High Holy Day

A taper, tall enough to burn for 24 hours, flickers in memory of the dead. The pious abstain from food, drink and all other gratifications of material desires, from one sunset until three stars may be seen in the heavens the following night. God is balancing his books for the year. In the home it is well to examine one's soul; in the synagog to chant "Kol Nidre" petitioning forgiveness for vows made and inadvertently unfulfilled.

Thus Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement which culminates the ten penitential days after Rosh Hashanah (New Year). Yom Kippur falls next on Oct. 7. Last week U. S. Christians were pondering a proposal that they join with 4,000,000 U. S. Jews in celebrating this high holy day. Proposer: Rev. Charles D. Brodhead of Bethlehem, Pa., who said, "In this period of widespread anti-Semitic pressure it would be a timely witness to our common religious bond with the Jew."

The Christian Century, able interdenominational weekly, found the idea good, chiefly because Yom Kippur "emphasized the sense of individual sin which contributed to and merged with the sins of the nation. The analogy with our present economic and cultural plight is thus complete. Through our sense of guilt, as individuals and as a nation, we would . . . devote a day to spiritual stock-taking." Furthermore, declared The Christian Century, "the day does not lend itself to commercialization as do Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving."

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