When the Books are Closed: A Look at Yom Kippur

The books were closed.

The ten days of trying valiantly to "merit" God's forgiveness were over.  It was now the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Day of Atonement.  Literally, it was a day of "At-one-ment," a day focused on making God's people "at one" with Him.

Coming ten days after the Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, this solemn day was the one set aside for God to judge the sins of an entire nation for another year.

Now, there were no more works to be done.  It was the "Sabbath of Sabbaths," a day of complete and total rest.  On this day, all Israel had to look not to their good works but to God alone for their covering.

And on this one day each year, the Day of Atonement, God commanded that the high priest was required to enter His presence in the Holy of Holies: " On the tenth day of the seventh month...The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments and make atonement for the Most Holy Place, for the tent of meeting and the altar, and for the priests and all the members of the community.  This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites" (Lev. 16:29,32-34).

There, in the Holy of Holies, the high priest would offer two sacrifices, first for himself and then for the people of Israel--a bull and a goat, as is described in Leviticus 4. 

While God gave few instructions for Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets) that began this ten day countdown to the Day of Atonement, He devoted an entire chapter to giving detailed instructions for this single calendar day.

As part of the sacrifices to atone for the high priest's and the nation of Israel's sin, God commanded a ceremony involving a scapegoat.  Scripture records, "When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness" (Lev. 16:20-22).

While Scripture says little more about this scapegoat except that it was burdened with a year's worth of sins for the entire nation of Israel, the Talmud (codified writings by first and second century rabbis) note a tradition of putting a red ribbon around this scapegoat.  According to the rabbis, if God forgave the nation's sin, the ribbon miraculously turned white, symbolizing atonement, one's sins being as scarlet but being washed as white as snow.

What is interesting, though, is that the Talmud records how for the forty years preceding the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, the scapegoat's ribbon didn't change color. This implied the sacrifice for atonement was not accepted by God.*

Backtrack forty years from 70 AD.  Jesus, the Messiah, died on a cross in 30 AD.  In other words, for the next forty years after Jesus' death, the Day of Atonement and its associated sacrifices would have still occurred, but, according to tradition, the rabbis believed God rejected the nation's sacrifice and denied the atonement.  

It's fascinating.  Although it's not Scripture, the Talmud is giving testimony that the final atonement has been made in the person of Jesus Christ so the sacrifice of goats is no longer acceptable to God.*
 
The entirety of Yom Kippur points to Jesus as our Messiah.

This is a day when we are to recognize how far we are from God, how offensive our sins are to Him, and how desperately we need God's sacrifice in Jesus because there are no "works" good enough to bring us back into a right relationship with Him.

The high priests of old were merely providing a shadow of a sacrifice to come.  The book of Hebrews compares Israel's high priest to Jesus', our once-and-for-ever high priest, saying of Christ, "He doesn't need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do--first for their own sins, then for those of the people" (Heb. 7:27).

The atonement has already been made.  We must realize our insufficiency in ourselves.  We must choose to enter into total rest, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths," in Jesus alone, for He alone is our covering.



*Nadler, Sam. Feasts of the Bible. "Yom Kippur."  Video. Torrance: Rose P, 2011.
Image: "The Scapegoat" by William Holman Hunt

Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

What to Do With Peter Pan Christians in Your Church

 

If you were to ask me who I am, I would respond easily that I am Jennifer Roseanne Bush Dorhauer; wife of Douglas Dorhauer; daughter of John and Karen Bush; mother of Wyatt, Amelia, and Emerson; servant of Jesus Christ; online English Composition professor....and the list goes on...

In my mind, I am an I before I am a we.

The times I feel the most inconsolable are when I find myself losing the I of my identity in the daily grind of we as a wife and mother. I fear losing my individual identity within the collective identity of family.  Some weeks, months, and years, I've found myself shelving the I because the we is all consuming.

But constantly trying to see myself as not part of a collective identity is faulty as well.  I am not a lone individual.  Never have been.  To act or think in that manner is only a deluded fantasy.  Blindly focusing solely on myself as an individual is like standing in narcissistic quicksand.

When it comes to the church fellowship of other Christian believers, I have become more comfortable being a we, seeing myself as part of a whole that embraces my individual identity in the larger collective.  Still, there are times when I fail to see how my presence or absence in worship affects anyone but me.  In that instance, I forget about my collective identity and focus just on myself.

This is a key difference I note between Judaism and the modern-day church in America.  Whereas Judaism has a distinct sense of collective identity, Christianity does not. Scripture clearly identifies the New Testament church as the "body of Christ" (1 Cor. 12).  Still, American Christians as a whole lean towards individualism versus a collective identity.  Their actions demonstrate this belief regularly, even if their words say otherwise.

Two weeks ago in this space, we looked at the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah).  During this Feast and the following Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the Jewish people sing a prayer of repentance entitled the Avinu Malkeinu, or "Our Father, Our King."  The last few lines are loosely translated as:

"Our Father, our Father, our King.
No good deeds do we bring.
Hear us and answer, be gracious to us, Lord, we pray.
And make for us
Grace and righteousness.
And make please for us loving kindness
and your salvation bring, and your salvation bring."1

Note the pronouns repeatedly used in this prayer--Our, we, and us.

The Feasts of Israel, in themselves, are collective celebrations of God's chosen people.  They are "we" activities wherein every Jew is to come together as one.  This song, though, goes further, explaining that Rosh Hashanah (and by extension, the other feasts as well) is not just a shared collective activity but a shared collective, sin and repentance, too.

The pronouns denote an acknowledgment that your sin affects me as much as your righteousness affects me.  Although I am individually accountable for my own soul, here on earth, I am bound to you in good and in bad.  As such, this sung prayer expresses that God's people must pray for the collective community of God.   

Consider two other examples of prayer in Scripture that also emphasize this viewing oneself as part of a collective whole in God versus as a Lone Ranger type individual.

When Daniel prayed, he used the pronoun our, expressing his sense of collective identity: "we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land" (Dan. 9:5-6).

Daniel understood firsthand how connected he was to Israel as a community, in a collective identity, and to that nation's sin as a whole.  He prayed not from an ivory tower reserved for the most holy and dedicated to God but from the center of exile in Babylon.  He knew what it was to be bound together a community in good and in bad.  And so, when he prayed, he prayed for the community of Israel, the children of God as a whole.

Even Jesus taught His disciples to pray with a collective identity in mind.  The Lord's prayer reads, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is  in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matt. 6:9-13).

 Too many times, I look at fellow Christians and fail to perceive how their spiritual state affects my own.  I would rather see myself as a island unaffected by the rest of the Christian community.  It's easier to live within the myth that says if my soul is right with God, nothing else matters.

Yet, if God's people are going to have an impact on this world, we must consider ourselves, truly, as a living entity, one that doesn't function effectively if even a single nerve is malfunctioning.  As Paul says, "If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" (1 Cor. 12:26).

To that end, we must pray for the "we" and the "our," recognizing that the weakest link in Christ's body affects us as much as the strongest cord.  If someone is weak in the Lord, a Christian still living on milk with a Peter Pan "I'll Never Grow Up" mentality, we must not turn up our nose or roll our eyes at his immaturity, no matter how long he's spent in the spiritual nursery.  Instead, we must strive to strengthen that individual, to strengthen that part of our community in the Lord.

The church seeing itself as a community of believers bound together in a collective identity is of vital importance for unity and effectiveness in a lost and dying world. 

Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover



1.  Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding  Your Place at the Table of Tradition.  Nashville: Lifeway P, 2008: p. 64-65.

A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call

When I think of a trumpet blowing, I envision an old episode of MASH when Major Frank Burns and Major Margaret Houlihan run the Army campy.  Under their rigid command, poor Radar is required to jolt awake the camp each morning with a frightful ramble of missed notes played on his near tuneless bugle.  What a wake up call.

The trumpet blast, though, served a purpose--it is a warning, a signal that change is coming, a reminder to be on alert.

For the Biblical Feast of Trumpets (otherwise known as Rosh Hashanah), the trumpet is used in a similar way.

Scripture says, “On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord” (Lev. 23:24-25).

This is the first of the "fall" feasts, and, in Jewish tradition, would begin with the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet of sorts carved out of the horn of a ram (or antelope).  On Rosh Hashanah, the shofar would be blown 100 times in a series, each series including "one long blast, three medium wails, and nine short bursts."

That's a lot of horn blowing.  The point, though, is to make sure everyone hears the sounding trumpet, for all to be warned and reminded of what is to come.  And, in the Jewish calendar, "what's to come" is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement ten days later, a day on which Israel's sins are judged for another whole year.  (Lev. 23:27-32). 

Imagine having ten days to prepare your soul for an annual meeting with the Lord.  You would likely spend those ten days doing everything in your power to make your soul clean, performing acts of kindness, and being on your best behavior.  As you might expect, those ten days between Rosh Hashanah (the blowing of the trumpets) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are filled with much reflection, prayer, repentance, making right any wrongs, and repairing broken relationships.

The Talmud (a Jewish book of history, legend, & tradition) recounts that on Rosh Hashanah, three books are opened--one for the "utterly wicked," another for the "absolutely righteous," and a third for the "tweeners" who, as their name suggests, aren't completely evil or completely righteous.  For ten days, that last group's book is left open so they can get their accounts right with God and their names transferred into the Book of Life.1

However, those of us who are believers in Christ know that this tradition of doing good works to move one's name to the Book of Life is not the truth God intended when He established this Feast.  As Paul stated, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Eph. 2:8-10).  In essence, Christians are definitely called upon to do works out of their love for Christ, but not because those works will earn them a ticket into heaven.  Only faith in Christ alone can transfer one from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son (Col. 1:13).

What God did intend for His children to see in this Feast was how hopeless they were to save themselves, how they could never do enough to save themselves.  

 Likewise, the Feast was also to serve as a reminder that we must be ready because we know not when the day of salvation and judgment is.

Before that Great Day of Atonement when all mankind stands before the great white throne of judgment, there will be a trumpet blast telling us of Jesus' return to earth.  Scripture says,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1 Cor. 15:52).

Additionally, in the end, there will be a great judgment with books.  John says, "And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books" (Rev. 20:12).  Even Daniel saw "ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened" (Dan. 7:10).

The difference between when Christ returns as Judge and King and the others Days of Atonement throughout the rest of history?  This time, we won't be given ten days to make our hearts right with Him.  This time, if our souls aren't ready, it will be too late and no amount of good deeds will make any difference.  One's present level of faith in Christ at the time of the trumpet blast is what will be judged.

As such, the Feast of Trumpets should remind us of our need to live in a constant state of readiness to meet our Lord.  That morning wake up call is coming.  Unlike when Radar played on his bugle, this time, the piercing blast will be perfectly in tune and will literally be the shot heard round the world.

For some, it will be a sound of much anticipated joy.  For others, it will be a sound of damnation.

Rabbi Derek Leman puts it so beautifully: "Rosh Hashanah is a reminder that we all have a limited time on earth.  Just like the 10 days between the blowing of the trumpets and Yom Kippur, we are all living in the meantime.  The only question is how we will spend it."2

(Click on the YouTube video above to hear just one "series" of blasts on a traditional shofar.)


Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover



1.  Nadler, Sam. Feasts of the Bible. "Feast of Trumpets."  Video. Torrance: Rose P, 2011.
2.  Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding Your Place at the Table of Tradition.  Nashville: Lifeway, 2008: p. 62

Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' Or Worship?

Each Saturday evening while my three children slough off a pound of farm dirt from the day's hard play and labor, I begin my routine of preparation for the following Lord's day.  This night-before gathering to meet the next morning's mad dash started when the twins were infants.  With diapers, burp cloths, blankets, loveys, chew toys, an extra set of clothes, bottles, cheerio puffs, and pacifiers (all times two), I quickly learned this preparation made all the difference in whether our family arrived to worship or merely arrived at church.

Experience taught me it wasn't enough just to wake up early.  No matter how early I set the clock, Sunday morning would always exude a tinge of madness and, usually, more than a little chaos.  If milk is spilled, clothes are soiled before breakfast, or something essential is misplaced--this is the day it will happen.
 
That is why each Saturday before I slip my aching arches beneath the sheets, three sets of small shoes line up across the foot of the treadmill, each with matching shoes and stockings tucked in the toes.  Two crisply ironed shirts, two pairs of pressed dress slacks, and one equally wrinkle-free little lady dress swing back and forth immediately above those foot-covers.

By the back door sit a bag of after-church play clothes for dinner at Grand mama's house as well as a second bag filled with the lesson and necessary craft supplies for my four-year-old Sunday School class.

Without such preparation, I would either arrive at church in a foul mood or would throw up my hands in defeat.

As I've been working through the seven Biblical feasts, I've noticed a similar pattern in what God's chosen people did for many of these annual times of worship.

They prepared.  

In essence, preparation was the key to proper worship.

Consider the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread, which begins the day after Passover.  Before its celebration, the Jewish people obeyed the command in Deuteronomy 16:3-4, which required the community to clean their homes of any products containing leaven: "Let no yeast be found in your possession in all your land for seven days." 

Such an action symbolized God's people separating themselves from sin, literally "removing" sin from their homes and, by extension, from their hearts.  That means any packaged foods in the house containing yeast, baking powder, baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate had to be removed.  Imagine going through all your cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer, and reading all the labels to determine if a leavening agent were in the pre-packaged food.  It's a bit like Spring Cleaning, and we all know how long that can take if done properly.

That's preparation for worship.

Even Jesus, Himself, spoke of the importance of preparation when discussing the Feast of Passover. He instructed Peter to "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover,"  and Peter replied, "Where do you want us to prepare for it?" (Lk. 22:8-9).

Scripture records Jesus giving a series of instructions that concluded with the words, "Make preparations there.”  The disciples then "left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover" (Lk. 22:12-13).

Four times in this short passage, Luke emphasized the preparation necessary for a proper celebration of this Feast of remembrance, this Feast of worship.
 
Another Feast that emphasizes preparation is the Feast of Trumpets, more commonly known in modern terminology as Rosh Hashanah.  This one-day Feast importantly announces the coming of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) in ten days.  With the blast of the trumpet, the Jewish community begins to prepare their hearts for God's judgment.

As Rabbi Derek Leman says of this Holy Day, "The sins of the nation would be judged for another year on Yom Kippur.  On that day the high priest would bring blood into the holiest place that no one else entered.  And every year the question was the same: Would God receive Israel's offering?  Would He grant mercy and grace another year?...Traditionally the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur [The Day of Atonement] is called 'The Ten Days of Awe.'  That week and a half is a time for self-reflection, to repair relationships, and to pray in light of one's own standing before God.  These are days of repentance" (p. 57).

Again, the Feast and Holy Day emphasized preparation for worship.

Do you see a pattern here in God's call for His people to worship?

It wasn't just a "Hey, mark your calendar and show up on X day" kind of event.  Instead, each Feast, each Holy Day was about preparing one's heart (and home, by extension) for worship.

Compare this to our generation.  As a general rule, we don't prepare for worship.  Instead, we waltz in on Sunday morning, expecting to receive God's blessing, to receive an enlightened message from His Word, to feel His Spirit move within......and all without really preparing our hearts for worship.

Worship isn't just about showing up at a certain place and time.  True worship should involve us continually preparing our hearts for meeting with God.

He is holy.  He is worthy of such preparation.


Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover

Source: Leman, Derek. Feast: Finding Yourself at the Table of Tradition. Nashville: Lifeway P, 2008: p.57.