Baku, October 7 (AZERTAC). Tonight at sunset, Jews across the Valley and around the world will mark the start of Yom Kippur, the culminating day of a period of atonement. It is considered the most holy of all Jewish holidays.

Rabbi Nina H. Mandel, of Congregation Beth El, Sunbury, said, “We are encouraged in the weeks leading up to this holy day to make amends with the people in our lives, restore balance in our relationships and honestly evaluate our own habits and actions.”

On this day, she continued, “We strip away the vestiges of comfort by fasting, not wearing leather, jewelry, perfume or makeup and devoting a 24-hour period to making amends with God through intensive communal prayer and self-reflection.”

This is not the only time Jewish people make amends or ask for atonement, she said. Indeed, it is a process built into daily liturgy.

“But rabbinic tradition teaches that during this time, the heavenly gates of repentance are particularly wide open,” Mandel said.

In essence, it is a way of starting the new year with a clean slate and focused intentions, she added.

Ever since the Yom Kippur War in 1973 in which Egypt and Syria chose the holiest day in the Jewish calendar to attack Israel, I have always felt a frisson of concern as the day approached. For Jews it begins the evening of Friday, October 7, and continues through Saturday for a full day of prayer that ends with the ancient, inspiring expression of hope, “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Even in Jerusalem, they say “Next year in Jerusalem” because it confirms the faith’s enduring bond with the land of Israel that survived not one, but two destructions of their Temples there, exiles, and, in the last century, the Holocaust followed by a return to and rebirth of Israel as a Jewish state.