Yom Kippur, also known as Yom Hakippurim, means “Day of Atonement.” What is another explanation for the name Yom Kippur or Yom Hakippurim?
Smoked fish sampler by T.Tseng is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
A. The name Yom Hakippurim can be translated as “A Day Like Purim.” On both Yom Kippur and Purim, we strive to make the mundane holy. On Yom Kippur this is done by avoiding focus on physical pleasures (such as eating and bathing). On Purim we actually elevate our physical selves into a holy realm through noisemaking, costuming, and eating.
B. The root of kippur or kippurim is kaf/peh/resh, which is the Hebrew word “kafar,” meaning “cover.” One explanation is that we are asking God to cover his eyes to forget our sins.
C. The word kippur shares a root with the word “kapporos” (Ashkenazic pronunciation) or “kaparot” (Sephardic pronunciation). Kapporos means casting, and is the ceremony wherein Jews twirl a chicken over their heads to cast off their sins. This ancient ceremony predated the establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem, and was incorporated into the Yom Kippur ritual, lending its name to the holiday.
D. The root of kippur or kippurim is kaf/peh/resh. As the peh and the feh are basically varieties of the same letter in Hebrew, this root is linguistically the same as the Hebrew word “k’far,” meaning village. Therefore, Yom Hakippurim actually means “the day of the villages,” referring to the fact that on this one day of the year residents of all the villages in the land gather together to pray to God for forgiveness of their sins.
E. The name Yom Hakippurim translates as Day of the Kippurs, the small oily herring fish which is traditionally eaten at the break-the-fast meal following the holiday.