Tag #155626 - Interview #77997 (dora slobodianskaya)

On Yom Kippur the family fasted. Children were supposed to fast from the age of 5. My mother was always upset because we were so thin. On other days she worked to give us more food while during the fast she begged us to be patient and wait until the fast was over. She told us that God would bless us with a good year for our patience. Before holidays our relatives and acquaintances came to ask forgiveness for intentional and unintentional insults. My parents also made the rounds of other homes asking forgiveness. Christians have a different theory - repent and God will forgive you - but Jews believed that God couldn't forgive people. We always had the ritual of kapores conducted before Yom Kippur. My mother bought white hens for herself and me and white roosters for my father and brother. It was necessary to roll the hens over our head and say a prayer repeating the words, 'May you be my atonement'. My mother was very serious about the kapores.