My article traces Kafka’s short story ‚Das Urteil‘ to the writer’s avid re-engagement with his Jewish heritage during the fall and winter of 1911. I suggest that Kafka’s re-introduction to the ‚Kol Nidrei‘ prayer during October of that year – in the synagogue as well as in the Yiddish theater – led him to experiment with a religiously-inspired prose style that would eventually lead to his literary breakthrough on the night of Yom Kippur, 1912.