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Yom HaKipurim – A Day Like Purim

by Ram ben Ze’ev


Yom HaKipurim – A Day Like Purim
Yom HaKipurim – A Day Like Purim

Each year, as the tenth of Tishrei approaches, many Jews brace for a day they imagine is meant to be suffered. The phrase “Day of Atonement,” absorbed from English habit, colours the mood with dread. But the Torah never calls it that. What it names is יום הכפורים (Yom HaKipurim – from the root כפר, “to cover, cleanse, reconcile”), and חזל (Chazal – our sages) reveal a deeper doorway in the very letters: יום כפורים (Yom K’Purim – a day like Purim).


Purim is joy revealed in the body—feasting, celebration, the triumph of Israel over annihilation. Yom HaKipurim is joy revealed in the soul—fasting, prayer, and the stripping away of distraction so closeness to G-D can be felt directly. The Holy Zohar binds the two: on Purim the light is expressed through the physical; on Yom HaKipurim the same light is refined within. Both are celebrations of belovedness.



The mistake that grips a majority of Jewry is a mindset formed by mistranslation and habit. If one begins the day believing that Torah mandates misery, fasting becomes the point rather than the instrument. But abstention is only a tool. Its purpose is to remove noise so that joy—real, interior joy—can surface: the joy of return, of forgiveness, of being held by G-D without the static of appetite and distraction.


Language matters because it shapes consciousness. When יום הכפורים was flattened into a foreign label, the day’s essence was narrowed. The root כפר does not point to grim legalism; it speaks of cleansing and reconciliation, of harmony restored. Read as יום כפורים, the name itself invites us to reframe: approach the tenth of Tishrei with the same anticipatory gladness we feel before Purim—only here the feast is inward.


This reframing changes everything. Preparation shifts from anxiety to expectation. תפילה (tefillah – prayer) becomes a meeting, not a performance. תשובה (teshuvah – return) becomes uplifting rather than crushing. We stop “getting through” the fast and begin entering the day. We discover that holiness is not a subtraction from life but an elevation of life, and that hunger, when chosen for G-D’s sake, clears space for the soul to taste delight.



The practical work is simple and demanding. Begin with the name. Say יום הכפורים and hear what it holds: covering and cleansing, reconciliation and embrace, a day that is k’Purim—like Purim—in its core of joy. Set your intention accordingly. Honour the מצוות (mitzvot – commandments) of the day, not as punishments to endure but as instruments that tune the heart. Let the body’s quiet make room for the soul’s song.


If most Jews are approaching Yom HaKipurim with the wrong mindset, it is within our power to change it—by returning to the Torah’s own language and to the wisdom of our sages.


Purim and Yom HaKipurim are not opposites; they are mirrors. One reveals joy in wine and bread, the other in silence and light. Both proclaim the same truth: Israel belongs to G-D, and G-D draws Israel close.



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