Yom Kippur 2027

The dates

Yom Kippur is the quietest day of the year. It always falls on 10 Tishrei, nine days after Rosh Hashanah, and runs a full day and night: from sunset the evening before until nightfall the next day, about twenty-five hours. This year that is 11/10/27 (Monday).

It is one of only two full-length fasts in the calendar, alongside Tisha B'Av, and the only one the Torah itself commands. In Israel it is also the closest thing there is to a day on which an entire country stops: empty roads, no broadcasts, and children cycling down the middle of motorways.

From one priest's day to everyone's

In Temple times Yom Kippur was largely one man's ceremony. The high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year, and only on this day; he was separated from his household for a week beforehand, and served in plain white linen rather than the usual gold. At the heart of the rite stood two identical goats on which lots were cast: one offered, the other sent out into the wilderness, la-azazel, which is how that word entered Hebrew as a curse.

After the destruction nothing of that survived: no building, no priest, no lots. The day did not fade with them; it grew. What had been one man's work on behalf of a people became a prayer each person says for himself. The order of the Temple service is still recited in the additional prayer of the day, not as instruction but as memory, inside a day that now consists entirely of words.

In Israel the date carries a modern layer as well. On 6 October 1973, 10 Tishrei 5734, the war that has been named after it ever since broke out. The day has been a historical anniversary too ever since.

"To purify you"

The Torah describes the day twice. In Leviticus 16, closing the account of the Temple service, comes the sentence that explains the whole thing: "For on this day atonement shall be made for you to purify you; you shall be pure of all your sins before the Lord" ¹.

The word that repeats there is neither punishment nor pardon but purity: an image of washing rather than of court. That says something about the character of the day. It is not there to decide who was right. It is there to clean.

The festival chapter adds the timing: "It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall afflict yourselves; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall keep your sabbath" ². Two things follow that still govern the day: it starts the evening before rather than in the morning, and it lasts "evening to evening", a full twenty-five hours.

What the day looks like

The fast. The sages counted five things set aside on this day: eating and drinking, washing, anointing with oil, wearing leather shoes, and marital relations. The first is the famous one, but the fourth explains the look of the day: white canvas or plastic shoes in the synagogue instead of ordinary ones.

White. Many wear white, and some a kittel, a plain white robe. On every other festival people put on their best clothes; here they put on the simplest.

The last meal. A full meal is eaten before the fast, and most keep it light. Some immerse in a ritual bath on the eve of the day, and go person by person to ask forgiveness of anyone they have hurt during the year.

Kol Nidrei. The prayer that opens the evening is not a prayer at all but a legal formula in Aramaic annulling vows. What made it the best-known melody of the Jewish year is the tune and the moment: Torah scrolls taken out, and the whole thing begun before the sun has set.

Five services. This is the only day with five prayer services instead of three. The last, Neilah, is said in the closing hour, and ends with a single blast of the shofar, the sound that shuts what Rosh Hashanah opened.

Kaparot. On the eve some perform a short ceremony of kaparot; today many swap the traditional fowl for money given to charity.

The day in Israel. No law forbids driving, and yet the roads empty almost completely, the airport closes and broadcasting stops. The result is a silence you can physically hear, and children on bicycles in the middle of main roads, the image most identified with the day in Israel.

The best day of the year

If you had to guess which day the Mishnah calls the most festive in the calendar, Yom Kippur would not be the first guess. It says so all the same.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel sets the scene: "There were no better days for Israel than the fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, on which the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white garments — so as not to shame anyone who had none" ³. Young women went out to dance in the vineyards dressed in white, and every one of them, without exception, wore a borrowed dress, so that nobody could tell who had one of her own.

That detail is the whole story. On a day given over to purity, the first thing done is not a rite but the erasure of the difference between rich and poor. Nor is the white accidental: it is the same white worn in synagogue today.

The same picture explains the plainest thing about the end of the day. After twenty-five hours of fasting, the closing service and one long blast, what is left is not heaviness. It is relief.

What the day does not cover

The Mishnah in tractate Yoma closes the laws of the day with a sentence that narrows it, and by narrowing it, makes it larger: "Transgressions between a person and God, Yom Kippur atones for; transgressions between a person and his fellow, Yom Kippur does not atone for, until he appeases his fellow" ⁴.

Which is to say: the fast, the prayers and the closing service do nothing at all about what happened between you and someone else. For that you have to go to the person and talk to them. It is why the week before Yom Kippur fills with messages saying sorry if I hurt you, a custom that looks casual, but is precisely what the Mishnah demands, and without which the day cannot finish its job.

That same passage ends with a line of Rabbi Akiva's, perhaps the loveliest thing ever said about the day: "Happy are you, Israel — before whom are you purified, and who purifies you?" The image he reaches for is a ritual bath: water a person steps into himself, not a court convened over him. The same distinction again: not a trial, a washing.

Common questions about Yom Kippur

When is Yom Kippur?

Yom Kippur always falls on 10 Tishrei (11/10/27). On the civil calendar it drifts between mid-September and mid-October.

When does the Yom Kippur fast start?

At sunset on the evening before, 9 Tishrei (10/10/27). It begins a few minutes before sunset itself, and the time shifts between cities; exact times for your location appear at the top of this page.

When does the fast end?

At nightfall on Yom Kippur itself (11/10/27), thirty to forty minutes after sunset depending on local custom.

How long is the fast?

About twenty-five hours, from sunset to nightfall the next day. It is one of the two full-length fasts of the year; the other is Tisha B'Av. The four minor fasts run only from dawn to nightfall.

What happens when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbat?

Nothing is deferred. Yom Kippur is the one fast kept even on Shabbat: the Torah itself calls it a sabbath of complete rest. It is not rare: this year it falls on Monday.

Who is exempt from fasting?

Children below the age of obligation, and anyone whose health the fast would endanger. A patient told by a doctor to eat, eats (sometimes in small measured amounts at intervals). That question belongs to a doctor and a rabbi, not to a website.

Yom Kippur 2027 and after: dates and links

The fast begins before sunset the evening before and ends at nightfall the next day, about twenty-five hours. The grid at the top of the page shows the day within its week, with the civil date beside the Hebrew one.

• Every festival and fast of the year at a glance: Jewish holidays 2026
• The full printable calendar: home page
• The month it falls in: Tishrei

Related pages

• Printable calendar for October 2027
• The Hebrew month of Tishrei 5788
• All the Jewish holidays of 2027
• Printable 2026 Jewish calendar with holidays