Time of Prayer and Reflection
Jewish Day of Atonement calls for fasting, repentance
Today, Jews around the world will fast in observance of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. The holiday, which is the 10th and final day of the Ten Days of Repentance and comes at the start of the Jewish New Year, is a day of reflection and repentance. In the slide show above, Naomi Rose Konikoff (SAR’09), a regular at the Chabad House of Greater Boston, talks about how she reconnected with Judaism when she came to college.
Last year, BU Today talked to students about how and why prayer is a part of their daily lives on campus. In the slide show we see Jewish students using the chapels at the Florence and Chafetz Hillel House to pray individually, at morning minyan — a communal prayer that needs a quorum of at least 10 men — and during the services that mark the beginning of Shabbat (or Shabbos), the Sabbath, or weekly day of rest. There are typically three daily prayers in the Jewish faith: the Shacharit, morning prayers at which a series of blessings are read; the afternoon Mincha, focusing on reaffirming priorities and goals; and the Ma’ariv, an evening prayer during which a series of biblical verses and blessings are recited.
Click here to see more students reflect on their spirituality.
Edward A. Brown can be reached at ebrown@bu.edu. Jessica Ullian can be reached at jullian@bu.edu.
This story originally ran September 13, 2007, as part of the "How We Pray" series.