Laws of Rosh Hashana: Annulling Vows

Annulment of Vows (התרת נדרים)

Judaism frowns upon making vows. If one makes a vow (e.g. doing a self-imposed Minhag, meritorious act, or fasting on a certain day), one is bound by it, and can only be released by the restrictions of the vow if one annuls it in an official way. On Rosh Hashana, we have the opportunity to do this, it is called Hatarat Nedarim (Annulment of Vows) and is traditionally performed on the morning of Erev Rosh Hashana. One stands before 3 wise men and must verbally articulate the vow that one would like to annul [1].

The practice for men is that they convene in groups after the morning prayers on Erev Rosh Hashana and read out the Annulment of Vows prayer in the Siddur. A married woman can ask her husband to annul her vows at this opportunity. Unmarried women should do it themselves. Some opinions (sorry, I have no source for this) say that if you don’t have a specific vow in mind, then you can rely on the Kol Nidrei (literally, 'all the vows') service on Yom Kippur for annulling your vows. Most people are however stringent and annul their vows with Hatarat Nedarim before Rosh Hashana, even if they don’t have a specific vow they would like to annul.

Notes

[1] Shulchan Aruch