What is the commandment of Yom Kippur fasting?

Leviticus 23:27 commands "denying yourselves" on the tenth of Tishri. The Talmud (Yoma 73b–74b) identifies five afflictions: no eating or drinking, no bathing, no anointing with oils, no leather shoes, no marital relations. The fast lasts 25 hours — from the evening of the ninth until nightfall of the tenth (Leviticus 23:32). It is the only biblically mandated fast in the Torah.

Who is exempt from the Yom Kippur fast?

Children under bar/bat mitzvah age are fully exempt. The sick, pregnant women, and nursing mothers may eat if fasting poses a danger to health — the Talmud rules that life overrides Yom Kippur, based on Leviticus 18:5 ("he shall live by them"). A person told by a doctor that fasting is dangerous is not only permitted but required to eat. The Yom Kippur commandment suspends ordinary life; it cannot itself become a life-threatening obligation.

What is the connection between the high priest's Yom Kippur service (Leviticus 16) and the individual's fast (Leviticus 23:27)?

Leviticus 16 describes the institutional Yom Kippur: the high priest's entry into the Holy of Holies, the bull and goat offerings, the scapegoat sent to Azazel. Leviticus 23:27 commands the individual's response: sacred assembly, self-denial, cessation of work. Both are happening simultaneously — the nation's priest is carrying Israel's sins while each individual is emptying themselves of ordinary life. The day requires total suspension of the normal from both institutional and personal dimensions.

How does Daniel 9 demonstrate that Yom Kippur's core survives without the Temple?

Daniel 9:3–4 records Daniel fasting in sackcloth and ashes, confessing Israel's sins, and pleading for God's mercy — the Yom Kippur pattern of bodily affliction, communal confession, and appeal to divine forgiveness, enacted in Babylon with no Temple, no high priest, no scapegoat. The Temple was destroyed; Daniel maintained the fast's spiritual logic. The Yom Kippur obligation is not dependent on the Temple service; it is the individual's own standing before God.

Commandment #207 · Positive · Sabbath & Holy Days

Deny Yourselves: The Fast of Yom Kippur

Q: Why is Yom Kippur called "Shabbat Shabbaton" — Sabbath of Sabbaths?

Leviticus 23:32 uses this intensified phrase to distinguish Yom Kippur's rest from a regular Sabbath. A regular Shabbat prohibits melachah (prohibited work) but permits eating. Yom Kippur prohibits both melachah AND the five afflictions. It is a more complete cessation: not just stopping work but stopping the body's normal maintenance. No other day in the Torah year has this double layer of suspension.

תַּעֲנִית יוֹם כִּפּוּר

Source: Leviticus 23:27 · Maimonides, Laws of Yom Kippur 1:4

Leviticus 23:27 designates the tenth of the seventh month as Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement. Three requirements: "mikra kodesh" (a sacred assembly), "ve'initem et nafshoteichem" (deny/afflict yourselves), and "hikravtem isheh l'Adonai" (present a fire-offering to God). Leviticus 23:28 adds: no work of any kind, because "it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God." Leviticus 23:32: "a Sabbath of Sabbaths" — the most complete rest. The fast begins at sundown of the ninth (Leviticus 23:32: "from the evening of the ninth day") and ends at nightfall of the tenth — 25 hours.

Ve'initem et Nafshoteichem: The Five Afflictions

אַךְ בֶּעָשׂוֹר לַחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי הַזֶּה יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים הוּא מִקְרָא קֹדֶשׁ יִהְיֶה לָכֶם

"The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves, and present a food offering to the LORD."

Leviticus 23:27 — Open in Torah Reader

"Ve'initem et nafshoteichem" — "you shall afflict your souls/yourselves." The Talmud (Yoma 73b–74b) derives five specific afflictions from this phrase and parallel texts: (1) Eating and drinking: The most prominent — no food or water for the entire 25 hours. (2) Bathing: No washing the body for pleasure (Yoma 77b). (3) Anointing: No applying oils or creams (ibid.). (4) Leather sandals: No wearing leather shoes — leather was the luxury footwear; cloth shoes are permitted (ibid.). (5) Marital relations: Forbidden for the day (ibid.).

The fast from food and drink (affliction #1) is biblically derived; the other four are elaborated by rabbinic interpretation. Children under bar/bat mitzvah age are exempt; the sick and pregnant may eat if fasting endangers health. The danger of life overrides Yom Kippur; "he shall live by them" (Leviticus 18:5) — the commandments are given to live by, not die by.

The High Priest's Service: Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement

Leviticus 23:27's commandment to fast is the individual's Yom Kippur obligation. The institutional Yom Kippur was the high priest's service described in Leviticus 16: the only day he entered the Holy of Holies. He dressed in white linen (not his regular gold vestments), offered the bull for his own sins and the goat for Israel's sins, and sent the scapegoat (Azazel) into the wilderness bearing Israel's iniquities. The Mishnah tractate Yoma describes this service in elaborate detail. The high priest performed five immersions and ten hand-washings. The nation gathered to watch and wait.

The contrast: the individual's Yom Kippur is bodily affliction and cessation of normal life; the high priest's Yom Kippur was the most demanding single-day physical and spiritual performance in Torah law. Both express the same core: on this day, nothing ordinary continues — not eating, not working, not normal priestly service. The extraordinary suspends the ordinary.

Daniel 9:3–4: "I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession." Daniel's prayer in Daniel 9 is a Yom Kippur-style confession — communal acknowledgment of sin, plea for atonement, appeal to God's mercy. It was offered in Babylon, far from the Temple, by a man who could not participate in the high priest's service. The Yom Kippur obligation — the fast, the confession, the standing before God — survives the loss of the Temple.

Key Figures

Ezra and the Weeping People

Nehemiah 9:1–3: "On the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, with earth on their heads… they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God." The scene is a post-Yom Kippur (tenth of Tishri) national fast — the people gathered on the twenty-fourth of Tishri to confess and read Torah, extending the spirit of Yom Kippur into the days that followed.

The Scapegoat and Azazel

Leviticus 16:21–22: "Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness." The scapegoat carries Israel's confessed sins into the wilderness — a physical act of unburdening. Leviticus 23:27's "ve'initem et nafshoteichem" (afflict yourselves) is the individual's counterpart: while the high priest sent the goat bearing the community's sins, each individual also emptied themselves through the fast.

Study Questions

For reflection and group study

What does "ve'initem et nafshoteichem" (deny/afflict yourselves) mean — and how does the Talmud (Yoma 73b) derive five specific afflictions from this phrase?

How does the high priest's service on Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16) relate to the individual's fast commanded in Leviticus 23:27 — what is each doing on the same day?

Why is Yom Kippur called "Shabbat Shabbaton" (Sabbath of Sabbaths) in Leviticus 23:32 — what makes it more complete than a regular Shabbat?

How does Daniel's Yom Kippur-style prayer in Daniel 9 demonstrate that the fast's core — confession, contrition, appeal to God's mercy — survives even the loss of the Temple and the high priest's service?

What does the Talmud mean when it rules that the commandments are given "to live by them" (Leviticus 18:5) — and how does this principle govern who must fast and who is exempt?

Read the full passage in the Torah reader.

Read Leviticus 23 in the Torah Reader

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