Q 01/05

What does the Hebrew name Yom Kippur literally mean?

A) Day of Remembrance

B) Day of Atonement

C) Day of Rest

D) Day of Judgment

Answer · why

B) Day of Atonement

Day of Atonement. It is the holiest day of the Jewish year, so even many Jews who keep no other holiday fast and fill the synagogues.

Q 02/05

Yom Kippur falls on the 10th day of which Hebrew month?

A) Tishrei

B) Kislev

C) Nisan

D) Adar

Answer · why

A) Tishrei

That puts it in late September or early October, nine days after the first day of Rosh Hashanah.

Q 03/05

Which Leonard Cohen song takes its litany of fates from Unetanneh Tokef, a High Holy Day prayer?

A) Hallelujah

B) Suzanne

C) Who by Fire

D) Bird on the Wire

Answer · why

C) Who by Fire

Who by Fire. Cohen wrote it after singing for Israeli soldiers in the Sinai during the 1973 war, and he added one question the prayer never asks: 'And...

Q 04/05

Tradition says God writes everyone's fate in the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and does what on Yom Kippur?

A) Erases the entries

B) Seals the verdict

C) Opens the book

D) Reads it aloud

Answer · why

B) Seals the verdict

Seals the verdict. The gap between writing and sealing is the point: for ten days the decree can still be softened, tradition says, by repentance, pra...

Q 05/05

The Yom Kippur fast runs from sundown until when?

A) Sunrise the following day

B) Sundown two days later

C) Noon the following day

D) Nightfall the following day

Answer · why

D) Nightfall the following day

Nightfall the following day. That makes the fast about 25 hours long, not 24, because a little time is added at each end so that no part of the day is...