The Meaning of Kol Nidre: Human Frailty, Inclusive Community,and the Gravity of Words

Kol Nidre

Shira Billet, Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought and Ethics

The Kol Nidre service, with its solemn choreography and somber traditional melody,[1] ushers in Yom Kippur with a sobering reminder of the gravity of speech and the importance of honoring our words, setting the tone for a long day of fasting, repentance, and communal prayer.  

The centerpiece of Kol Nidre is a confession to having errantly made vows we could not keep and a prospective annulment of vows we worry we might mistakenly make in those inevitable moments of weakness, rashness, and failure that are the fate of mortals. There is something powerful and also troubling about the possibility of escaping the trap of words wrongly uttered. Over a long history, Jews have been deeply invested in ensuring that this power be channeled for the good and never abused or misused. This complex legacy lends profound significance to Kol Nidre’s place as the opening service on this holiest of days.  

To appreciate the deeper meaning of Kol Nidre, we must take a holistic approach, understanding the annulment of vows in the context of the complete Kol Nidre service.[2]

For hundreds of years, the confession and annulment of vows in the Kol Nidre service has been prefaced by a poetic statement attributed to 13th-century Tosafist Rabbi Meir (Maharam) of Rothenburg, explicitly inviting sinners into the prayer community on its holiest day: 

בִּישִׁיבָה שֶׁל מַֽעְלָה וּבִישִׁיבָה שֶׁל מַֽטָּה, עַל דַּֽעַת הַמָּקוֹם וְעַל דַּֽעַת הַקָּהָל

אָֽנוּ מַתִּירִין לְהִתְפַּלֵּל עִם הָעֲבַרְיָנִים

By the authority of the court on high and by the authority of the court below; with the consent of the Omnipresent and with the consent of the congregation; we grant permission to pray together with transgressors.

With Maharam’s poetic preface to Kol Nidre, the Yom Kippur liturgy opens with a vision of an inclusive Jewish community. In aiming to improve as individuals and as a community, in seeking God’s forgiveness, in looking ahead to a better year, we include all Jews in the “we” of the community, including those whom we perceive as having made poor choices or gravely erred. The source of Maharam’s poem is a Talmudic statement that boldly states that a fast day that does not include sinners is no fast day at all. The Jewish people are compared to the holy incense that cannot achieve its beautiful smell without the inclusion of some foul-smelling ingredients.[3] By extension, a Jewish prayer community cannot be complete or achieve its aims without including individuals understood, in some capacity, to be sinners or wrongdoers. 

The centrality of inclusive community to the Kol Nidre service is further emphasized in what immediately follows.[4] Immediately after the eponymous “kol nidre” paragraph, a biblical verse (Num. 15:26) is loudly proclaimed six times—three times by the hazzan and three times collectively by the congregation: 

:וְנִסְלַח לְכָל עֲדַת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְלַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּתוֹכָם כִּי לְכָל הָעָם בִּשְׁגָגָה

May the entire congregation of the people Israel be forgiven, including the stranger who dwells in their midst, for all have erred [unwittingly (bishgagah)]. 

With the emphatic public proclamation of this verse, the prayer community declares that the atonement and forgiveness we seek on Yom Kippur includes the Jewish community—and our sinners—plus “the stranger.”   

Forgiveness and reconciliation have a wide scope. To achieve the aims on Yom Kippur—self-improvement, reconciliation with God, and the hope for a better year ahead for our community—we must see ourselves as part of a broader Jewish and human community to which our fate is intimately tied. 

So prominently placed is this verse in our Yom Kippur liturgy that Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) repeatedly declared it to be the “motto” of the entire Yom Kippur liturgy. He focused particularly on the final four words of the verse, emphasizing the unwitting nature of sin and wrongdoing as the word shegagah came to be understood in rabbinic thought.[5]

So much of human wrongdoing—our own and that of others—emerges out of weakness or fear or even mistaken good intentions rather than a desire to do wrong for its own sake. This is true, as well, for promises and commitments we fail to uphold. This doesn’t make it right, and we must indeed recognize these as mistakes, take responsibility for them, atone for them, and take real steps to avoid them in the future. Nevertheless, recognizing human frailty as a central part of the wrongs we have done and those done to us by others is a crucial step toward making forgiveness and reconciliation possible. 

Rabbi Michael Friedländer (1833–1910), famed translator of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, identified three fundamental messages of the Kol Nidre service. We should:

1. … [A]lways be disposed to forgive those who, in the heat of strife, … have offended us; 2. … [B]e careful with regard to vows… ; 3. … [R]eflect on human weakness, and consider that what we believe to be able to do to-day may prove impossible for us to-morrow. This reflection would… inspire us with humility.”[6]

On this Yom Kippur, let us experience the magic and power of Kol Nidre by recovering the deeper meaning of the full service: the prayer community that seeks forgiveness and repentance for a better future must be an inclusive human community, and all human communities are irrevocably implicated in human frailty and shegagah. At the same time, we should never lose sight of the complex history of Kol Nidre. Recognizing human frailty can never excuse us from the task of being ever more careful with our words, and never becoming flippant about the commitments we make. This recognition motivates us not to resort to complacency and excuse, but to work ever harder to ensure that our words and our actions always reflect who we are as individuals and as a community.  

[1] The sixteenth-century melody traditional amongst Ashkenazi Jews.

[2] I focus on the Ashkenazi liturgy, although this analysis has bearing on all traditional Kol Nidre liturgies, given the significant overlaps (alongside key differences).

[3] On the history of Kol Nidre, see JTS’s own Prof. Israel Davidson, “Kol Nidre,” The American Jewish Year Book vol. 25 (1924/5684), pp. 180-194.

[4] Talmud Bavli Keritot 6b.

[5] See, for example, Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 217, 223.

[6] M. Friedländer, The Jewish Religion (London: Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1900), p. 408n1.