Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, has always been a very special day for me. My family began preparations for the High Holiday season a month earlier. During that month of Elul, immediately before Rosh Hashanah, special New Year greetings were common. We sent cards to family and friends and even bought space in the weekly Jewish newspaper to print our holiday greetings.

Rosh Hashanah, 10 days before Yom Kippur, was quite festive. We wore new clothes, and the rabbi, choir, and cantor all wore pure white. The special anthems and chants sounded more medieval and more haunting than usual. Combined with the 100 blasts of the shofar, it was indeed a special time. There was always a sense of mystique as we entered the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the Ten Days of Repentance.

During Yom Kippur, a new level of awe and reverence came upon us.

Then came Yom Kippur, the most important of Jewish holidays—the holiest one of all. It seemed to me the pinnacle of Jewish life. We had a lot of fun on Hanukkah and Purim. Our festivities continued with Passover, Shavuot, and Rosh Hashanah, but during Yom Kippur, a new level of awe and reverence came upon us. This was not just a holiday but a holy day.

Yom Kippur began with a huge meal. Actually, the meal was on the eve of the holiday because Yom Kippur is a fast day. We had to eat before sundown, and we always ate well to get us through the following day of fasting. We would not be allowed to eat again until after sunset the next day. It seemed like such a long time!

As evening fell, we went to the synagogue to hear the haunting melody of “Kol Nidre,” the recanting of all vows made by the conversos in Spain. Due to the severe persecution of our people in Catholic Spain in the fifteenth century, a large segment of Jews had converted to Catholicism to avoid the oppression, but the conversos continued to observe Jewish customs in the secrecy of their homes. Outwardly, they were Christians, but inwardly, they were Jews. Each year on Yom Kippur, they recanted their Catholic vows by reciting, “All the vows [Kol Nidre] that we have vowed, may they … be nullified and not counted against us.”

The chanting of Kol Nidre remains part of the Jewish liturgy for that holiday and marks the beginning of this awesome Day of Atonement.

After all the prayers of repentance, we went home from the synagogue, and I would wonder if God would forgive me this year. Early the next morning, we put on our new clothes and returned to the synagogue. We children had our own service. It was not as serious as the adults’, but at noon, we joined our parents in the sanctuary. After a couple of hours of repenting and asking God for atonement, the kohanim, those descended from the priestly line of Aaron, blessed us with the Aaronic benediction from Numbers 6:24–26:

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

Draped in their striped prayer shawls (taleysim as we used to say in our Yiddish-inflected vocabulary), they formed their hands into a traditional gesture of blessing, which, as legend has it, only true descendants of Aaron were able to perform. They were supposed to be representing God to us, so we were not allowed to look at them. What a mystery!

I remember one year, when I was about 14 years old, I left the Yom Kippur service to take a walk. As I walked, I noticed the beautiful fall colors of Kansas City, and then I did something terrible. The food smells from a local hamburger stand around the corner became so unbearable to resist, that I ordered a hamburger and Coke.

I was eating on Yom Kippur! How could I expect God to forgive me for anything?

As I bit into the burger, I felt awful. My parents, my grandparents, and my entire community of faith were all in their seats across the street, praying with sincerity, and here I was, doing the unthinkable—or at least the unallowable. I was eating on Yom Kippur! How could I expect God to forgive me for anything when I was committing yet another sin?

Those are my early memories of Yom Kippur—a day to seek God, a day when I deliberately disobeyed God, a day to wonder if I would be forgiven.

People often ask me if I continue to celebrate Jewish holidays now that I am a believer in Jesus. I say yes. Then I attempt to explain how certain holidays carry different meanings for me than they once did.

Yom Kippur is one of those. I no longer recant vows I have made. I will never take back my vow to give my life to Jesus. I no longer weep and wail and fast to obtain God’s forgiveness. However, I do take the day off and acknowledge God’s role in my salvation. I do identify with my people through prayer, sometimes (but not necessarily) accompanied by fasting. I do continue to repent of my sins. I also use Yom Kippur—as solemn an occasion as it is—to celebrate. I can celebrate because I know that in Jesus, I have been forgiven.

One legend of our people is that of the scarlet thread. Supposedly, each year on the Day of Atonement, a scarlet thread was hung outside the Temple. When the high priest inside the Holy of Holies had obtained God’s forgiveness for the people’s sins, the scarlet thread turned white. This sign of granted forgiveness ushered in several days of festivity that culminated in Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Talmud (Yoma 39b) recounts that 40 years before the destruction of the Second Temple, the scarlet thread no longer turned white. That was approximately AD 30, around the time of the earthly ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Messiah alone makes me at‑one with Almighty God.

I see this account, if it is true, as symbolic of the fact that forgiveness no longer would be granted by means of the Torah’s sacrificial institutions but by a new and living way, through the atoning death of the Messiah. It is he whom I celebrate on Yom Kippur. He is my forgiveness. He is my cleansing. He is my atonement. He alone makes me “at‑one” with Almighty God.

Yes, I still celebrate Jewish holidays now that I am a believer in Jesus. By celebrating them with the focus on Jesus—the Redeemer, the Savior, the Messiah himself—I come into the presence of God, and that is the main purpose of all the holidays anyway.