All My Vows and Yom Kippur

This year, Yom Kippur is observed from sundown on Sunday, September 20, until nightfall on Monday, September 21. This holiest day of the Jewish year marks the final day of the Ten Days of Repentance on the Hebrew calendar date of 10 Tishrei 5787.

Since childhood I have had what Ron Rollheiser called “the holy longing,” a longing for the infinite Grace of God that finite pleasures cannot satisfy. I’ve also long held the conviction that the world needed more fairness. I gained this conviction in part from my maternal grandfather, a teacher and principal who was born on a boat in the nineteenth century and a proud member of the ACLU. After I was baptized in 1995, Providence led me to a Franciscan friar who refused to be ordained as a priest because, he said, that implied acceptance of women not being ordained. He thought Saint Ignatius Parish would be a good fit for me, and he was right. He was right because, for example, among the parishioners it seems to me that is not controversial that women preach; many believe the Church should explore women’s ordination to the diaconate; and the idea that women will someday be priests in the Catholic Church is not shocking to too many here. I feel at home for these reasons and many others. It is a welcoming and inclusive community, and I write this as the holiest day on the Jewish calendar draws near, which seems to me quite relevant. Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Sunday September 20. Kol nidre means “all my vows”, and it is the name of the evening service that inaugurates the holy day. It is a time of intense interior reflection that has been building since Rosh Ha Shana, the Jewish New Year. The service allows each member of the congregation confession to having errantly made vows they could not keep. Confession is a very basic human need, as Catholic tradition recognizes through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

For me, the connection of Catholicism to Judaism is more than just the shape of Mass. As Catholics, many of us have had personal experiences that make this connection more than an abstract idea or just a matter of history. My husband was a deeply respectful agnostic. He is buried at Holy Cross cemetery. Father Greg and Father Paul spoke and prayed at the brief private ceremony. So did a close friend with Anglican priests in her family, and my cousin Joseph Shapiro chanted a beautiful Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. This was very moving and helped me see, in person, the connection between faiths.

My husband died almost four years ago, and has been in my daily prayers for decades. A few months ago I began saying Kaddish for him every night. I’m not sure why, but it feels right. Here is the beginning of the prayer. I add “and she”, in part to recognize the wishes of the late Mary Redick, an OCIA participant here. The words are a rigorous, nourishing grace.

Exalted and hallowed by God’s great name
In this world of his and her creation.
May his and her Sovereignty be revealed
In the days of our lifetime

Barbara Berman, parishioner, member of the Anti-Racism Committee at St. Ignatius Parish