Teshuvah Outside of Communal Prayer

Approved on September 1, 2020 by a vote of 13-0-0. Voting in favor: Rabbis Jaymee Alpert,
Pamela Barmash, David Booth, Suzanne Brody, Nate Crane, Elliot Dorff, David Hoffman,
Jeremy Kalmanofsky, Jan Kaufman, Amy Levin, Micah Peltz, Avram Reisner, Robert
Scheinberg, and Deborah Silver. Voting against: none. Abstaining: none.1

She’eilah (Question)


Our communal davenning on Yom Kippur includes liturgy designed to inspire teshuvah
(repentance and a return to spiritual wholeness) and aid us in retrospection, contrition, and selfimprovement, but this year 5781/2020 our communal davenning will be curtailed as the 2020
pandemic continues. How do we do teshuvah when our usual ways of doing so in community are
less available or unavailable?

Read more: https://www.rabbinicalassembly.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Teshuvah%20without%20communal%20prayer%20final.pdf