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

| Yom Kippur By :  Shira Billet Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought and Ethics Posted On Sep 26, 2025 / 5786 | Torah Commentary

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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. [2]

There is something powerful yet 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 contributes to the profound significance of Kol Nidre’s place as the opening service on this holiest of days. To understand the full meaning of Kol Nidre, we must consider both the history of this liturgical annulment of vows as well as the liturgical context in which it appears in our Machzor.

Kol Nidre’s central role in our experience of Yom Kippur and the Days of Awe, is a remarkable story in its own right. The singular paragraph beginning with the words “Kol Nidre” (all of the vows) has been controversial from its conception. While its origins are shrouded in mystery, from very early on, Kol Nidre was subject to deep criticism, both within the Jewish community and from opponents of Judaism. The ongoing centrality of Kol Nidre in our liturgy reflects a deep attachment to Kol Nidre that sheds light on a remarkably different understanding of the meaning of Kol Nidre from that of its critics.

Since the Middle Ages, prominent rabbis have expressed concern that the practice of annulling vows undermined halakhic admonitions against making vows altogether, a safeguard of Jewish ethical and legal norms of truthfulness and honesty. At the same time, from very early on, Kol Nidre served as consistent fodder for anti-Jewish sentiment among Gentiles who marshalled the prayer and its prominence on Yom Kippur to cast Jews as dishonest and unethical.

Many attempts have been made to excise Kol Nidre from the Yom Kippur liturgy or to dramatically alter its language. Despite all this, Kol Nidre has proven remarkably resilient. From medieval Geonim, to nineteenth-century leaders of modern Jewish movements in Europe and twentieth-century American Jewish leaders, attempts to cut the language of Kol Nidre out of the liturgy have consistently failed.

Attachment to Kol Nidre amongst modern Jews, transcending modern denominational and regional divides, is described in a 1996 Yom Kippur sermon at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London, delivered by John Rayner (1924-2005), recalling his childhood in Berlin before escaping on a 1939 Kindertransport: “Kol Nidrei. What magic there is in that name! It draws us like a magnet from far and near. It recalls past Atonement Eves, perhaps going back to our childhood. And beyond our memories there lies, submerged in our collective unconscious a whole world of which we have barely an inkling…”[3]

Critics of Kol Nidre have focused exclusively on the negative implications of the annulment of vows, targeting the singular paragraph in the Kol Nidre service from which it derives its name. The meaning of Kol Nidre for Jews, however, has had a depth and significance that exceeds this understanding.

To appreciate the deeper meaning of Kol Nidre, we must take a holistic approach, understanding that paragraph in the context of the complete Kol Nidre service.[4]

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

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 is compared to the holy incense which cannot achieve its beautiful smell without the inclusion of some foul-smelling ingredients.[5] 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. Immediately after the eponymous “kol nidre” paragraph, a biblical verse (Numbers 15:26) is loudly proclaimed six times – three times by the Hazan, and three times collectively by the congregation:

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

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 term shegaga came to be understood in rabbinic thought.[6]

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: That 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.”[7]

On this Yom Kippur 5786, 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 is necessarily always 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 complacency and excuse, but to working ever harder to ensure that our words and our actions always reflect who we are as individuals and as a community.

The publication and distribution of the JTS Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (z”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (z”l). 

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

[2] In the Ashkenzi Machzor, Kol Nidre annuls unfulfillable vows that we may make in the year ahead (based on a 12^th-century emendation by Tosafist Rabbi Meir ben Samuel); in Sephardic liturgy, vows are annulled from the past year and the year to come. The current versions of the prayer reflect complex processes of revision over generations. The earliest formulation we have, in the 9^th-century siddur of Rabbi Amram Gaon, refers to past vows. On the history of Kol Nidre, see Israel Davidson, “Kol Nidre,” The American Jewish Year Book vol. 25 (1924/5684), pp. 180-194.

[3] “The Magic of the Kol Nidrei” / John D. Rayner. Sermon for Erev Yom Kippur, Liberal Jewish Synagogue, 22/9/1996. [Photocopy].” Leo Baeck College Library.

[4] My analysis focuses on Ashkenazic liturgy, but has some bearing on Sephardic liturgy, notwithstanding key differences, including the absence of Num. 15:26, discussed below, in the Sephardic Kol Nidre service.

[5] Talmud Bavli Keritot 6b.

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

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