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Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, falls ten days after Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year), and it is the culmination of the Yamim Nora’im, the Days of Awe. The injunction to observe Yom Kippur comes from the Torah, in Vayikra (Leviticus) 23:26-27, 31-32 (JPS translation):

The Lord spoke to Moses saying: Mark, the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial….Do no work whatsoever; it is a law for all time, throughout the ages in all your settlements. It shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your Sabbath.

Several important points mark Yom Kippur:

In addition to being a day of rest with Shabbat-like work restrictions, Yom Kippur is a 25-hour fast, during which we take no food, and no water. We also abstain from sexual activity, and smokers become non-smokers for a day. There are exceptions to the fast, including children younger than nine years of age, pregnant women are allowed to eat to satisfy their hunger, and generally anyone whose health does not permit them to fast are exempt.

Kol Nidre is the name of the opening prayer in the evening service on the 9^th of Tishrei. Meaning “All Vows,” it is a prayer of supplication through which we ask to be released and unfettered from vows taken until the next Yom Kippur. While the rabbis have offered myriad ways of describing the purpose for such a prayer, perhaps two are most important. First, this release applies only to vows made to G-d, not to those we make to other people. Second, part of the reason we ask for release in advance is so that our good deeds are not done out of a sense of owing something to G-d, but out of genuine love and devotion to G-d. The High Holidays are about repentance, teshuva, and the motivation for which do the things we do is an important part of this. This evening service is also the only time during the year when we put on the tallit in the evening, a practice normally reserved for morning prayers.

The next morning we return to the synagogue, where there are services which extend throughout most of the day. As with the evening and morning services on Rosh Hashana, the services on Yom Kippur include the prayer Avinu Malkenu. The prayer, which means “Our Father, Our King,” is a prayer of supplication during which we ask for forgiveness. We also offer a prayer called Al Cheyt, which is a confession of sinful actions all of us as a community may have committed throughout the year. The High Holiday theme of repentance reaches a zenith during Yom Kippur. It is customary to avoid wearing leather (showing compassion and mercy toward animals), and people often come dressed fully in white, a color of purity. Many people wear a kittel, a burial garment, as a reminder of the transient nature of our lives, which should motivate us to do right while we still have time to do so.

The afternoon service includes the chanting of the book of Yonah (Jonah), a story which sheds light on the mercy of G-d shed upon those who perhaps didn’t deserve it, because they made teshuvah. The story is meant to remind us that all of our repentance, the hard spiritual work with which we have been engaged during the High Holidays, is not an exercise in futility, but that it has real consequences and provides hope for a better future.

The final service is called Ne’ilah, and as is pointed out by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin in his book Jewish Literacy:

Jewish tradition regards Yom Kippur as the day on which G-d decides the fate of each human being. As the holiday comes to an end, the liturgy vividly depicts gates beginning to close

When the prayers of the Ne’ilah service are over, and the end of Yom Kippur arrives, we hear a long blast on the shofar (called t’kiah gedolah). We then break the fast together. It is also common to begin the process of erecting the sukkah, as Sukkot, one of the shalosh regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals, begins five days later.

While Yom Kippur may seem to be a bit of a downer, with all the talk of judgment and all the reminders of our human frailty and mortality, this should not be the case. Again, Rabbi Telushkin’s Jewish Literacy says:

The erroneous perception of Yom Kippur as a day of sadness is due in large measure to it being a fast day. The holiday’s goal, however, is not self-mortification but rather to bring about reconciliation between people, and between individuals and G-d. Concerning the character of the holiday, the rabbis of the Talmud wrote: “There were no days as happy for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of [the Hebrew month of] Av [a day on which marriages were arranged] and Yom Kippur” (Mishna Ta’anit 4:8).

The following resources are available for your viewing enjoyment:

MyJewishLearning.com has tons of information here.

Chabad has a comprehensive set of resources from a Hassidic perspective.

Aish HaTorah has a nice page on their website as well.

Shalom Hartman Institute in Israel has High Holiday resources are available here.

The Union for Reform Judaism’s Yom Kippur resource page is here.

A search on the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation website has lots of material, just check Yom Kippur, and then the type of resource you’re looking for: