Las Vegas optic., 1914-09-28
DAY A
Solemn JEWISH
OCCASION
BEAUTIFUL RELIGIOUS SERVICES
WILL BE HELD IN TEMPLE
MoNTEFIoRE

MoNTEFIoRE
The Jewish people of Las Vegas will
be gin, tomorrow evening at sundown,
the celebration of Yom Kippur, or the
Gay of the Atonement There will be
special services in Temple Montefiore
tomorrow evening at 1880 o'clock,
Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock and
Wednesday afternoon at o'clock, i'm
mediately preceding the memorial
services.
At the services tomorrow evening
Rev. DR.. Jacob H. Landau, the spirit
ual director of the congregation, will
preach upon the subject, God, Our
Neighbor and Ourselves" At the serv-
ices Wednesday morning, which will
be especially for the benefit of the
ycunger members of the congregation,
though all are expected to be present,
Or. Landau will talk upon the subject,
Losing Our Way
At the o'clock services Wednes-
day, Dr. Landau's subject will be IF
a Man Die, Shall He Live Again?"
Beautiful music will be feature of
all the services The general public
is cordially invited to attend any or
al; of them.
The Day Defined
The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur,
The holiest day in the Jewish calen-
dar. falls this year on the thirtieth day
of September. The Hebrew date is
the 10th of Tishri The festival is
ordained in Leviticus XVI 1884 and
XXXIII 26-32. In both passages 1t is
styled "A Sabbath of Solemn Rest"
The purpose of the Day of Atone
nent is clearly indicated by its
name. 1t is intended to complete and
crown the work of the penitential sea-
sen, begun on the first of Tishri New
Year,, by finally reconciling the soul
with the Almighty implicitly trust
in,; in the Divine forgiveness, the Is
raelite believes that his contrition, if
it be really sincere, will atone for
him, will make him "at one" once
more with his Heavenly Father The
day, then, is devoted to supreme ef-
fert of penitence, to mighty en-
deavor after communion with the AL
mighty. 1t is spent in prayer and
meditation.
1t is kept, too, as fast, in obedi.
ence to the command given in each
of the two passages above cited where
the expression "afflict his soul" must
be understood, in accordance with the
traditional Interpretation, as synonym
Gus with fasting.
The chief the real aim of the Day
of Atonement is the return from evil
to good, or in other words, the recon
ciliation of the individual soul with
tho eternal right, which is of God. All
the external elements of the days OBJ
servance-its worship and austerities
are intended to promote this SUI
preme purpose. They cannot do duty
for it. The act of fasting is partly
to serve as a self-imposed chastise-
ment, and partly it has reflex in
fluence. For hunger and weakness tell
upon the conscience; they mortify
pride, break down obstinacy, cast men
down before God in humility and con-
triton. But fasting does even more
than that. Taking the worshipper
away from such carnal occupations as
eating and drinking, it helps to fix
his thoughts upon the needs of the
soul. 1t makes the day one of physic-
al abstinence and self denial, but also
of correspondlngly increased spiritual
ity.
The sublime Neilah prayers consti-
tute the closing service of the day.
Here the triumphant note of reconci-
llation with God sounds clear. The
prayers advance in the scale of ecs-
tasy and the worship of the day cul-
inmates in the glorious outburst by
the assembled multitude of Israel's
great watchword Hear o Israel, the
Lord is our God, the Lord is One" and
its accompanying phrases Praised be
the glorious name of His Kingdom for
ever and ever" the whole closing with
the stirring confession, spoken seven