We tend to think of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, as a day of fasting, judgment and prayer. Those who do not go to synagogue may simply spend it in bed watching television and waiting for the fast to end.
Yet Jewish sources contain a surprisingly different description of the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
Yom Kippur was once a day of matchmaking, so why does Jewish law forbid sex on it?
(Photo: Shutterstock)
“There were no days as joyous for Israel as the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur,” the Mishnah says.
Yes, Yom Kippur appears alongside Tu B’Av, now commonly associated with the Jewish celebration of love, as one of the happiest days of the year.
And what happened on those days? According to the ancient description, the young women of Jerusalem would go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards, where young men would come in search of a partner.
The day we now associate with solemnity, fear and self-denial was also a day of love, possibility and new beginnings.
That makes one of Yom Kippur’s rules especially intriguing: sexual relations are forbidden.
Why would a day historically associated with courtship and choosing a partner also require couples to suspend sexual intimacy?
The answer may say something not only about Yom Kippur, but about what it takes to repair a relationship.
A holiday of second chances
In many Israeli homes today, Yom Kippur has become a day of binge-watching. The shutters come down, shows and movies are prepared in advance, phones are silenced and people settle in for the long day.
Older Israelis may even remember the pre-streaming ritual of visiting the video store before the fast to stock up on movies.
In more observant homes, the picture is entirely different. People dress in white, take their machzor, the special prayer book used for the High Holidays, and spend much of the day in synagogue.
It is a day of fasting, prayer, repentance and introspection.
Yet the description of young people meeting in the vineyards adds another dimension.
The Mishnah says the women went out wearing borrowed white clothes, “so as not to embarrass those who had none.”
The dresses were deliberately not their own. By borrowing from one another, the women blurred distinctions between those who could afford expensive clothing and those who could not.
For a moment, everyone began from the same place.
The Talmud explains Yom Kippur’s joy through forgiveness and reconciliation with God. It was also the day associated with the giving of the second set of Tablets of the Covenant.
The first tablets had been shattered.
Shulamit SperberPhoto: Elad LifshitzMoses descended from Mount Sinai, saw the Golden Calf and broke them. What followed was a long process of anger, pain, reckoning and repair. Only afterward came a new set of tablets.
Yom Kippur, in other words, is built around the possibility of a second chance.
We suggest thinking about that idea in the context of romantic relationships.
We sometimes imagine that good love is love that never breaks. If a relationship is truly right, we tell ourselves, two people should understand each other, never hurt each other, never disappoint each other and never drift apart.
But almost no meaningful relationship works that way.
We are tired and fail to listen. We say something we should not have said. We do not notice our partner precisely when they most need us. We shut down. We withdraw. We disappoint.
A good relationship is not one that has never broken.
It is one that knows what to do with the broken pieces.
My grandfather, Rabbi Shmuel Sperber, used to say that Yom Kippur was the happiest day of the year because everything could be forgiven, the slate could be cleared and life could begin again.
That is an inheritance worth bringing into our relationships as well.
Yom Kippur does not ask only, “What did I do wrong?”
It can also invite another question: “How do I choose you again?”
Before entering the sacred, Jewish tradition asks us to look at the person standing in front of us.
The Mishnah states this explicitly: sins between a person and God can be atoned for on Yom Kippur, but wrongs committed against another person are not forgiven until that person has been appeased.
You can fast. You can pray. You can wear white and beat your chest during confession.
But if you hurt another person, you cannot simply bypass them on your way to forgiveness.
You have to go through them.
And within a relationship, that person is often the one closest to us.
There is no free reset button in a relationship
Rabbi Akiva compares Yom Kippur to immersion in a mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath: “Fortunate are you, Israel. Before whom are you purified, and who purifies you?”
Immersion in water symbolizes renewal. We enter as we are and emerge toward a new beginning.
But relationships do not really have a Reset button.
We cannot simply say, “Fine, that’s over,” and assume the hurt has disappeared.
For an injury to become the starting point for repair, the person who was hurt first needs to feel that their pain has been seen.
Often, however, couples desperately want to skip straight to reconciliation.
They fight. They withdraw. A few uncomfortable hours or days pass. Then they want to feel close again.
And couples sometimes have a very effective shortcut: the body.
Makeup sex can feel wonderful. The fight may have been painful, but suddenly there is an embrace, a kiss, the body relaxes and both people once again feel connected and loved.
The problem begins when physical intimacy replaces repair instead of completing it.
If we never talked about what happened, never understood what caused the hurt, never took responsibility and never considered what we would do differently next time, then we did not truly reconcile.
We simply stopped fighting.
And the unresolved wound will wait for the next argument.
Perhaps this offers one way of understanding why sex is forbidden on this particular day of love.
The paradox is striking. Yom Kippur was once associated with courtship and choosing a partner, yet Jewish law prohibits sexual relations on the day.
That is not because Jewish tradition views marital sexuality as something negative.
Quite the opposite. Sexual intimacy within a committed relationship is understood as a place of connection, pleasure and closeness.
But on Yom Kippur, even good things are suspended.
We do not eat. We do not wash for pleasure. We refrain from sexual relations.
One way of reading that pause is as an invitation to couples: Do not rush to use the body to reconnect something the heart has not yet repaired.
Before we return to physical closeness, we might ask what created the distance in the first place.
Did I listen to you?
Did I really see you?
Is there something I did that you are still carrying?
Did I say “I’m sorry” because I wanted the argument to end, or because I genuinely understood what I was apologizing for?
Deep reconciliation is not simply a return to the relationship that existed before the fight.
It is the possibility of creating something new because of it.
When broken pieces become part of something whole
One of the most powerful images in Jewish tradition appears in its holiest space.
Inside the Holy of Holies in the ancient Temple stood the Ark of the Covenant, topped by two cherubim facing one another.
Rabbinic tradition describes the cherubim as symbolizing the relationship between Israel and God: when there is closeness, they face one another; when there is distance, they turn away.
And inside the Ark, according to tradition, were both “the tablets and the broken tablets.”
The complete set and the shattered one were preserved together.
It is a remarkably precise image for relationships.
Real repair does not require us to pretend that nothing happened.
We do not need to erase the rupture in order to become whole again.
We carry the places where we were hurt, fought, withdrew and failed.
But if we can give those experiences meaning, accept responsibility and learn from them, they become part of the covenant rather than merely damage to it.
Mature love is not a story without fractures.
It is a story in which the broken and the whole can live together.
And perhaps most important, it reminds us not to forget to direct love back home.
A Yom Kippur exercise for couples: Turn toward each other again
If Rosh Hashanah is a natural time to create a vision for the year ahead, Yom Kippur invites a different kind of work.
Instead of asking only where we want to go, we can ask what needs repairing along the way.
Take about half an hour before Yom Kippur, or during a quiet moment in the Ten Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and sit facing one another.
Before beginning the conversation, each person should write down three things.
1. When did I feel this year that we turned away from each other?
Choose one or two moments, not an inventory of every complaint from the entire year.
Describe your own experience rather than accusing your partner.
Instead of, “You never listen to me,” try: “There were several times when I tried to tell you about something difficult and felt I was left alone with it.”
Instead of, “You always criticize me,” try: “When you corrected me in front of other people, I felt small and embarrassed.”
2. What do I want to apologize for?
Be specific.
Not, “Sorry for everything I’ve done.”
Try to identify one moment when you now understand that you hurt the person in front of you.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen when you needed me.”
“I’m sorry I raised my voice.”
“I understand now that the joke I made in front of our friends hurt you.”
A meaningful apology does not begin by explaining why we behaved as we did.
It begins by acknowledging what our behavior did to someone else.
3. What do I want to do differently?
Teshuvah, the Jewish process of repentance and return, is not only regret for the past. It also involves choosing differently in the future.
End your apology with a small, concrete commitment.
“The next time we argue and I feel that I’m about to shout, I’ll step away for 10 minutes and then come back to the conversation.”
“When you tell me about a difficult day, before immediately giving advice, I’ll ask what you need from me: a hug, reassurance or help finding a solution.”
“I want us to set aside time once a week that belongs only to us.”
Then talk.
One person reads what they wrote. The other does not correct them, explain why events happened differently or immediately list their own injuries.
They listen.
At the end, they can say: “What I hear you saying is...”
Then ask:
“What did you need from me at that moment?”
“What would have helped you feel that I was with you?”
“Is there anything else you want me to understand?”
Only afterward do you switch roles.
At the end of the exercise, do one more thing.
Look at one another for a moment and say one sentence of choice:
“I choose you again this year.”
“I’m glad we’re here.”
“I want to keep learning how to love you better.”
“I want to recommit to our relationship.”
The goal is not to erase what broke.
It is to look directly at the fracture and choose repair.
Jewish tradition does not throw away the broken tablets. It places them, too, inside the sacred Ark.
The same can be true of the broken places in a relationship.
There is, however, an important boundary. If a conversation touches on fear, violence, ongoing humiliation or harm that does not feel safe to address alone, this is no longer a home relationship exercise. It requires safe professional help.
Not every difficulty can or should be resolved by a couple on their own. Seeking professional support is not a failure but an act of strength and responsibility.
And then, eventually, it is important to return to the body.
At the end of Yom Kippur, the final shofar blast sounds. The fast ends. We eat, drink and return to ordinary physical life.
Couples can return to touch as well.
But perhaps this year that touch can feel a little different.
Not intimacy used to close an argument as quickly as possible. Not sex meant to convince us that everything is already fine.
Instead, closeness that comes after two people have truly looked at each other, after the pain has been named, after responsibility has been taken, after someone has said “I’m sorry” and the other person has finally felt understood.
Shulamit Sperber is a certified sex therapist and doctoral researcher studying relationships, sexuality and trauma
Rabbi Dr. David Sperber is an art historian and curator