Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"The only other time the Sh'ma is recited over and over, which is what I did during the evening service in Plainfield, is at the end of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Jews spend twenty-five hours (as if twenty-four were not enough) fasting, meditating, praying, and abstaining from bathing and making love. In effect, we play dead for that long day and reemerge reborn, certain that there is nothing that could not be forgiven from the perspective of aninfinite, loving, God.

"That's why, for me at least, the holiest moment of Yom Kippur actually occurs after the day has ended, when we come back to life and break the fast. In my family, the vodka comes out of the freezer and the Scotch out of the liquor cabinet. We stand, raise our glasses, and shout 'L'chayim!' To life! We are back! We can start again and know that there is room for all of us."

-- Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, You Don't Have to Be Wrong for Me to Be Right (2007, Three Rivers Press, New York; ISBN 978-0-307-38298-6, Dewey 201'.5--dc22, LC BL624.H53 2007), p. 153