have been a problem, but 13 13 should be no problem at all. Um, so I'd like to look with you at Kidra. A fascinating topic which I've been looking into recently. Um, it's well known that kidre is perhaps the most moving quote and quotes prayer in the whole Jewish year. Although of course it's not a prayer at all. We'll see. It's it's a legal declaration and one of dubious effect. Um it has changed the lives of many. I mentioned last week France Rosenfik also apparently uh Henrik Hina and Theodor Herzel had their lives to some degree changed around by the impacts of Kalamoed. And today we're going to look at some of its historical Kashkaf and then at the end a few musical developments. I've given you a lot of footnotes so you can look at these in your own time but we're going to see quite a lot of them today as well. The most important thing to begin with is that kidray is not mentioned of course anywhere in the Torah anywhere in Tanakh and it's not mentioned anywhere in the Talmud. That automatically gets you off to a difficult start because almost everything we do in Jewish practice and often in Minhag as well certainly in Hala is based on the Gorrah and if it's not in the Gmorrah then like where's it from? Kidra therefore is not in the Gmorrah and the first reference we have of it clearly is in the sidur of Rav Amram Gaon. Rav Amra Gaon was the head of the academy at surah in the late 9th century and he records what we do on Yumipa. So let's start with his words and we'll see others soon. Number one, he starts off. There are people who do the following. When the stands up, he starts off and he says, and he now gives a formula of which is not the one that we say. You'll see similarities, but the first thing that will strike you is it's in Hebrew, not in Aramaic. So maybe he translated it, maybe they used to say it in Hebrew. We'll see. I'm not going to translate every word. I think you get the gist. All of these oaths that we've made that any of these we've said. So the first thing to note is it goes from last year to this year. We go back on all of them. We've come to our father in heaven. We want there to be no uh hint of any of these things left. It sounds very clear that we're trying to get some kind of retroactive anulment for our vows. And then it launches into something which we associate more with that we do before in some people in Pon's case. And he says, which you'll recognize from which of course we say and then you say at the end you say because there's no kdish beautiful a little bit different. And then he ends and says but we've sent from the yeshiva from the holy yeshiva who this whole thing is nonsense and you may not do this. Meaning he brings the min of kidre to tell you what people do to then tell you this is absolutely inappropriate nonsense. you mustn't do it. Interesting. Um, I brought you in the uh in the footnotes uh a version of Ravha gone uh in number seven which reads a little bit more like ours. I know it's slightly small print but if you have if you could look down in the footnote for a second you'll see this is in Aramaic but it has a different flavor was a touch later and he says as follows I'm in number seven okay it's very similar to ours again from last year to this year Now if we've transgressed them either in peace or because we were forced which is interesting we'll see soon maybe comes from a time when people were forced to do things we ask for from the master of heaven of land to forgive us to to let us go. May these not make us liable. May we not sin through these. May we not get malus because of these oaths as it says. Now that is a little bit different. That formula doesn't sound like it's asking for. It sounds like it's saying we've done this. Maybe we were forced to do this. Please forgive us. We've broken things. We've done things wrong. And we're not trying to undo them. We're just trying to ask you to understand and to forgive us for the oath that we've broken. It's a different kind of formula. It seems to be chuva rather than hat. So we have these two formula. It's not clear where kidre originally comes from. Like I said, it's not in the Talmud. There are basically two theories. One theory is that it's from it's a an erit Israel custom from the Urashami or from the time of the Urosami maybe a little bit later not it's not in the time of Yashami either um some people want to say that the Aramaic version is erit Israel what they call Palestinian Aramaic which may be evidence that it comes from there. Others want to say no it's a bit of a mishmash because people didn't always get their Aramaic exactly right so maybe it's not from there. Um there is a theory that it's Babylonian. Why? Because, and this is very interesting, and I can't tell you that this is necessarily true, but there is a an academic theory that the Babylonians, we know for sure, had a a very strong custom of what they called incantation bowls, magic incantation bowls. When people felt that there was a curse, like an iron horror of some kind on them, Jews and non-Jews, they we found hundreds and hundreds of these bowls in archae archaeology in can bowls. bowls like a bowl like a cereal bowl bowl a B O WL not like the Super Bowl okay like a bowl not the Super Bowl and we found hundreds and thousands of these bowls and what people did is they wrote on them you know if there is anything like you know I'm in horror on me etc etc it should be released it should be gone and they used to put the bowl upside down and put it there in the garden or something like that now if you look at these incantations they say things like call nidre any vows that we've made should be released and etc etc. So there is a theory and maybe this is why the we'll see soon the gaonim was so opposed to it that it comes from this that people were superstitious people wanted to get rid of this iron horror and people would use this formula called nidre uh that they put into the davening and maybe that's one of the reasons why the go on was so opposed to it but that's just a theory um there is another theory that there were mass conversions and persecutions of Jews by the visigoths Now the Visigoths were uh living in Europe. We're talking about the sixth 7th century CE. So we're talking about a thousand years before the span later Spanish expulsion or 800 years before. But there was there is a theory even alludes to this soon that maybe these people would been forced to convert and they would say kidre is a way to uh maybe try to do make amends for the fact that they've been forced to make these vows uh etc. That is one of the suggestions. And later on when the Anusim in Spain and the Morirano underground community you know connected with this filler that was very important for them as well that this colidre became a very important part. Maybe that's one of the reasons why colidre is so central to people's worship. All Jews come or many many Jews come to hear colidre that's central to their to their mindset. It could be because it was so central to the Jews through all of those times of persecution. Okay. But the guy and him as we see were not happy. Go to page two. I brought you the tour. The tour of course who is later who codifies things. He's in the 1300s in Spain and he says as follows. Number two matter of time. We go into the takes out a he to his chest and he says and look at the formula very quickly. We'll see this. We'll be all singing it on the way out today. etc. Again, he goes from last year to this year. And what is our he says to to be mad to them, to release them because maybe maybe we broke them. Maybe we broke them and to save ourselves from punishment. Again, he stresses this area of of capara. We're looking for forgiveness. Ravnatroni Ravnatroniggon was also very important in the uh in the academy I think also in surahon says as follows we don't do this in the we shouldn't do it anywhere we've heard says in other countries again maybe that means Europe where the Visigoths were far away in other countries they say we've never seen this and we have no misora of this and we'll see later very soon that theim who really inherited the Msora of the Gonim were generally very opposed to conid all the way up to the 15th century the Ashkanazim were more open to it we'll see soon okay so we never heard of this the moatar It doesn't work. We'll see in a minute. This is one of the reasons the said what what does it gain? What do you gain by trying to do? So you took a and then you stand up 6 months later and say it's not a nether. That doesn't work. Doesn't do anything. You can't just stand up and say oh what I said before it doesn't apply anymore. So it doesn't work that we don't understand. He says is why people would do this and we don't do it. We don't hold by this. He quotes. This is now quoting and you say the have to be like ush don't change the of the yeshivas which is not to say it. And then the Torah then adds at the end I'm but everybody says it now everybody says it. He quotes the under no circumstances say it and then he says at the end but everybody says it. Everybody says it. So I brought you some reasons in the middle of the page here in number two. First of all why do why do we say so opposed? It has no basis in the Talmud. On the contrary I'll make it clear. How do you do? You have to go before three people or at least one uh you know mum and you have to do uh you know have to explain that you have karata you regret and if you'd known you would never have said and then they have to say mutak we don't that none of that happens for kidray. Uh number two, there was a really serious concern that people would take their vows not seriously enough because Kidra ah it's fine you know let me you know especially when it comes to the non-Jewish world we'll talk about that in a minute col nidre became a lightning rod for anti-semitism adomas as now we're seeing it again yes sir want to ask number one if the go were so adamant about the fact that something's not found in the gar about which comes from the go. >> Okay, good. Fine. Tan is a different sh. Okay, but you're right. We had a whole series on tan where it comes it may be earlier even though because there are there are fasts of Esther already in the migill of course because they weren't in Ada they were in Nissan. Let's not get into tanit but you're asking a good question. Many people reject to the idea that was in the past tense. What can I do from this year's nadorim without hatim? Um it it doesn't work. And even if it worked between man and God, it wouldn't work between people. I can't stand there having promised to do any number of things to people over the last year. Doid or Dar and say, "Oh, great. I'm off the hook. I'm fine for this year." That doesn't work at all. And therefore, the were almost all unhappy. Now, I brought you number three, something I didn't even realize was there. If you look at the riff, the riff which is at the back of the Gmorra, the riff areas, now we're in Spain and North Africa and Spain in early uh the early medieval period in the 11th century when he finishes Nadim at the very end. He adds a few lines. Just look briefly with me in number three. He says as follows, Mar Rav Yehudai, he quotes Ravhudigon. So we've seen Rav Among Rhygon Ravetroniggon. He quotes Ravhudigon. We don't not only we don't do ever for anyone. We don't we don't have the to do it. Okay. He wouldn't even study in the yeshivas in Babylon. It's banned because we don't want it. and after him they would never do ever except maybe for going okay you know I'm never going to do this again I'm never going to okay maybe we'll do her and of course Nadarim appear in the for the first time between men and women between husband and wife so but you can see the negative view that they had about Hatarus Nadorim. I brought you uh briefly in number in footnote number 12 there. I brought there's a letter that from Pirukoy Benbabo uh not the most famous Babylonian character. This is just on page two still at the bottom. He wrote a strong PMIC letter in the 9th century in 812 attacking the customs of the Eric Israel. They said they've lost their Msora. They're too persecuted. They don't have accurate miser. We the Babylonians have the real Masora. And one of the things he says is he reports again that Ravi Hudai Gon was very against Nadarim. In fact, he uh when he he reports I'll just read you briefly from footn 12. A group of people came to Ravi gone requesting that he release them from their vows and oaths. The gone refused to do so telling them go fulfill your oaths pay your vows. When asked his opinion of those who release vows and oaths on the eve of Rashashan and the eve of Yonipa, the gone, that's Ravion replied, "Such people utter falsehoods, make themselves a laugh laughing stop in the academy since no one in the world does that. Not even the amihares. Pretty strong stuff. Go to page number three. There were people you should know who understood that it did work. I put in the footnotes how that might work, but mostly people said no." Now there was already a concern in the Gummorrah that people would abuse Hatarus Nadarim. Hatarus Nadarim doesn't appear anywhere in the Kumsh which is very interesting. We'll see in a minute. The Mishna makes a point of commenting on that. Nadarim does that a husband can release the vow of his wife or a father in some cases of his daughter on the day that they hear it. But doesn't appear and the gummor here when talking about the idea of we'll see soon is says as follows that number four wanted to teach this of we'll see what it is that specific in the public sphere in the the yeshiva rather replied to him that we we don't even see this explicitly anywhere in the the doesn't really talk about it much the talk about it's on the hush hush it's on the download because we're really nervous that people will abuse it and you want to teach it publicly sh this is something we don't talk about which is so funny for today is the the most public thing hundreds of people you know for women for men and the garra saint we don't want to talk about hataras nadarim I brought you here in number five. Very interesting. Uh Raigon again I'm not going to read the whole thing. He says you don't do it. Maybe uh look from the third line at the end of the line number five. Three lines down. Is it something so light in your eyes that people should break the so serious? And then they come to Hashem saying, "Oh, we wiped it all out. Don't worry about it." He says, "God doesn't want wickedness." Who? If people just realized how serious and were they wouldn't do haramas like this. What's a haram is a legal fiction. It's a legal fiction. It's all made up. It's not a loophole. A loophole. There's no such thing as a loophole in I've got a bit of a you know bug bear about that. But it's it's a legal fiction. It's not. We can't do that in don't do this with you must be like and just a few oneliners from later the in Italy number six he quotes the opposite only evil only bad. Okay. Um number seven you can read in your own time the cowboy in France Spain said it's just a mistake many people tried to stop it uh and people shouldn't do it. He records of Sajugon as saying maybe this was instituted by people who were forced to take the that's where this idea comes from but but that's that's a different thing alto together that's if you like that's not individual people the ram number eight there are people who say this on he thinks it's prospective we'll get to that in a minute. Don't say it because otherwise you won't take seriously. The reash the student of the run number n it's better just to leave it out completely because people will be too light with the theor hides it. We don't say it in Catalonia. And look at the end. He says a funny thing. If you just have the strength to just wipe out the minamry completely, then the rabbis will be very grateful. If anyone has the power to just wipe this nonsense out, then we'll all give you a Okay? You know, if there was some if there was a minag in cloud Israel that so many Ronin were so negative about like you'd have thought this would have been like wiped out. However, not everybody not everybody. The said who's an Ashkanazi? He says no no no don't mess with our colid kidray comes from the anshes which may be a little bit of an exaggeration says but but meaning he's meaning it's like any other it's equally don't mess with our kidray and we'll come back to the ashkanazim in a minute but it's very clear that the gimm and the sparadim were very against it I didn't look in the ram I assume the ram doesn't mention it anywhere >> it's not >> not really unless in the in in the formula of rah high gone that we saw. You're asking Hashem for forgiveness for oaths that you've broken that we can maybe live with cuz you're not trying to cancel anything. But that's not how we view kid. The way we have kid it's a legal statement that the oaths will be anulled. Okay. So if you look at it as a maybe there's lots to say. Now of course it's very important for people to realize how nadarim are central to uh to our religious authenticity and maybe we're better off not even making them than risking breaking them. Look at number 11 for a second. These are a couple of sorry if a person makes a or they make a difference between a and is very interesting but it takes us off topic. Short bottom line a is usually focused on an object. This object is prohibited to me to you to them whatever. And shua is usually focused on a person. I'm going to do this, not going to do this, etc. But there's more to it than that, says the Torah. Anyone who does this do not let your words be in your eyes. And I brought you there the nice Sophie of etc. There is an idea that this is connected with, but we are not allowed. We what we say is kesh. We create reality with our speech. We may not take it lightly. And indeed, the Torah says you're better off not making the dorm at all. Number 12, don't be late paying back the you make God will seek it. God will seek out that letter if you don't fulfill it. And it will be a sin. And if you don't make at all, that's even better. Which is why Jewish people are so bleeder oriented or at least they should be you know say a joke why why why Jewish people why do they never present the weather on the TV or whatever because they could never say anything what's going to happen tomorrow you know it's going to rain you know you know whatever they would never make any kind of firm commitment to anything quickly because they got a lot to do >> funerals you know when the person has been put in okay so the basically >> they are specifically Right. Yeah. >> That's interesting. I I I don't know. The funerals usually they ask for if they've done anything that offends the You're not talking about that. >> If you owe anything to get a dead or whatever. >> I don't know. I I I don't think it's >> interesting. I don't know. I have no idea. Sorry. I don't know if that works or it doesn't work uhly, etc. The Mishna I should point out um points out that people who don't keep their word get a Misha par. Amish par is the opposite of ashak. You don't want to get a mishap. They don't do this in shul anymore and stand up and clap and say he who cursed you know the the bavl and and mdal and stom and the flood may he curse ply ben ply. They don't do that anymore but people take it very seriously. And the Gomorrah speaks in many places of the god forbid the the consequences of unfulfilled nadarim that a person's children loyal may die a person's spouse may die and therefore the garra is very doesn't want you to make at all. So playing fast and loose with nadarim is something that we take very seriously. I brought you a position number 15 life and death are in the the tongue. The tongue can create life. it can create death etc etc and hatarisnadarim itself just turn to page five is something which exists but is very much hinted at I brought you the inig number is is floating in the air meaning where where will you find it in the it's not there okay the and it doesn't have any to rest on it doesn't mean it's not real it it does work But we already see it as something which is peripheral, not central. We're better off not making the dam at all than trying to release them. And and I brought you the Rambam who brings the procedure for our Torist in 17. I'm not reading all these halas, but you know the procedure. You basically go before either an expert or a panel of three like a bin. I did this, I did this. And then they ask you questions. You know, if you knew then what you know now and you said I'm never going to eat chocolate for the rest of my life, you know, would would you have said that? No. I really it's a crazy thing. I don't know what got into my head. I was you know it was Kipper I made you know whatever. Um and then maybe they'll release them. There's no automatic release. There are some Nadorim that the panel will say I'm sorry you know you're stuck with it. So but but it definitely is a hakic uh mechanism which does work. The question is what's with col nidra? Does it really do any of these things? Does it work in a hakic manner? seems to be missing a lot of the key issues that we said before are required for um for uh for hatus nadar. I brought you in the footnote the rash. The rash she's tries to say, well maybe you have a based in you know onidre you have the kazan and you have the two people next to them. Okay. And they say three times they say three times that's as if the mut but according to this and we'll see it means that you the person have to say it out loud. You can't just listen to him doing hat for you. You have to say all these things and he'll respond. you know, etc., etc. Yes. >> Oh, good. That's the whole midrash, you know, he'll come to me, he'll come to me, etc. That's a great question. And it could be his arrogance. That's the problem with, you know, he was someone who wasn't able to step down. Yes, that's the whole point. He should have done assuming he knew about it. I don't know if was learned enough to even know that Nadar even existed. But that's the point. Pinas could have come to him and told him, "You're not stuck with this. You know, mate, you can do Nadarim." And even if Ytak who was not so learned hadn't heard of it. So it's partly Pinas's fault as well. It's not justif. Fine. Come along the Ashkanazim to the rescue. Okay. Look in page six, please. And we'll we'll see some some of these sources in more detail. The Ashkanazin come along and say, "No, no, wait. There is a mechanism in the Gomorrah which is explicit which is notaratim retroactively but is what's called mod prospectively and that's what's really going on for K Nidra have a look at this gamarra this is the garra that we saw before Rava was nervous that Rahuna was teaching in public number 18 If you want that all the if you want all the oaths you make over the coming year to not be effective says you should stand up on before you should say any which I'm going to make bottle it's going to be of no effect but it only works if you forget get when you make the nether that you made that prior um statement meaning if you rely on that every time you make nadorim over the year it doesn't work because then you're just being weasly and you're saying well yes I promise to do it but you're thinking but I don't really promise to do it because I said I don't mean anything I say so if you forget that statement and you forgot to say bleed this saves you but it's not retroactive retroactive you need the full shebang you need the the H you need hatara you need karata you but prospectively it might work and that's why tophus comes along and says um and it's not his innovation sometimes it's called tophus the tossphus's innovation but he quotes in the name of his father and we'll see soon rashi did this as well that when they said kidre they didn't do it for the year past because you're right that probably doesn't work but they did it prospectively look in number 19 Nidra and by the way there's no question here we say it this is early don't give me all this don't say we say so my father who is Rash's son-in-law he corrected the we see Rashi also did this it's not from last to this which we saw in the which they were so unhappy about it's from this yum kipper to next yum kipper. Of course, what do we do? >> Both because we Yeah. >> in front of witnesses. >> No sh doesn't have to be in front of witnesses. >> Uh yeah, I mean you can make a and you're bound by a Okay. In court you might need witnesses and stuff but not a regular. Okay. And that's what we should do prospectively. If you say from last year to this year, that's just a mistake. Agree that a lot of the things we said about retroactively doesn't work. You can't you can't just release things without a proper regret. You have etc. That's what we do. We do the prospective version. That's what you should say and he brings this in that we saw in number 18 etc. You can stand up on rash and you can make a declaration that the the prospective daring won't work. Now to on the Gammorra what's that >> most people don't know this >> okay >> I think it's from the >> okay so that's there is some value in me giving the shim clearly so I would hate to stand up in front of you and just say what you already know okay to the gammorra tossus on the garra say yeah but okay it's not rash sha when we do kidray but he says yeah but it's like young also called the beginning of the year he brings a poses and he says and we we just postpone it till yum kipa because more people are there more people come to schul interesting even back then more people come to shy yam kipa than on rashashana um and and everyone's nervous on yum kipa we want to do it so this is the same idea now was this change accepted >> it's still going into the future doesn't have much >> it it might do because you don't need all of the technical conditions of as long as you say it and don't remember when you make a that you said it it sounds like it works books. Um, this change to make it prospective was not so widely accepted even with the Ashkanazim until the 17th century. That's for 500 years people stuck with the old Nasuk and the Spanish Portuguese never accepted it. Meaning the Sparadim once they took on Kidra against if you like the advice of almost all their took on the old version the the retroactive version and not the proactive the prospective version. One of the problems we have with the prospective version is the verbs are all wrong in Aramaic because the verbs are in the past tense which we did which we vowed which we swore which we this which we that now you're going to get to a point very soon where my Aramaic Gomorrah is like I reached the line of my understanding. Um but the but that is a problem that we say because if you're saying it prospectively you can't use a past tense verb. Three things have been suggested to uh to work that out. Uh one of them is to change the wording and there were those that wanted to change the wording very strongly. The in the future we're going to make what was the problem with that? It doesn't fit the tune. And the tune, we'll see explicitly in a minute, the tune became so entrenched that changing this the words in a way that don't scan with the tune. People said, "Oh, no. We can't we can't we can't do that." >> Make a simple there was a lot of don't make a >> because sometimes a nether is good for a person's personal growth. Maybe there are situations like a nazir wants to you know re reccalibrate themselves. There are the odds. There is the odds. But you're right. On the whole, the Torah says better off not. Yes, sir. >> Yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get to that in a minute. Okay. So, other people said you can't change the words in a way that mess up the tune. So, there were some clever changes to vowels. If you just change the shva to a kamat, then it kind of puts him in the future. And I brought you some of this. This is I'm afraid I don't really get all of this. But what a lot of people do is they just keep the old words with the new cavana. And if you look in the I mean the the magnav says to do this because he says I don't know the past tense can imply the future as well. I don't know exactly what he means. Maybe he means that we that we will have made and we will have sworn maybe. But if you open up the art scroll, uh, which I looked in, I looked in a few of the different, um, that I have, um, the art scroll basically says, "You're right. These verbs are past tense. It doesn't really make sense, but everybody knows what it means, and it really goes on the future, and please, you know, forgive us our grammatical errors on this holy day kind of thing." Um, but there's a note there that the wording is a question. Okay, fine. So, just go over to page number seven. I'm not going to go through all of this because I brought you the Nus. There are now three bas three versions of cognitive ray. There's the one that only goes retroactively. There's the one that only goes proactively and there's the one that does both and both is not just a modern thing already. Raviak of Emden suggested that the uh that the the if you like the compromised text is a good one and many people took that on the Radvas before Raviak of Emden basically the Ashkanazim go with Rabenuam and Rashi which is the prospective it's a mir I'm making a declaration for the future basically theim went with who said it went with the retroactive one although now most people do a bit of both okay and the one which is the the join one which is in brackets from last year to this year from this year to next year. Uh and they found a way to work out the tune in a way that works. The Italians by the way and I've never been in Italy in Rome for and when you say the Italians there's lots of different aot in in Italy the the Spanish and Portuguese obviously is different but the Italian apparently they still do the Hebrew version of Rav Amrangon. So if anyone is in Rome for Yum Kipper, please send me a message afterwards and tell me if that's really h really hands. I wanted to quote you the Lavush in 25. I always found the Lavush has something interesting to say Yafi. Um I I in a in a fantasy world, I'd like to think that I was related to him. My grandmother was a Yafi, but I can't prove it. Uh so you never know. Number 25 says Ra Modai Yafi in the 16th century. in if this is the case based on what Joseph said before if you don't make the change to go the future what you have printed in the book is nonsense and all you've got left is the lovely chew more of that soon exactly what you just said before people don't know and and they don't understand what they're saying. It doesn't help that it's all in Aramaic. If I only had the power to do this, and he's one of the in Poland, I would I would change it. I've tried I've tried a number of times to change it to teach the appropriate words. They couldn't change the what they did. He says it explicitly. You couldn't get people to change the tune. Therefore, I want to give you the following advice if you want to get it right. Say the right words to yourself and don't rely on the shots because they could be dabbing something that just doesn't work at all. And don't just say what he says word after word. Read the correct version to yourself because they're just making a mistake. It doesn't work. It's just chirping like birds like Twitter. Okay. They're not talking. They're just chirping. That I don't know. He doesn't sound like he's into Kazonus, honestly. Um, someone once told me is okay. So, he says, "Look, what they're doing is just chirping. You like a good tune, great. But if you want to do something, say the right words, the right with the Nus, which is prospective, and don't follow what they say." And the mission brings this down in 26 top of page eight. We go like and then he gets he changes the words. He also is bothered by the past tense of the verbs and he wants you to put a couple of extra letters in here and there. But he says at the end of the day the brah says if you say the old words then it kind of works and that'll be okay as well. Now if it has hahic implications that what we're really doing like the lavush and the mish says is going forwards there are a certain number of implications to that um for example I brought you uh uh from hal as the people bring for coid certainly ashkanazim that number one in the middle of page a you have to understand what you're saying it's not good just to incant it's not we don't have magic incantation bowls anymore you can't just say it and hope for the best so you should learn the Aramaic text a little in advance. It's not that complicated. Number two, everybody should say it along with the because if it was in the saying effectively, so good. So I can hear. But if I'm making a statement, I am now saying that any vows I make in the future, it should be said and it should be said out loud. and they bring down that it should be said loud enough for somebody else to hear but not so loud that they get upset with you that you're disturbing their davining on yum kippa in which case you've lost any potential gain by upsetting your nextdoor neighbor but just whispering it may not work and another thing is you can only make this kind of legal declaration when it's not yet yonipper because it's can't be done on shabas it can't be done can't be done on you don't do on shabas so um So fine. Okay. So good. So kidray is before we're mabon or is it because women like candles and they've already beabonipper and now there's a men like the men say a lot of men say which is a long and one of the lines of points this out is I am now kaduciousim and he says now you can't do anymore. What did you just achieve by that? >> So, so you could say, but then you should leave out the line that says you're and only be. So, you see, you get yourself into some complications. >> You could like hands with the Tana. The problem with a Tana though is the Tana might work for Shabas, but it doesn't work when you say because once you say, you can't live in a dream world where you I I accept it, but I didn't. Shabas you can say I like without accepting answer but it doesn't work with you could not say and say it in that would work but you can't be on so I brought you in the middle of page eight what we do today I just got to go on a little bit what we do today was pretty much formula formalized already by the early modern period they added in at the beginning alasakal we we we uh agree that we will dav with people who are avaryanim Maybe that was a reference also to the conversos that that we all are vary but maybe they meant like you know some >> you're right you're right you're 100% right and maybe talking about all of us to some degree or it may be talking about people that the rest of the year were were were not in the community but came to the community and I brought you all of that there fine the the there are a couple of alternative opinions as to what colony does and I brought you a few here and I'm not going to read them all out loud the nimuk ysef basically gives up on col nidra as a hackic mechanism. He says it doesn't work backwards and it doesn't work forwards. It's a it's a please God forgive us because one of the things we've done is broken the Durham and we know it's very serious and we do chuva nice and simple and maybe that's the the best way to look at conidra honestly and not try and be you know hakically clever to fetch in this or that but it's he says it's filler and we saw that rahon's read much more like the shibet writes that it's a reminder because when it says you mustn't delay fulfilling your oath How long do you have to fulfill a threeim sukus? So sukus is coming. That's your deadline. And therefore kidray is to remind people, oh yes, I've got another four or five days. I must make sure I give that stock, fulfill that nether, whatever it is, which also is very nice. And then the eerie has a a very interesting technical uh approach where he says there's such a thing as a public nether, not a private nether. He says, "You're right. Colin doesn't work for private Nadarim, but it works for public nadorim when the community has agreed to do something. And what the community has agreed to do, the community can agree to undo. And he says there is even a procedure that the community does that." And he doesn't seem to be talking about Yoniper. They go to shul they stands up. They take out a safer Torah and they say we now release the community from whatever vow we were going to do. Says maybe that's what's going on with Connidra. But it's not working for you and me. it's working for the community but he leaves that as a question people other people say it doesn't even work for that but there's some alternatives as to what it could mean. Yes sir. the time between I I think Hatarist Nadarim is meant to put us on notice that at least for these 10 days we should be careful what we do but maybe Kidra yeah hatarim is a relatively recent minarist that we do before Rashashana is first mentioned in the schllo the schllo I brought a footnote on this who's in the 16th century uh in in Europe before that there is no real mention of doing this hatarat before Rashashana um but it caught on and so maybe that they maybe people didn't want to rely and collid because there were so many questions about colidre I want to do a hatarm in a proper way even though we do hatrist nondar it doesn't really work as hatarist because no one specifies the nether that they're making and and anywhere I've ever been where they did hatar the rav stands up and says everyone should do this but it doesn't really work if you have a real nether then you have to uh go this privately and this is what we tell our students we do hataras now women do as well why should they not they also say things. Women also speak. So I've heard and and they say Nadarim and therefore they should do it as well. In our we have a woman's hataris nadorim. But I always tell our students if you have a specific neer then you you need to speak to people privately and and work work that out. So what does nadorim do? It's a prospective again the the last part of which is the I I I am making a statement for the future. again that might work going forward. Now on a different vein, uh Connidra has been used as a source of anti-semitism for millennia. The Carites were extremely angry about Kidra. They used it as a stick to hit us with these rabinite Jews. Look at them. They're making the dorm and they've got this clever weasly loopholey kind of way of getting out it. I I I brought in the footnote here a statement of uh of a karite Yehuda hadi who wrote the eshkal hakifer uh in the 1100s and he talks and he makes fun he says the cancer of the congregation stands before god etc in the presence of the congre makes fun of the whole condra thing uh maybe this was one of the reasons why the only was so sensitive to it because it g it was a stick that we gave to anti- uh anti-semitic and anti-Jewish um groups even within Judaism them to anti-Orthodox school, whatever that word meant in those days. Of course, it didn't mean anything then to to hit us with. And I I brought you here, Rabie of Paris, Rabil of Perry when he had to defend in the disputation um in Paris against Nicholas Donan who was an apostate Jew, aren't they? Always it's always they always wheel out the Jews to attack the Jews. The only time they're proud to be Jews is where they do something which is anti-Jewish. Okay, we see this all over in our own times. and and he and he had to defend her to Nadora and he said number 32, we only enol unintentional vows in order that a person shouldn't transgress with his oaths or vows and only those vows which relate exclusively to himself and not to others. However, vows which involve other people may not be anulled. He wants to defend Judaism. We don't just get out of our prophecies. People always accuse the Jews of not being honest. Yeah. In in England used it to Jew somebody was a word to to to fool them. Okay. It comes from here. Uh in the middle ages, even until the 19th century, many courts, non-Jewish courts had a special Jewish oath. It was called the Murray Judeo that they make a Jew swear that even though they said Kidra that it didn't release them from the oath. They knew about Kidra and they didn't trust the Jews and they used to humiliate the Jews. They made them stand on pig skins and all sorts of things. Even until until the middle of the 1800s in Germany, a court could force a Jew to go to schul, take put his talis filling on, take out the safetyra and revoke anything he said in colidra so that they would know that what they said in uh in court could be trusted. In 1875 I brought here Sar Alexander II in Russia issued I think this is pronounced a UK's uh which is a proclamation concerning the wording of a Jewish prayer book. He made the Jews put comments in the prayer books about what kidray means. And many Jewish prayer books have in wording that's that sort of disclaimers for colidre. And those disclaimers were written in as a self censoring as it were to prove to the non-Jews that we weren't trying to get out of things. I brought you even the the the Herz. I grew up on the Herz. You know, it has a whole uh a whole section there disclaimer that this doesn't do anything in court. this doesn't affect us with non-Jews, etc., etc. So, you see that many times. I even brought you, even though I didn't want to put it on the source sheet, but you can see it. Um, there was an anti-semite uh white supremacist um uh called uh Dilling, someone Dilling. I didn't even put her name on here. Maybe it's good that her name wasn't in here. She's now known as the original Candace Owens. Okay. Uh and she writes there in number 34. She wrote a book in America basically saying the Jews say colidre and people should know uh I brought you on the top of page 10 that you can't trust them and in the medieval period the the the non-Jews knew that the Jews were weedling out but in America they fooled us and we don't realize how valless a Jew's oath is in court. It's of course all completely pure anti-semitism but people are reading this again. people are learning this that people are people are are saying this again in America and Col Nidra uh gets gets attacked. Now what did we do? So we put these disclaimers in but the reform movement scrapped colid because they were very unhappy with it. Um already in the early 1800s I brought you page 10. Uh there were you see the conidra was emitted from prayer books in in Berlin uh 1815 1817 in Hamburg 1819 1841 and at the official reform movements Brunswick conference in 1844 kidra was officially taken out of the reformed prayers because of its theological implications and the anti-semitism which it was uh perceived to cause. What was it replaced with? interesting because uh there was a a uh sometimes it was just background music. They got the organ to play the music from Kidra because people need the music. You can't do without the music. And they said to him to the music and then there was this uh wonderful uh hymn here day of God. Okay. O day of God. Um which was composed here in 1840. And you I've brought you the German, I've brought you the English at the bottom of page 10. And in reformed temples during the 19th century and early 20th century, they would sing either in German or in English, this hymn to the tune of Col Nidra. It fits. The words fit. And in case you don't believe me that the words fit, I brought you on the top of page 11 the music which you can go home and play on the piano later on. And you can sing. You can either sing it in English, O Day of God, or you can sing it in in in her German or Tag Helm. uh and and the reform movement did that and basically all of the uh reformed prayer books had cut that out. In fact, there was a reformed prayer in many of the books between I put here 1870 to 1929. They replaced Kol Nidray with a passage which does the opposite of kidray which davverns to God that we should be given the strength to fulfill all our vows because again the the the the the negativity of the idea that we're getting weasling our way out of the vows. Um the tide began to turn in the 1930s because people couldn't live without colid. It was interesting and I brought you here from the in the 30s the the the central council of American rabbis reform council there says even though it thoroughly disagreed with a theology expressed in Colandre it has a certain emotional force that no other song can convey to our people they can't live without the song and basically over the last 30 40 50 years it's been uh put back and if you go to a reformed temple on yum kipa which I I'm not necessarily recommending and I've never done myself uh you'll see that they basically say kidre the old words the old tune because people relate to it and I suppose they reckon that no one understands it anyway even in the orthodox shaw so uh they probably don't have a problem perhaps more controversially raimsal hers also cut kidre out of his service in the 1830s in oldenberg um although rajakov who was a descendant of his claimed it wasn't there it was in ended in the 1840s why did he cut it out because he was worried worried said Roger Kovitz that his community, the Orthodox community were also being dishonest in business and also needed a reminder that they can't just turn around to Col Nidra and and and claim some kind of exemption. >> He examined every word. So when he reinstated it, >> it's a good question. I don't know what the politics was. He did reinstate it. >> Um I don't know what maybe it was just too much push back because people need their conidra. It is interesting that if you open up which is his grand you know thesis on all mitzvah he never mentions kid once he doesn't also mention tashlik or caporus which is maybe more understandable but kidre doesn't get a mention let's finish off in the last five minutes with the tune let's talk about the tune the origins of the tune the ashkanazi tune because of course the sarum have a completely different tune for coidray but the ashkanazim call this one of the msinai nigunim What is this expression from? Look at number 35 theim 12th century Germany. So we're very early in Ashkanaz number 35. He brings a posic don't move the boundary of your friend is shown in which the earlier ones set down boundaries. We have ancient which have been decreed. We can't use the niggan for reading the Torah and use it for the meaning the laning has to be the correct drop. This is where the idea of now I brought you the benesai who says he doesn't mean like literally was because you see different communities have different versions of these. He says but you have to treat it as ancient binding and absolutely central to our minhagim. Therefore you don't mess with oursim and a lot of them on rashashana are of that nature. I brought you the look in number 36 in number 36 page 12. We say when it's still and we have a a song that goes on to the night time. We say three times and you you get louder and louder each time. Don't change your towns. even with the nigunim orim and he brings the mahar and the maharil who lived in uh in Europe in the 1400s he was a kazan and he went along he was also a major time of he went from place to place reinforcing these nigun uh I brought you a quote from an article here in 37 from and some of you I'm sure knew him can sherwood goen alum who was the uh who was the the khan in link for many many years. He wrote a whole article about this and I I I brought you in 37 what he says about the maharil. Now according to canopen uh the ma the nigun for kidre was very late which makes sense because kidre had a difficult birthing process as we saw and he said if you actually look into the niggan of kidray he said it's made up of the nigurim for the rest of the yamim rhyme all stitched together in an interesting new niggan. very interesting. There are those that want to say there are at least eight different themes in Kidra. I just want to mention three of them which will when you listen on on on on Sunday night you'll hear them. First of all, the opening of Nidra, and you'll forgive me if I'm not the best singer in the world, but when he goes, it's the kadesh before mus. That's where that's where that comes from. Um, and um the the the uh the um what do you call it? The arpeggio, minor arpeggio. and you've got this. This is you've got that tri and even more obvious is um which is taken straight from Alenu on Rashashana. It's just like it's the all-time favorite tunes of the Yam Nay. No wonder people like Connidra. It's like Yeah. It's like it's an overure. Exactly. It's like it's a reprise. All the all the things that we love so much. And I brought you the music at the bottom. Um the musical annotation we have for Conidray today was put together in the 1700s. Lewendowski made it famous in the 1870s. Max Brook, who was a Protestant composer, uh made a version of Conidray. I brought you all of the links to to uh YouTube at the bottom so you can you can enjoy uh learning it. Even though Brooke himself was not Jewish, he liked Jewish music, although he did a bit of a hatchet job on Conn Lidray and it turns into a Scottish jig in the middle. Uh but but there are those that are not so happy about the Brook version of Kidra. Uh on the last page uh what is very clearly a uh a copy of Kidre is the sixth movement of Beethoven string quartet quartet opus 131 in C# minor which if you didn't know it already I put you the m brought you the music for. If you can read music, you'll see immediately this is kidre. Now, why was Beethoven writing conid? So, the the apparently the Jewish community in Beetho in in where he was living went to him to compose some music for the opening of the new shul. And he said, "Okay, uh what kind of music?" I said, "Make some Jewish Jewish music." He said, "Well, I don't know any Jewish music." Apparently, they sent him some samples of Jewish music, including Conn. And in the end, the Shaw never used his music, but he used it for for for that. And I brought you as well, uh, if any of you are, uh, old movie buffs, The Jazz Singer, which was the first, uh, talking movie ever, features Col Nidra. You've got Al Jolson singing. Can you imagine the entire American public astounded at the first talking movie ever, and they're sitting listening to Cole Nidray? It's it's it's remarkable. Um, the Neil Diamond did a a remake in the 80s, which I don't think was anything like as good, but you can make your own decision on that, and I brought you some other things as well. So we see there that there's a lot to say about um and hashkafically musically the most important thing it should be it should be for for us and for all Israel I will see you a month from today but three weeks from today there will be classes but I won't be here I will be here a month from today please God okay all the best