One verse, five voices. Edited by Nina Litvak and Salvador Litvak, the Accidental Talmudist
It is a Sabbath of rest for you, and you shall afflict yourselves. It is an eternal statute.
– Leviticus 16:31
Sarah Pachter
Author and Speaker
I’m not exactly counting down the minutes until Yom Kippur. Going a full day without food or water isn’t my idea of fun. Yet, there is something profoundly spiritual about stepping away from the physical. Yom Kippur is a day that is both a Shabbat and a day of affliction. We abstain from the physical: we fast and refrain from bathing, relations, wearing leather shoes or using oils. By stepping away from our physical needs, we become more angel-like and reconnect with our spiritual essence.
Yet the Talmud teaches that Yom Kippurim can be understood as “a day like Purim.” Could Purim, in some ways, be even greater than Yom Kippur?
On Purim, we drink, give gifts, feast and celebrate. What could possibly be more spiritual about indulging in the physical? The answer lies at the heart of Judaism: we don’t reject the physical; we elevate it.
Our bodies are not obstacles to our souls. They are vessels through which our souls express themselves. When we eat with gratitude, celebrate with purpose, give generously and perform mitzvot, we reveal the holiness within. Yom Kippur teaches us to rise above the physical. Purim teaches us something harder: how to bring holiness into it. It’s easy to feel spiritual when distractions are removed. The real challenge is remaining connected to God while living in this world. Holiness isn’t escaping the physical; it’s transforming it. May we be inscribed and sealed for life and given another year to live this lesson.
Baruch C. Cohen
Civil Trial Attorney
This verse contains a startling contradiction. Yom Kippur is called Shabbat Shabbaton – the Sabbath of Sabbaths, a day of profound rest – yet in the same breath, the Torah commands us to afflict ourselves. What kind of rest is this? Perhaps the deepest exhaustion we carry is not physical. It is the exhausting labor of defending ourselves from the truth.
All year, we explain. We rationalize. We construct closing arguments for our own innocence. We remember what they did first, why we were tired, how badly we were hurt, why anyone in our circumstances might have behaved exactly as we did. We become extraordinarily skilled attorneys for ourselves.
Then comes Yom Kippur. For one sacred day, God invites us to stop litigating. Shabbat Shabbaton – rest. Put down the brief. Stop cross-examining the evidence. Stop impeaching the witnesses. Stop demanding that every failure be understood before it can be admitted. And something extraordinary happens when we finally say, without qualification: I was wrong. I hurt someone. I failed. I want to become better. We discover that confession is not humiliation. It is liberation.
Perhaps that is why affliction and rest occupy the same verse. The truth may hurt when we first encounter it, but maintaining the lie is infinitely more exhausting. Yom Kippur asks us to surrender our defenses – not because God wants us crushed, but because He wants us free.
Elan Javanfard LMFT
Professor & Author, Co-Founder NoseiLA (Noseila.org)
Yom Kippur contains a striking paradox: we are commanded to both rest and afflict ourselves. We stop working, eating, drinking and engaging in many of our ordinary physical routines. Yet this cessation is not simply about resting. It is about creating space. Psychologically, this points to the power of stopping.
Much of our lives are lived on autopilot. We eat, work, consume, distract ourselves and keep moving without always noticing what we are doing or why. Even behaviors that no longer serve us can become deeply familiar. Change is difficult when we never interrupt the patterns we are trying to change.
The Malbim understands “Shabbaton” as an intensified form of cessation, extending beyond stopping work to stepping away from our ordinary physical preoccupations. Rav Hirsch similarly emphasizes the unusual language that Yom Kippur is “for you.” Its cessation is not merely an act of submission to God; it is something designed for us. The verse immediately before tells us the purpose: “Lifnei Hashem titharu” — “before God, you shall become pure.”
Perhaps teshuvah begins not with doing more, but with stopping long enough to see ourselves clearly. Sometimes, before we can change our lives, we first have to interrupt them. Perhaps that is the invitation of Yom Kippur: to practice stopping, so that we can notice what we usually rush past.
Rabbi Nicholas Losorelli
Jewish Studies Teacher, Milken Community School
Yom Kippur is a “Shabbat Shabbaton,” during which we practice self-denial from food, water, intimacy, bathing and finery such as jewelry and leather. We deny ourselves all these things that are endemic to what it means to be alive, because they alienate us both from body and soul. So long as we are fed, sated and sheltered, we need not feel the physical hunger that can cloud the physical mind’s ideals, nor the spiritual hunger so easily pushed off by the day-to-day.
So, we practice self-denial, to have an effect on our “nefesh.” Nefesh can be translated both as “body” and “soul” and in our pasuk, perhaps it is meant to be translated as both? Why afflict our bodies and souls? Because our temporary bodies are not the entirety of our existence, because our bodies house an eternal soul, which has a greater source and purpose, beyond the body.
So, when we feel that hunger and that thirst in our bodies on Yom Kippur, and at the same time feel our souls stretched out by prayerful contemplation, we’re reminded that true atonement and purpose are to be found starting precisely at the nexus where body and soul meet, where the ideal and real collide, a place we call nefesh. It’s in this place where we truly encounter ourselves, God and the holy work entrusted to us. So, may we all be both sealed in the Book of Life, and may we encounter God, ourselves and purpose, where soul meets body.
Katia Bolotin
Author of “Making It Relevant”
In my opinion, clarity and understanding have been limited and diminished by the English translation of this verse. Moreover, three integral concepts are distorted and not adequately explained … Although these concepts are deeply expounded upon by numerous Torah commentators, due to limited space, I will briefly touch upon the surface.
“It is a Sabbath of rest for you.” The Hebrew word “Shabbat” does not connote physical rest as we define it. It means to return, taken from the Hebrew word “shav.”
Return is not rest but rather abstaining from creative work as fully explained in Jewish law. In addition, the Hebrew root of the word Shabbat expresses the return of every individual to his/her essential relationship with G-d, family, and with oneself. Every detail of Shabbat observance is predicated upon creating an elevated spiritual environment that transcends weekday concerns. Likewise, the word Ve’anitem refers to one who is an “ani,” poor or humbled. Fasting symbolizes this. We can better empathize with those who lack by personally experiencing real hunger. This is truly humbling and underscores G-d’s central role in our sustenance. Finally the words’ eternal statute refers to the Chukim, those commandments that are beyond our comprehension.
