Jews deny the Kol Nidre

[maz]

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 550AAfpuYk

Question: Do gentiles have anything to worry about the prayer, the kol nidre, from the Jewish Day of Atonement?

Here's what the Jews From Yahoo Answers Religion & Spirituality Section.  

Aravah
It's only troubling to trolls attempting to make Judaism look bad and lose.

The Kol Nidre prayer was instituted after Jews were FORCED to convert to Christianity or Islam, it absolved them of the betrayal of their religion and being forced to undergo new oaths. Since you aren't a Jew and you don't take oaths falsely (of course, right?), you don't have anything to be concerned with.

The Torah and Talmud forbid cheating or lying to Gentiles so the second part of your coming argument is moot.

Kevin7
Judaism teaches love for humankind,so the answer is no.

affinity292
You have nothing to worry about.

There is a lot of misinformation about it. So, here is a brief overview.

In Jewish Law, breaking a "vow" is a very serious sin.

And even stupid offhand comments can count as a vow if you are not careful. "If that car squeals one more time, I'm going to out there and bash in the window." Oops, that's a vow. Now, if you do it, you're committing a sin; and if you don't do it you're committing a sin.

The Kol Nidre prayer basically is basically a statement to G-d that one's seeming vows to G-d over the next year are "like" vows but are NOT vows. That way, you are not bound by that.

However... Any vow made to another human being is not only between you and G-d but also between you and the other person. And only the other person can "let you out" of your vow.

So, Kol Nidre has no bearing on agreements or vows between people.

Peace.

Samwise
The explanation is rather complex. I've put a couple of links in the source section.

The first site I found was probably the sort of source you've got for the "troubling things" you've heard. The assertion is that the purpose of the prayer is to institutionalize dishonesty, and in particular dishonesty to non-Jews.

The sources I've listed, however, take the trouble to address the words in the context of the culture. Jewish custom is in fact very harsh on anyone who does not keep a personal vow to God. Apparently, the object of the prayer is actually to grant people the freedom to say, "No, I didn't really mean that" in such cases.

I notice that people who claim it's a foundation for duplicity leave out one word in the translations. That word is the one that restricts the coverage to "personal" vows. Vows involving others are a different matter; they cannot be abandoned so easily. As the first source argues, all Jewish law is founded on sworn testimony, and that cannot be undermined by this release from personal vows. (We get the Commandment against "bearing false witness" from the Hebrew scripture, after all.)

What this release covers is such a case as someone vowing a particular offering and then being unable to scrape together the money because of a personal disaster. In the Jewish custom regarding oaths, the fact that it's not his fault wouldn't matter--he'd be guilty of violating an oath anyway. But the recitation of Kol Nidre gives him license to say, "I am unable to do what I vowed," and yet be released from guilt over it.

Personally, I don't think we Gentiles have any reason to worry about the Kol Nidre. I'd rather deal with people who take their word so seriously that they have institutionalized this "safety net," than with people who simply hold their given word in contempt as a matter of course.

Source(s):
http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/kolnidre.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kol_Nidre

Merc
If you see it as something against gentiles, then how do you explain this part:

"May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the STRANGERS who live in their midst, for all the people are in fault."

allonyoav
The only non-Jews that it should concern are those who would use force to try and forcefully convert Jews. See, for them it is a problem since it allows the Jew to nullify any extracted vow to convert to another religion. Since this is a PERSONAL vow, affecting the individual only, Kol Nidre nullifies it! The poor missionaries then have gone to all that trouble for nothing- doncha feel sorry for them ? LOL And yes, this is the reason the text was changed from past tense to future tense- so that people would be able to escape from persuction without worrying that they would die before they got to nullify the vow on Yom Kippur!

However, anti-Semites like to lie Kol Nidre- claiming it means jews have nullified all their vows. it seems they miss the point that it only applies to vows that affect the individual only NOT to vows in which there are any other parties invovled. Still, we wouldn't expect anti-Semites to be honest would we?
Source(s):
Orthodox Jew; acting Rabbi