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Kol Nidre Kol Nidre This article was written by Stephen Butterfass for Religious Living on the Web. "If a man vows a vow to the Eternal, or swears an oath imposing an obligation upon himself, he shall not break his word; all that comes out of his mouth he shall do." Numbers 30:3 At our most sacred, most solemn time, Jews assembled in synagogues hear their cantor chant an Aramaic formula of absolution for all vows (kol nidre), promises, and resolutions that will be incurred in the coming year, and in the Sephardic ritual, the past year. The words are barely understood, their precise meanings unclear to all but scholars of the arcane world of ancient Hebrew oaths, vows, and promises. But oh, that melody, and the atmosphere of expectation, hope, and release it brings: "All vows, oaths, obligations and substitute forms (designated nidrei, esarei, charamei, konamei, chinuyei, kinusei and shevu'ot), which we have vowed, sworn, declared, and imposed upon ourselves from this Yom Kippur until the next Yom Kippur may it come upon us for good. Regarding them all, we regret them. Let them all be released, forgiven, erased, null and void. They are not valid nor are they in force. Our vows are not vows. our prohibitive vows are not prohibitive vows. Our oaths are not oaths." How and why did the practice of granting total absolution from all vows and oaths at Yom Kippur evolve? You might expect that this would be the time to take our obligations more seriously. In the Bible, a vow (Hebrew root "neder", to set apart for sacred use) denoted a personal obligation made with God, and did not appear to pertain to social or commercial commitments. It involved either the dedication of an animal, object, or a person to God (called a korban),or some form of self-sacrifice or abstinence, to win or express gratitude for God's favor: "I must fulfill my vows to You, O God; I will render offerings of thanksgiving to You. For You have saved me from death, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life." Psalm 56:13-14. Some of the more prominent biblical vows are called by scholars "conditional vows of dedication", because they are made dependent upon a favor being granted by God. Thus, Jacob vows that the Eternal shall be his personal god, to whom he shall tithe his wealth, in return for divine protection and sustenance (Genesis 28:20-22); Hannah prays to God for a son and vows to dedicate him to God's service (1 Samuel 1:11); Jephthah asks for a military victory, vowing to sacrifice whoever is first to greet him from his house upon his triumphant return (Judges 11:30-31), and the fact that it was his only child seems to indicate that these vows could not be revoked. Vows of abstinence or self-denial (termed "nidre issur"-issur meaning to bind, to prohibit, to obligate) are mentioned in Numbers, chapter 30, particularly the Nazarite vow, by which a person dedicated his or her life to God, eschewing wine and all fermented grape products, never cutting his hair, nor coming into contact with the dead. An oath, on the other hand, is a curse to which the swearer subjects herself or a loved one, in the event the oath is violated: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand...(the curse is not mentioned in the Hebrew, as a precaution; later translations inserted "forget its cunning", i.e. wither)" Psalm 137:5, and "So shall God do to me and more", are typical formulas of ancient oaths, avoiding any mention of the actual curse. Though fathers and husbands possessed a limited authority to revoke the vows of their minor daughters and wives, biblical law made no other provision for the dissolution of vows and oaths. Failure to make good on one incurred divine punishment, it was believed, and biblical writers attempted to discourage the people from making any vows at all. By the beginning of the Common Era, the making of vows and the swearing of oaths were frequent occurrences of every day life. They were used to convince people of one's sincerity or credibility, to coerce or persuade, even to intimidate. Vows and oaths were used to ensure the success of various undertakings and enterprises. (A type of vow frequently cited in the rabbinic literature involved a situation in which a person prohibited himself from enjoying the benefit of some article, object, or person if he didn't fulfill his promise. Called a "prohibitive vow", the votary declared, "this item is prohibited to me like a korban" [offering to God]. Substitute formulaic words were often used for "korban" and they are the konamei, chinuyei, kinusei and shevuot synonyms mentioned in kol nidrei.) This abuse of vows, and the potential for harm from malevolent forces or divine punishment, were reasons the rabbis developed procedures to annul vows. That the Torah provided no basis for the nullification of vows was freely admitted in rabbinic literature (Mishnah Chagigah,1:8, where the rules about release from vows were characterized as "hovering in the air with nothing to support them"). Nevertheless, the Mishnah also viewed the nullification of vows as a power vested in the rabbis: only a sage, or if none was available, a bet din of three knowledgeable laymen, could annul a vow. The contents of the vow had to be revealed, as there was no blanket dissolution of unspecified vows. The grounds for nullifying a vow involved finding a loophole, and was based on the concept of regret or "charatah" (i.e., had I known this, I would not have made the vow). The sage had to establish a fact, circumstance, or consequence that the votary failed to consider. Since she neglected to understand all the ramifications of her vow, she made the vow by mistake. By resorting to a legal fiction, the sage absolved rather than revoked, as if the vow had never existed. The rabbis developed legal formulas to annul some vows retroactively. Kol nidre is apparently one such formula. Its original purpose was to protect people from the dire consequences that would ensue for having failed to complete their vows. Kol nidrei is believed to have originated among the Jewish population of Babylonia in the 8th century of the Common Era. (An earlier belief that it originated among the Marranos of 15th century Spain who were forced to convert to Christianity is not true.) Over several centuries, it spread to wherever there were Jews, and became a part of the High Holy Day rites of atonement and forgiveness, testifying to its powerful, universal popularity. Leading rabbis of their day often attempted to restrict its powers or eliminate it entirely, but ordinary Jews refused to give it up. The rabbis were trying to combat the popular imagination that saw kol nidre as a magical incantation, capable of not only annulling vows, but also neutralizing the demons and evil spirits believed to threaten those who did not fulfill their promises. Later generations, laity and rabbis alike, often ascribed to kol nidre the power to annul all vows, including those made in commercial transactions, or sworn to before a civil court of law or government office. As late as the 19th century, some European countries retained the medieval institution of the "Jewish Oath". Any Jew required to swear an oath in court, or before a government official, was first made to stand in his synagogue, holding a Torah scroll, wearing tallit and tefillin, and there swear that his civil oath would not be revoked by a bet din or by kol nidre. Since the original version of kol nidre was a retroactive nullification of vows, a powerful device, it apparently encouraged the perception that it had the power to annul all vows, not just those made with God or imposed upon oneself. The 12th century French Talmudic master, Rabbenu Tam, resolved to clarify its proper legal status and limit its authority to annul vows. He proposed that kol nidre be understood to refer to future vows, and substituted the words "from this Yom Kippur until next Yom Kippur, may it come upon us for good". He specifically ruled that it pertained only to vows people impose upon themselves. It took many centuries for this change to the future tense to be almost universally accepted among Ashkenazic Jews. Many prominent rabbis retained the past tense version, while accepting the limitation on the vows kol nidre had authority to annul. Others claimed kol nidre was an act of teshuvah, or that in uprooting the vow it prevented anything from standing in the way of atonement. The change has never been accepted by Jews of Spanish origin, while Middle Eastern and North African communities of Jews apparently incorporated language for past and future vows in their versions. Kol nidre is emphatically a legal artifice; it is not a prayer and God is not mentioned. The need to associate the annulment of vows with atonement and divine forgiveness explains why two quotations from Torah immediately follow the chanting of kol nidre: "The whole Israelite community and the stranger residing among them shall be forgiven, for it happened to the entire people through error." Numbers 15:26 And the Eternal said: "I have pardoned according to your plea." Numbers 14:20 Reform Judaism initially banned kol nidre from the High Holiday prayer books as an embarrassment and as a symbol of all that Jews represented to the modern gentile world. It was a superstitious remnant of a Jewry they were trying to leave behind; it had no place in the views and habits of modern civilization. The melody was retained and many different prayers and readings were substituted. Kol nidre was not officially reinstated into the liturgy until the 1978 edition of the Gates of Repentance, which we use today. If some of the ancient rabbis were correct, that ethical and legal objections are outweighed by the need to forgive ourselves for unfulfilled promises in order to attain the necessary state of atonement during Yom Kippur, then kol nidre will be with us for a long time. BIBLIOGRAPHY This article is indebted to the guidance and scholarship contained in the following two works: Kol Nidre: Studies in the Development of Rabbinic Votive Institutions, Moshe Benovitz, Scholars Press, 1998. Kol Nidrei: Its Origin, Development, and Significance, Stuart Weinberg Gershon, Jason Aronson Inc., 1994.
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