WASHINGTON (RNS) — Yom Kippur, the most solemn day of the Jewish year, may not seem the sort of holiday to observe in a beer garden.
But more than 100 Washington-area Jews are doing just that this year, taking a holiday that calls for introspection, fasting and intense prayer — to a bar.
Aaron Potek, rabbi of a 20- and 30-somethings Jewish group called GatherDC, thinks it’s a fitting setting for a Yom Kippur service. For about two hours Yom Kippur morning Saturday (Sept. 30), Potek and former first lady Michelle Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz will co-host an “alternative Yom Kippur” service at Sauf Haus Bier Hall and Garten in Washington’s hip Dupont Circle neighborhood.
Sarah Hurwitz and Aaron Potek at the Beyond the Tent Retreat in July 2016 at Pearlstone Retreat Center in Maryland. Photo courtesy of Josh Orozco
To Goldstein, prayer and fasting are tools. “Sure, you could spend the day fasting, or sitting in synagogue without reflecting at all, but I don’t think that means that these methods are inherently broken,” she said.