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Repentance and Repairing Broken Pottery on Kol Nidrei

[additional-authors]
September 25, 2025
Mr.Lomein/Getty Images

That which we have managed to repair
we may love more than what has always been intact.
The cracks that we鈥檝e repaired cause us to care
for them a lot more than for what had never cracked.

The connection of kintsugi to the taste
for what is savory, known as umami,
to what prevents sins that lay us to waste,
repentance, teshuvah, is quite uncanny.

To the outside of any 聽pot we show less favor
than to its contents its producers might have stirred,
but with repentance may improve the flavor
of our demerits for the ways that we have erred

in ways that only a divine observer saw,
repentance comparable to how kintsugi 聽can
improve a broken pot which after any flaw
has been repaired,聽as championed in Japan.

Repentance makes sins which we have committed
like broken pots that by kintsugi are repairable,
and by improving acts that never were聽permitted,
to dry bones of Ezekiel are comparable.


In the Kol Nidrei service on the night of the Day of Atonement all the congregation recite a piyyut, poem, that begins:

For behold, like clay in the hands of the potter, if he wills, he can expand it, if he wills, he can contract it; so too are we in Your hand, Preserver of kindliness and not the accuser.
The mishnah states in the Ethics of the Fathers, Avot 4:20:
专址讘旨执讬听讗讜止诪值专,听讗址诇听转旨执住职转旨址讻旨值诇听讘旨址拽旨址谞职拽址谉,听讗侄诇旨指讗听讘职诪址讛听砖旨讈侄讬旨侄砖讈听讘旨讜止.听讬值砖讈听拽址谞职拽址谉听讞指讚指砖讈听诪指诇值讗听讬指砖讈指谉,听讜职讬指砖讈指谉听砖讈侄讗植驻执诇旨讜旨听讞指讚指砖讈听讗值讬谉听讘旨讜止
Rabbi said: don鈥檛 look at the container, baqanqan, but at that which is in it: there is a new container full of old wine, and an old [container] in which there is not even new [wine].
On 5/26/24 Meir Soloveichik discussed kintsugi (katsugi) 聽in his podcast 鈥淛apanese Pottery and the Nature of Forgiveness,鈥澛, 聽connecting katsugi to the concept of forgiveness which is the rationale of the third blessing of God in the 聽Amidah for being 聽讞谞讜谉聽讛诪专讘讛聽诇住诇讜讞, graciously willing to forgive.


Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored 鈥淟egal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.鈥 He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.

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