Vayikra 16:29-34
The Day Itself Atones
The end of the Yom Kippur chapter, where one man’s ceremony becomes a fixed date, a fast and a duty that falls on everybody.
For children, teens and adults
Everything in chapter 16 up to this point belongs to one man. Aharon changes his clothes, brings a bull and two goats, draws lots over them and walks alone into the room behind the curtain. Then at verse 29 the chapter swings round and speaks to you, in the plural: a date, a fast, a ban on work, and a promise that on this day you will be made clean. Which raises the obvious question. If a professional is performing the ceremony on your behalf, why do you have to do anything at all, and what is left of these six verses when there is no Temple, no High Priest and no goats? Most Israeli Jews fast on Yom Kippur, including a great many who keep little else the rest of the year. This is the paragraph that tells them to, and it is also the paragraph that says what the fasting is and is not able to do.
וְהָיְתָה לָכֶם לְחֻקַּת עוֹלָם בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁבִיעִי בֶּעָשׂוֹר לַחֹדֶשׁ תְּעַנּוּ אֶת־נַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם וְכָל־מְלָאכָה לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ הָאֶזְרָח וְהַגֵּר הַגָּר בְּתוֹכְכֶם׃
Vayikra 16:29
Vehayta lachem lechukat olam, bachodesh hashvi'i be'asor lachodesh te'anu et nafshoteichem, vechol melacha lo ta'asu, ha'ezrach vehager hagar betochchem.
This shall be an everlasting statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and you shall do no work at all, neither the native-born nor the stranger living among you.