1. The Special Status of Erev Yom Kippur
Erev Yom Kippur, the ninth of Tishrei, is technically a weekday—work is permitted and there is no special offering as on a festival. Yet it is treated as a yom tov. There is a distinct mitzvah to eat on this day; as the Shulchan Aruch brings, one who eats and drinks on the ninth is regarded as though he had fasted on the ninth and the tenth (Shulchan Aruch HaRav 604:1). The eating itself is an honor to Yom Kippur, since the day of Yom Kippur cannot be honored with food. It is also an expression of Hashem’s kindness: He asks us to fast only once in the year, and He first commands us to eat so that we are able to bear it.
Because of this festive character, it is forbidden to fast on Erev Yom Kippur, and Erev Yom Kippur is not like Shabbos, of which it is said “And you shall call the Shabbos a delight”—here the mitzvah is the eating itself.
2. Tachanun and the Prayers Omitted
Tachanun is not said from Erev Yom Kippur onward through the end of Tishrei; it resumes on the second of Marcheshvan, after the two days of Rosh Chodesh. It is omitted already on the night of Erev Yom Kippur, including in Krias Shema al Hamitah. At Mincha of the eighth of Tishrei, Tachanun is still said (unless that Mincha itself falls on Shabbos or on Erev Shabbos, when Tachanun is not said in any case).
This differs from Erev Rosh Hashanah, where Selichos are said in the morning and Tachanun is omitted only from after the Selichos. On Erev Yom Kippur no Selichos are said at all.
The omission continues through the month because the days between Yom Kippur and Sukkos are occupied with the mitzvos of the coming festival—building the sukkah, acquiring the lulav and esrog—and Sukkos and its intermediate days fill most of what remains. The whole stretch from Erev Yom Kippur onward reads as one extended festive period.
Also omitted on Erev Yom Kippur:
Mizmor L’Todah—the psalm corresponding to the thanksgiving offering—is not said, because the todah was not brought on Erev Yom Kippur: its forty loaves had to be eaten by the day and the following night, and the fast leaves no time for them.
Avinu Malkeinu, said through the Ten Days of Teshuvah, is not said on Erev Yom Kippur, since it has the character of the supplicatory prayers that are set aside on a festive day.
The morning service should not be drawn out, so that the day’s many preparations can be seen to.
3. Kapparos: The Custom and Its Details
Kapparos is performed on Erev Yom Kippur in the early hours before dawn, though it may also be done a day or two earlier, during the Ten Days of Teshuvah. A live chicken is used—a rooster for a male and a hen for a female (Shulchan Aruch HaRav 605:1).
White birds are preferred, along the lines of “If your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as snow” (Yeshayahu 1:18)—but only when white ones are readily at hand. One should not go searching after them specifically, since that was the way of the Emorites, who sought out white roosters for idolatry, and it is written “And you shall not follow their statutes” (Vayikra 18:3). One who has no rooster and takes another living creature should not take turtledoves or young pigeons, which are fit for the altar (605:1–2).
For a pregnant woman there are two practices (605:3). Some exempt several males with one rooster and several females with one hen, and therefore take for her only one rooster and one hen—if the child is male, the rooster covers him; if female, the one hen covers both mother and child. Others take a kapparah for each one separately, and therefore take three for a pregnant woman: two hens and one rooster.
The purpose of kapparos is atonement. The rite expresses that what might have come upon the person is transferred to the bird, which is slaughtered in its place. For an unborn child or a young child who has not sinned, the commentators explain that the atonement is really for the mother or the parents—an unborn child being considered part of its mother (ubar yerech imo)—and that children are included because children can suffer on account of their parents.
4. Performing Kapparos and What Follows
The order is printed in the siddur: first the verses beginning Bnei adam (Tehillim chapter 107), then the bird is circled around the head while saying “Zeh chalifasi, zeh temurasi, zeh kaparasi—this is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement.” This is done three times, three circuits each time. The initial letters of chalifasi, temurasi, kaparasi spell ChaTaCh—the Name that apportions life to every living thing.
The shochet slaughters the bird. Where no shochet is on hand at that hour, the chickens are sent to be slaughtered later in the morning. After the slaughtering comes the mitzvah of kisui hadam, covering the blood with earth, which applies to birds and to wild animals. The shochet usually performs it, but he may give it to another so that he too can fulfill the mitzvah. One waits until the shechitah has been established as valid before reciting the blessing over covering the blood.
If the shechitah itself was invalid, kapparos is done again with another bird. If the shechitah was valid and the bird was afterward found to be non-kosher on account of an internal defect, kapparos need not be repeated.
Where means are short, several people may share one bird: the Alter Rebbe brings the practice of exempting several males with one rooster and several females with one hen (605:3). Using money in place of a bird for the kapparah itself is not brought in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch; it appears in later authorities. That is a separate question from what is done with the bird afterward.
The kapparos are given to the poor. The Alter Rebbe writes that it is better to redeem the kapparah with money and to distribute the money to the poor, so that the poor should not be embarrassed at being handed the birds that were used for a kapparah (605:4). In some places the practice is to go to the graves and to increase charity there, and that charity is the redemption of the kapparos; it is fitting to give according to the value of the kapparos one has at home, and no supplication is said there beyond what the early ones composed, since Tachanun is not said on this day (605:5). Today this is commonly arranged through an institution, or by paying above the price of the bird so that tzedakah accompanies the act. Either way, the point is that the poor have what to eat before the fast.
The innards, liver and kidneys of the kapparos are thrown onto the roof or in the courtyard where the birds can take them—because it is fitting to show mercy to living creatures on this day, so that mercy be shown to us from Heaven (605:6).
5. The Meals of Erev Yom Kippur
One eats more than on an ordinary day. The custom is to eat kreplach—dough filled with meat or chicken—though some fill them with chicken rather than red meat, which is heavier to digest.
At hamotzi the bread is dipped in honey, as through the month of Tishrei, as a sign of a sweet year; salt remains on the table.
The meals should be built of foods that are easily digested—fish or poultry rather than heavy meat—so that one comes to the fast neither overfull nor uncomfortable.
6. Lekach
A well-loved Chabad custom is the distribution of lekach—honey cake—on Erev Yom Kippur, as the Rebbeim would distribute it, wishing each person a good and sweet year. The idea behind it: if it has been decreed that a person will need to ask something of another in the coming year, let that asking be fulfilled now, in asking for a piece of honey cake, and let him need nothing further from anyone.
7. Tzedakah
Erev Yom Kippur is a day of increased tzedakah, particularly before Mincha, and it is usual for shuls to set out plates for a range of causes so that everyone can give generously. It is customary to eat two substantial meals on this day—one earlier and one closer to Mincha—and to give charity in connection with them.
8. Mikveh and Malkus
Every man immerses in the mikveh on Erev Yom Kippur. The immersion is likened to the immersion of a convert: just as a convert immerses on entering the Jewish people and is like a newborn child, so one who repents is like a new person, and immerses before the day of atonement. The custom is to immerse three times, with nothing interposing between the body and the water.
Connected with the immersion is the custom of receiving thirty-nine symbolic lashes, malkus. The Alter Rebbe writes that the whole congregation receives them after the Mincha prayer (Shulchan Aruch HaRav 607:11); the widespread practice is to receive them at the mikveh, before Mincha. Lashes carry no legal force today—there are no ordained judges, and there was no warning—but the practice is kept so that a person takes to heart to repent, and to humble the heart and ready it to serve the Name with awe (607:11).
A strap of any kind may be used, since these are not the lashes of the Torah, which require a strap a tefach wide; the custom is a strap of calfhide, to rouse a person to teshuvah, along the lines of “The ox knows its owner” (Yeshayahu 1:3) (607:13–14). The one receiving them neither stands nor sits but is bent over, his back to the south and his face to the north—because a person’s sin is largely on account of money, and it is written “From the north gold comes” (Iyov 37:22) (607:15). The one being lashed says confessions while he is lashed, and the one who lashes says “V’Hu rachum yechaper avon,” etc. (Tehillim 78:38), three times—thirty-nine words, corresponding to the thirty-nine lashes (607:12). The lashes are light; the point is submission, not pain.
9. Mincha and Vidui
Vidui—Ashamnu and Al Cheit—is said at Mincha on Erev Yom Kippur, before the final meal. The reason is that a person might come to harm or lose his composure at the meal, and so the confession is made while he is still clear (Shulchan Aruch HaRav 607:1).
One confesses standing, and should not lean on anything in a way that he would fall if it were removed. It is good to bow at the confession as at Modim, in order to confess with submission, and one strikes the heart with the fist at each mention of sin, as if to say “you caused me the sin”; some strike the chest (607:7).
Tachanun and Avinu Malkeinu are not said at Mincha.
10. The Seudah HaMafsekes
The final meal before the fast should include bread. One washes with the intention of eating a kebeitzah, and eats at least a kezayis so as to say Birchas HaMazon afterward.
One stops eating before sunset, in practice by candle-lighting time, eighteen minutes before sunset, in order to fulfill the addition from the ninth onto the tenth—adding from the weekday onto the holy.
One who finishes the meal early should bear in mind that if he stops with the intention of accepting the fast, he may no longer eat or drink; if he may still want to, he should expressly have in mind not to accept the fast yet.
11. Candle Lighting
Candles are lit before Kol Nidrei, at candle-lighting time. The blessing is l’hadlik ner shel Yom HaKippurim. When Yom Kippur falls on Shabbos, the blessing is l’hadlik ner shel Shabbos v’shel Yom HaKippurim.
A woman who lights candles recites Shehecheyanu after the blessing over the candles, and does not repeat it in shul at Kol Nidrei. The men say Shehecheyanu after Kol Nidrei together with the chazan, each one quietly, since there is no Kiddush on the night of Yom Kippur as there is on a festival.
Two kinds of candle are lit: a long candle that burns through the whole of Yom Kippur, lit in shul, and a ner neshamah lit at home for a departed parent.
12. Tallis, Kittel and Shoes
The tallis is put on before sunset, so that its blessing can be said while it is still day. One who arrives after sunset puts it on without a blessing.
The kittel—white, recalling both the purity of the day and the shrouds of the dead—is worn by married men.
The kittel should not be worn into a restroom, in the way of a tallis gadol.
Non-leather shoes are worn from before the fast and through all the tefillos. A shoe containing leather should be avoided.
A belt is permitted even if it is of leather; the prohibition is on footwear.
13. Blessing the Children
Before leaving for Kol Nidrei, parents bless their children. The blessing begins with the verses in which Hashem instructs Moshe how the Kohanim are to bless Israel, and continues with Yevarechecha Hashem v’yishmerecha. The Rebbe would bless the yeshiva students in the same way, in tallis and kittel, placing his hands above their heads.
Before entering the shul, some say Vidui—Ashamnu and Al Cheit—once more, before the Tehillim that precede Kol Nidrei, so that the day begins with teshuvah for anything that may have occurred since the confession at Mincha.
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