Yom Kippur

Dr. Louis L. Kaplan clearly loves to talk, to be engaged in conversation. And he's a man who never confuses serious with dull. He's always serious, never dull.He's the sort of talker who, when you ask about a house, he gives you a street. Ask about a street, you get a city. Talk about a city and you hear about a culture.Kaplan will hold forth tomorrow on the afternoon of Yom Kippur as the rebbe of a kind of court of discourse that has become a tradition in the Baltimore Jewish community.He'll stand on the bima of Beth Am Synagogue for about two hours and talk.

In place of the heavy traffic that normally clogs Reisterstown Road in Pikesville, only a few cars were passing, and at a country road clip.On Park Heights Avenue in northwest Baltimore, much of the traffic was pedestrian.Most of all, there was silence.Even for a visitor unaware that yesterday was Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, the silence and near-desertion of streets in northwest Baltimore and Pikesville would signal this day was different."It's a day of reflection. You get away from the year-round hassle," said Mark Fleischmann, 66, a retired housing appraiser.

The martyrology, the list of people who died for their faith, is a familiar and honored tradition in the Christian church. Lesser known is its Jewish counterpart. Part of the services for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement that begins today at sundown, the Jewish martyrology has its origin in the commemoration of 10 Talmudic sages murdered by the Romans in the second century. But the martyrology at Beth Am, a synagogue in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill, is a bit more contemporary. For the past 15 years, Beth Am congregant Rheda Becker has customized the martyrology, compiling stories about people persecuted and murdered solely because they were Jewish.

For the past 10 days, Cantor Avraham Albrecht, like many Jews, has been preparing for the start of today's solemn holy day, Yom Kippur.During this time of penitence, he has an added challenge -- preparing to sing his congregation's prayers to God in hourslong services that start at sundown tonight and continue tomorrow until dark. He's been resting his voice and composing melodies for the Jewish Day of Atonement, when followers, through fasting and prayer, ask for forgiveness for their sins.

The Anne Arundel County school system is considering making Yom Kippur a school holiday in response to parent and staff requests, officials said yesterday. Attendance data showing the number of students who take the day off for religious reasons also was a factor considered by officials who presented a tentative calendar for the next academic year. "Although our numbers are still low, they are growing," said Georgiana Maszczenski, an administrator in charge of designing the calendar. Baltimore and Howard County schools have observed Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, both Jewish holidays, for years.

Solemn traditional prayers and those born of urgent modern sorrows marked the High Holy Days for Howard County's Jewish community. Observances began the evening of Sept. 17 with Rosh Hashana - the new year, 5762, in the Jewish calendar. The season ended yesterday with Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur "is the observance that draws to the conclusion the 10 days of repentance that stretch from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur," said Rabbi Mark Panoff of Temple Isaiah Congregation in Columbia.

Just hours before Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, Michael Hornum will immerse in a mikvah, or ritual bath. He will later don a white cotton robe called a kittel over his Sabbath clothing to wear during services at the Lubavitch Center for Jewish Education in Columbia. While the mikvah spiritually cleanses the body from sin, Hornum said, the kittel represents a quest for spiritual purity. It also symbolizes the burial shroud, a stark reminder that life and death are in God's hands and decided on this day. "I see [the rituals]

With its solemn theme of atonement for sin, Yom Kippur, which begins today at sundown, can be a daunting holiday, particularly for children. "It's probably the least child-friendly holiday," acknowledges Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, director of Jewish Education at the Jewish Community Center. But rabbis and educators say the lessons of Yom Kippur, which include forgiveness, starting over and personal responsibility - conveyed in stories such as Jonah and the Whale, a major part of tomorrow afternoon's liturgy - resonate with all ages.

An altar with an Ark of the Covenant, Torah scrolls and menorahs will grace the stage in Westminster High School's auditorium tonight, when the county's largest Jewish congregation begins its observance of Yom Kippur.The community is welcome to participate on the day that is the most sacred in the Jewish calendars.Beth Shalom has reserved seats for nearly 600 worshipers, who will observe the Day of Atonement in the auditorium tonight and tomorrow. With 900 more seats available, the congregation is extending its hospitality to others.

Synagogues usually are inviting places for worship, but in Volgogradskoye, a suburb of Moscow, Polina Lotkin and her family were afraid to visit them before communism crumbled.Police often grabbed Jews outside the synagogues and hauled them in for no reason, the Columbia resident and Russian emigre recalled."We were scared to go there," she said. "It wasn't illegal" to visit synagogues, she said. "We could go, but it was scary."Those memories will be especially poignant tomorrow, as Mrs. Lotkin and her family observe Yom Kippur at the Orthodox Lubavitch Center for Jewish Education in Columbia.