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The Meaning of Kol Nidrei
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The extraordinary history and lesson of this moving prayer.
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[Music]
yon kipor is the holy of holies of
Jewish time the time when you can almost
touch the divine presence so intense is
the atmosphere of the day and it begins
at night with col nidre the prayer whose
haunting music has the power like no
other to unlock the gates of the Jewish
heart and yet did you ever look at the
actual words themselves never was there
a more more unusual prayer in fact col
nidre isn't a prayer at all it's a
formula for undoing vows releasing us
from obligations we didn't really mean
to undertake it's a legal document one
that wouldn't be out of place in a
lawyer's office inspiring it isn't never
was there a greater disconnect a deeper
dissonance between the music and the
words the words are pro the music
Sublime so so how did it happen we can't
know for sure the origins of kidre are
lost in the mid Mists of time but the
most plausible suggestion about kidre or
the words that preceded giving
permission for us to pray with abaran
transgressors go back to the Middle Ages
to the times of forced conversion there
were times under Christian and sometimes
even under Muslim rule when Jews were
faced with the choice convert or or die
abandon your faith accept ours or will
be forced to kill you to save your soul
and some Jews did convert they were
known in Hebrew as the anusim the people
who acted under coercive pressure
non-jews called them
conversos or the insulting term Morano
meaning swine it happened in Spain and
Portugal in the 15th century but it
happened in visigoth Spain as early as
the 7th century
yet many of them remained Jews in secret
they kept what they could without
risking their lives and once a year on
the holiest of knights they'd come to
the synagogue asked to be admitted and
they would pray a prayer asking God to
hold them innocent of vows they' made
under the threat of death it was a way
of saying please God understand that we
didn't want to abandon you we just
wanted to live you who know the heart
know this the Jews we are Jews we hold
ourselves to be and Jews we will remain
what an extraordinary story that is some
years ago at a Civic service I was
approached by a very aristocratic
British politician he said I'm so glad
you're here my wife wants to meet you
she's Jewish you know well he introduced
his wife to me and she told me her story
her family had been Christ Christian for
more than 500 years there were conversos
from Spain yet in all that time they
never forgot that they were Jews and who
knows whether one day her children or
grandchildren may not find their way
back to the synagogue and know more
deeply than the rest of us the meaning
of
kidre which is why what's happening
today in the Jewish world is so sad
today there are no pressures forcing us
to give up our faith to the contrary we
are Freer than Jews have ever been yet
throughout the diaspora one young Jew in
two is deciding not to marry another Jew
create a Jewish Home have Jewish
children and continue the Jewish story
what an irony Jews survived poverty but
they're failing to survive affluence
they survived oppression but they're
failing to survive Freedom when they had
almost nothing to thank God for they
thanked him but now when we have almost
everything to thank God for we forget to
thank him this year let so resolve to
live that our children or grandchildren
the next generation of Jews will want to
stay Jewish live Jewish lives and
continue the Jewish story how do we do
it by living it ourselves with pride
with joy with a sense of privilege that
we are part of the most remarkable story
of any people who have ever lived the
people who taught the world about the
one God who created us in love who
forgives us cares for us lifts us when
we stumble gives us hope when they when
we stand on the edge of Despair who
believes in us more than we believe in
ourselves the God our ancestors never
forgot even when they were forced to
pretend to be someone else think of that
as you listen this year to the music and
the words of kidre and may God bless you
in the coming year shat
[Music]