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Candles burn as Cantor Rollin Simmons sings during a Kol Nidrei service Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023, in the Barish Sanctuary at Congregation Emanu El in Houston. The service celebrated the start of the Yom Kippur holiday.<\/p>\n
Jon Shapley\/Staff photographer<\/p>\n
From sunset on Sunday to nightfall on Monday, Jewish Houstonians will celebrate Yom Kippur<\/a>, a day focused on repentance and forgiveness. Though the holiday has been celebrated for thousands of years, it still resonates today in a polarized culture where grievances can fester and differences calcify.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, forgiveness doesn\u2019t come easy. Jews typically abstain from eating<\/a>, drinking, bathing and sexual activity during a 25-hour fast that\u2019s meant to \u201cafflict your soul,\u201d said\u00a0Senior Rabbi Brian Strauss<\/a> at Congregation Beth Yeshurun.<\/p>\n Many Jewish people apologize to friends and loved ones for harm they’ve caused in the past year in the week before the holiday. \u201cIt is the one day of the year when we come together as a community to address this need to forgive and be forgiven,\u201d said Senior Rabbi David Lyon at Congregation Beth Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n HIGH HOLIDAYS: One of Houston’s Jewish congregations takes a new approach to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year<\/a><\/p>\n Though forgiving those who\u2019ve wronged you is a value in many religious traditions, that guidance might conflict with modern psychology on setting boundaries and cutting off toxic or draining people. Sexual abuse scandals in religious settings have also raised questions about the limits of forgiveness, and whether it can be overemphasized to dismiss the need for accountability or consequences.<\/p>\n Gideon Estes, head rabbi at Congregation Or Ami, said forgiveness involves giving grace to others, but it doesn’t necessarily mean assuaging their guilt. One way to explain it, he said, is an affirmation: “I don’t think you need to be punished any further.”\u00a0<\/p>\n That closure requires that the people apologizing truly acknowledge and make amends for what they did wrong, he said. “It’s OK for forgiveness to be contingent on people changing things,” said Estes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n