Why The Drama?

What’s Kol Nidrei all about?

Kol Nidrei is the most well-known prayer. It has become a symbol of Jewish identity and fills the synagogue seats even with people who do not set foot there the entire year. But the phenomenon is puzzling: what is the connection between its stirring melody and its content? What is it in it that awakens the soul?

“Kol Nidrei” is nothing more than a legal formula of annulment of vows. We declare that the commitments we took upon ourselves in the past and in the future, and have forgotten, shall be null and void.; but what in it stirs the heart to repentance?