Yom Kippur: The Prayer of Silence
Rabbi Tom Samuels
Why is it that only on Yom Kippur we recite out loud the prayer that comes right after the Shema, Baruch Shem kevod malchuto l'Olam vaed, Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever?” For the entire rest of the year it is recited quietly, almost in a silent murmur.
Let’s first look at the Shema itself: Sh'ma Yisraeil, Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. From the Book of Deuteronomy (6:4), it was translated into English over 400 years ago in the King James Version of the Bible as the familiar incantation, “Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One (or is One Lord.)”
There are so many questions about these words and their meanings and intentions. Why, for example, does the prayer begin with “Shema Yisrael, Hear O Israel?” and not simply declare from the start that, "The Lord our God, the Lord is One?” Why translate the word, Shema, which throughout the TaNaCh (the canon of Jewish scripture) means “to gather” or “to congregate,” as “to hear” or “to listen?” And why address this defining prayer in Judaism to each other rather than directly to God?
The Jewish mystical book, the Zohar, explains that it is only when Israel is in a state of unified oneness, with a sense of cohesion and community, that God’s presence can be actualized. A sort of, “Gather together, Israel ... when you are a unified People, in Oneness, then God will dwell within you.”
From our very beginnings as a people, we have struggled to attain this aspirational call for unity, for an all-embracing sense of identity and direction. To transition from an assemblage of fractious groupings of disparate individuals, a kehal in Hebrew, to a community with a shared purpose and commitment, an eidah.
This is the message of the words, Baruch Shem kevod malchuto l'Olam vaed, Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever.” Our sages imagine that Moses heard the angels singing these words before God atop Mount Sinai. When he went back down the mountain, he brought this precious song to the people. It is through these words that the Israelites were inspired to become a unified people in the Oneness of God.
The Midrash (the ancient Jewish art of inquiry for discovering hidden meaning in and between the lines of our sacred texts) asks: Why chant these words, received from the angels, out loud only on Yom Kippur? It answers in the name of Rabbi Assi: “It is as if someone took jewelry from the king’s palace and gave it to his wife, and told her, ‘Do not wear this out in public, only in the home so the king’s people should never come to see it and take it back."
This line, that was taken from the angels, from God’s palace, we do not say out loud. However, on Yom Kippur we are like angels, and so we say it out loud in public.” (Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:36)
For one singular moment, on Yom Kippur, we mere mortals transcend our human selves and become like the angels that surround God’s heavenly throne. That is when we have the Zechut, the Divine permission, to chant the prayer out loud. But the very moment that Yom Kippur ends, when the sun sets, Jewish Law commands that we pray the evening service for the regular weekday, Ma’ariv l’Chol, and then erect the foundations for our Sukkot.
We cannot escape our own humanity, and must return from an angelic state, to our fragile and imperfect human world.
And it is here, in our concrete reality, that these words must be recited in silence. After all, how can we humans praise God in the same manner as the angels? No matter how much we might try, we are, alas, fallible. Our language is inadequate. And so we praise God with the truest form of our worldly worship, in silence. Lecha Dumiyah Tehillah, the Psalmist wrote, “Silence is praise to You.” (Psalm 65:2)
G’mar Chatimah Tovah. May this High Holy Day season be for you a journey of transformation and of healing.
Rabbi Tom Samuels
Why is it that only on Yom Kippur we recite out loud the prayer that comes right after the Shema, Baruch Shem kevod malchuto l'Olam vaed, Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever?” For the entire rest of the year it is recited quietly, almost in a silent murmur.
Let’s first look at the Shema itself: Sh'ma Yisraeil, Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. From the Book of Deuteronomy (6:4), it was translated into English over 400 years ago in the King James Version of the Bible as the familiar incantation, “Hear O Israel the Lord our God the Lord is One (or is One Lord.)”
There are so many questions about these words and their meanings and intentions. Why, for example, does the prayer begin with “Shema Yisrael, Hear O Israel?” and not simply declare from the start that, "The Lord our God, the Lord is One?” Why translate the word, Shema, which throughout the TaNaCh (the canon of Jewish scripture) means “to gather” or “to congregate,” as “to hear” or “to listen?” And why address this defining prayer in Judaism to each other rather than directly to God?
The Jewish mystical book, the Zohar, explains that it is only when Israel is in a state of unified oneness, with a sense of cohesion and community, that God’s presence can be actualized. A sort of, “Gather together, Israel ... when you are a unified People, in Oneness, then God will dwell within you.”
From our very beginnings as a people, we have struggled to attain this aspirational call for unity, for an all-embracing sense of identity and direction. To transition from an assemblage of fractious groupings of disparate individuals, a kehal in Hebrew, to a community with a shared purpose and commitment, an eidah.
This is the message of the words, Baruch Shem kevod malchuto l'Olam vaed, Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever.” Our sages imagine that Moses heard the angels singing these words before God atop Mount Sinai. When he went back down the mountain, he brought this precious song to the people. It is through these words that the Israelites were inspired to become a unified people in the Oneness of God.
The Midrash (the ancient Jewish art of inquiry for discovering hidden meaning in and between the lines of our sacred texts) asks: Why chant these words, received from the angels, out loud only on Yom Kippur? It answers in the name of Rabbi Assi: “It is as if someone took jewelry from the king’s palace and gave it to his wife, and told her, ‘Do not wear this out in public, only in the home so the king’s people should never come to see it and take it back."
This line, that was taken from the angels, from God’s palace, we do not say out loud. However, on Yom Kippur we are like angels, and so we say it out loud in public.” (Deuteronomy Rabbah 2:36)
For one singular moment, on Yom Kippur, we mere mortals transcend our human selves and become like the angels that surround God’s heavenly throne. That is when we have the Zechut, the Divine permission, to chant the prayer out loud. But the very moment that Yom Kippur ends, when the sun sets, Jewish Law commands that we pray the evening service for the regular weekday, Ma’ariv l’Chol, and then erect the foundations for our Sukkot.
We cannot escape our own humanity, and must return from an angelic state, to our fragile and imperfect human world.
And it is here, in our concrete reality, that these words must be recited in silence. After all, how can we humans praise God in the same manner as the angels? No matter how much we might try, we are, alas, fallible. Our language is inadequate. And so we praise God with the truest form of our worldly worship, in silence. Lecha Dumiyah Tehillah, the Psalmist wrote, “Silence is praise to You.” (Psalm 65:2)
G’mar Chatimah Tovah. May this High Holy Day season be for you a journey of transformation and of healing.