JUDAISM AND THE FESTIVALS OF THE LORD
From the book "Festivals of the Jewish Year" by Theodor H.
Gaster, written in 1952/53.
(Remember you are reading Judism, which have some things correct,
but many things wrong, and added traditions, that have no support
from the Scriptures - Keith Hunt)
YOM KIPPUR
The Day of Atonement
Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, is at the
same time the most persistently misundertood of Jewish
institutions. To nine out of ten Jews, it is "the Day of
Atonement," and its purpose is to provide an opportunity year by
year, of obtaining divine forgiveness of sin by means of
appropriate penitence and prayer.
(In God's systematic festival year, this would be the Passover
feast and Days of Unleavened Bread feast - Keith Hunt)
The traditional devotions of the day serve, indeed, to
encourage this impression, for they are couched throughout in
terms of entreaty to a celestial judge about to pass sentence on
wayward man. Favorite images are those of the suppliant hammering
on the doors of heaven, and of the prisoner pleading desperately
for his life.
The fact is, however, that this conventional view represents
but a half-truth. The ultimate purpose of Yom Kippur, as the
Bible states expressly (Lev. 16:30), is not merely to cleanse men
of sin, but to cleanse them before the Lord - i.e., to wipe out,
year by year, "the world's slow stain," to restore them to that
state of wholeness and holiness which is a condition of their
fulfilling their function in the world and of serving as
effective co-workers of God. The whole process of introspection,
confession and atonement, the so-called "affliction of soul,"
with which the day has come to be identified, is, in the final
analysis, simply a means to an end - the removal of an initial
impediment.
Moreover, the regeneration which Yom Kippur is designed to
accomplish is effected from within, not from without - by man's
own effort, not by an external power. It is the inevitable result
of his strenuously fanning into flame that divine spark which is
always and innately within him but which usually lies smothered
beneath the dust of his mortality. To put it another way, God
works within man, not upon him; and the whole picture of the
heavenly tribunal, with God as the presiding magistrate and man
as the defendant craving His pardon, is nothing but a survival of
outmoded mythology, an unfortunate, if picturesque, relic of that
more primitive stage of thought wherein man was conceived as the
vassal rather than the partner of God, and wherein the triumphs
and defeats of his spiritual adventure were reduced to terms of
rewards and punishments. Taken as poetry, this traditional
imagery may be useful and convenient; taken literally, it is
dangerous distortion.
For Israel, this annual process of regeneration possesses a
special significance. Israel is committed by the Covenant to
serve as the special steward of the Torah, the agent and exemplar
of the divine dispensation in the world of men. Wholeness and
holiness are conditions of that commitment: "Ye shall be holy
unto Me; for I the Lord am holy, and have set you apart from the
peoples, that ye should be Mine (Lev. 20:26). Any diminution of
them - any tarnishing of the divine by the corruption of the
human - is therefore not only an individual offense, a blot on
individual character, but also a breach of the Covenant, a
positive impediment to the discharge of its obligations.
Conversely, any individual enhancement of them is at the
same time a contribution to the collective endeavor.
For this reason, Yom Kippur is a public institution as well
as a private experience. The confessions which are recited on
this day are couched, significantly enough, in the first person
plural; and what is envisaged is a purification not only of
individual souls but also of the whole House of Israel.
THB BIBLICAL RITUAL
From the historical point of view, it is the collective
character of the day that is at once its oldest and its most
important element.
The earliest account of Yom Kippur that that we possess
in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Leviticus, where it is
said to have been instituted by Moses in connection with the
tabernacle erected in the wilderness. Although this account
seems in fact to have been written centuries later, the
ceremonies which it describes are all premised on primitive modes
of thought and therefore not improbably go back to a remote
antiquity.
The ritual is performed by the high priest called "Aaron,"
and its purpose is to purify priests, laymen and sanctuary once a
year. The purification is conceived, however, in physical rather
than spiritual terms, and consists in the performance of
elaborate rites designed to remove taint and contagion. The
measure adopted include ablutions (vss. 4, 24, 26, 28); sacr-
fices (vss. S-6, 11, 15) ; fum (vss. I2-13) ; aspersions of
sacrificial blood (vss. 14-15, 18-i 9) ; and chan ges of raiment,
(vss. 4, 23); and culminate in the dispatch into the desert of
a scapegoat to whom the collective sins of the community
have een previously transferred (vss. 10, 20-22). 1 The Hebrew
term for such eliminatory procedures is "kippurim," and it is
from
this that the day derives its name. Although, to be sure, the
confession and shriving of sin bulks largely in the program, sin,
at this level of thought is considered primarily as miasma, and
"yom kippurim" is thus a day of purgation rather than of
atonement.
The general form and spirit of this ritual can be ready
paralleled from other parts of the world. Perhaps the best
instances come from Babylon andJapan respectively. On the fifth
day of their ten-day New Year festival, the ancient Babylonians
performed a rite which they called "kuppuru," or "purgation." A
ram was beheaded, and its body was rubbed against the walls of
one of the main chapels of the temple, in order thereby to absorb
any latent impurity. Head and trunk were then tossed into the
river, the officiating priest and the slaughterer being sent into
the desert or outside the city, there to observe a quarantine
until the end of the celebrations.
At the same time, the temple and its precincts were
......
1 The goat is said (vas. 8, 10) to be consigned to Azazel, but
the meaning of this term is unknown. According to some Jewish
authorities, it is the name of a rock off which the animal was
hurled; according to others, it is the name of a demon who was
believed to inhabit the wilderness. The ancient versions,
however, tried to explain the word from the Hebrew "ex ozel,"
"goat which departs," and from this interpretation comes the
conventional scapegoat, i.e., "escape-goat"
......
aspersed with holy water and fumigated; while on the following
day, the king - as the vessel and steward of the communal life -
was required to make confession of his sins, and a condemned
criminal was paraded through the streets and beaten about the
head as a human scapegoat.
The Japanese ceremony--called "Ohoharahi," or "Great
Purgation," takes place in every Shinto temple throughout the
land on June 30 and December 31, the last days respectively of
the two major seasons into which the year is divided. The
ceremony is performed, in the name of the Mikado, by a member of
the priestly clan of the nakatomi, and consists in a formal
confession of sins (especially those committed by officials) and
a symbolic banishment of them. The sins are reeled off in a
lengthy catalogue and are banished by being transferred to such
objects as rags, rice stalks or animal hides, which are
eventually thrown into the river. Alternatively, everyone
provides himself with a life-sized paper doll (kata-shiro) on
which he writes his name and the year and month of his birth.
These are rubbed against the body and breathed on, so that each
penitent's personal sins may be transferred to them. At the end
of the ceremony, the dolls are tied together in bundles and
thrown into the streams, while the deities of mountain torrents,
winds and tides, and - finally - of the nether regions are bidden
to carry them away.
(So, was it that God's Festivals were known from past ages or
even from the beginning, and hence various nations as they moved
from the cradle of civilization, still carried a form of some of
the Lord's festivals. It would seem from history that this is so
- Keith Hunt)
Nor is it only in general spirit that the Hebrew ceremony
conforms to a fairly universal patter. Its several details
likewise possess abundant analogies elsewhere. Thus, the
prescription that the high priest must first bathe and put on
clean garments goes back to the primitive notion that moral
impurity takes a physical form and attaches both to the person
and to the clothing. In Peru, for example, penitents had, after
confession, once to don fresh raiment, and the same practice
still obtains in the Brahman ceremony of "avabhrta" which
concludes the annual expiatory rite known as "varunapraghasa."
Similarly, in the Orientalizing cults of the late Roman Empire,
penitents used to immerse themselves in the waters of the Tiber;
in Mexico, adulteresses are often obliged to change their clothes
after making confession.
FUMIGATION
The use of fumigation as a means of purging impurity
likewise reflects common primitive usage and likewise goes back
to the idea that moral defection implies physical uncleanness. In
India, newborn children are often fumigated from the impurities
of that other world whence they have come into this, and in the
Avesta--the scripture of the ancient Iranians--it is prescribed
that the house of a dead person must be similarly treated in
order to remove the miasma of death. In the same way, too, the
Greeks used to fumigate their dwellings as a means of keeping off
witches; and in the apocryphal Book of Tobit (8:3) the archdemon
Ashmedai is driven away by smoke.
SPRINKLING OF BLOOD
Common is aLso the rite of sprinkling blood, though its
precise significance is disputed. According o some scholars, the
purpose was negative, viz., to remove "bad blood," and in support
of this view it is pointed out that "blood-letting" as a means of
releasing impurity is indeed common among many primitive peoples,
e.g., the Bechuana of Central Africa, the Yuchis of South
America, the Aztecs of Mexico, and various tribes in China, Peru,
Nicaragua and Guatemala. Other scholars contend, however, that
the purpose of the rite was positive, viz., symbolically to
infuse "new blood" into that which had become tainted and
impaired. Whichever of the two interpretations we adopt, it is
plain that this element of the ceremony reflects a primitive
usage which was indeed already little more than a survival at the
time when our account was written.
(AH, again, looks like much of the physical rites of God's
people before Moses, and even before Abraham, was carried into
the nations as they moved from the craddle of civilization in the
Middle-East - Keith Hunt)
PUBLIC CONFESSION
As for public confession of sins a few examples will
suffice.
In ancient Peru, each of the major agricultural festivals
was preceded by a public recital of misdeeds committed by members
of the community; and the same procedure is still observed, once
a year, by the Kagaba of Sierra Nevada, the Orondanza (an
Iroquois tribe), the Bechuana, the Ojibwa of Lake Superior, and
by several other North American Indians. In most cases, the
confession is recited by the heaD man or chief priest on behalf
of the assembled people, transferring sin or evil to a
scapegoat and the discussion of it fills a bulky volume of Sir
Frazer's "The Golden Bough." We may therefore content ourselves
with but two representative examples, the one ancient and the
other modern.
At the ancient Greek festival of Thargelia, held in May, two
human scapegoats were ceremonially scourged out of the city--a
misshapen man or condemned felon for the male, and a deformed
woman for the female population; while among the Garos of Assam,
a goat and monkey (or bamboo rat) are sacrificed annually as
vicarious bearers of sin and evil, in order to insure prosperity
for the coming year
Sometimes, too, this rite is performed not at a fixed season
of the year but at an occasional moment of crisis, when the
continuance of life or fortune seems to be threatened by some
conscious or unconscious infringement of the moral order. Thus,
it is customary among Malagasy whalers to observe an eight-day
period of purification and to confess their sins to one another
before embarking on a fishing expedition. Among the Caffres of
South Africa, whenever a man is critically ill, it is the
practice to take a goat, confess over it the sins of the entire
kraal and then turn it loose on the veldt. Similarly, when
calamity strikes the Dinkas of the White Nile, they load the evil
upon a sacred cow and drive it across the river.
THE SCAPE GOAT
The essential thing about all these ceremonies is that they
are designed not for the benefit of individuals but of society
and, indeed of mankind in general. Their object is not to
regenerate the souls of transgressors but to repair the harm
which their transgressions inflict upon the commonweal. They are
orientated from the standpoint not of the sinner but of that
which is sinned against, not of the offender but of the offended;
and that is why they are public, communal procedures rather than
mere private personal experiences.
The customary confession of sins, for example, is not an act
of individual atonement but an element in the process of
collective purgation; it is simply an inventory of the several
taints and impurities of which the community has to be
disencumbered.
It is in this way, too, that the rite of the scapegoat is
really to be understood. Unfortunately, the term has been greatly
abused in recent years - especially by publicists and political
propagandists - and the belief has grown up that a scapegoat is
simply someone whom you blame for your own mistakes and who is
made to bear the burden of them. This, however, distorts the
whole meaning of the institution. The essential point about the
scapegoat is that it removes from the community the taint and
impurity of sins which have first to be openly and fully
confessed. There is no question of transferring to it either
blame or responsibility; the sole issue is how to get rid of the
miasma of transgressions which one freely acknowledges. In the
case of private individuals, this can be accomplished by a
process of personal contrition, repentance and regeneration, but
in that of a community the problem is far more complex, for there
can be no assurance that every single person will indeed undergo
that process; latent impurity may therefore remain, and the taint
of one affects all.
There is thus only one method of securing clearance, namely,
to pronounce a comprehensive, blanket confession of sins and to
saddle the comprehensive taint upon some person, animal or object
which will be forcibly expelled and thereby take away. This and
this alone is the real purpose of the rite. Nor is it only for
the benefit of man that these periodic rites are performed. In
primitive thought, the actions of men very largely determine the
course of nature. If, by their remissness or misconduct, they
impair the harmony or upset the equilibrium of the universe, the
sun will not recover its strength after the winter, the rains
will not fall in due season, there will be no increase of crops
or cattle, and eventually the whole of creation will go to rack
and ruin. Accordingly, the removal of impurity, the clearance of
sin, and what we may call the "rehabilitation of impaired
holiness" are regarded as necessary conditions for the
maintenance and continuance of the world order, and it is equally
in this spirit and conviction that they are periodically
undertaken.
On a purely literal level of interpretation, one might say
that these rites are simply a form of communal "spring cleaning"
or, at best, a means of removing the consequences of breaking
taboos.
But such interpretations, though all too common, merely
scratch the surface; they describe rather than explain. What is
really involved, what conditions the taboos in the first place,
is the deeper sense that where holiness is sullied, there, too,
is life itself impaired, and that no continuance can be expected
unless and until the taint is removed.
(Again, did the various nations leave the cradle of civilization
with the rites that God had instituted for His people, and
through time they saw changes and adaptions, as they lost the
knowledge of truth and purity and began to be influenced by the
demonic world. It would very much seem so - Keith Hunt)
Behind these periodic ceremonies of purgation and
elimination there lies a consciousness - as Gilbert Murray has
expressed it - that "man, though he desperately needs bread, does
not live by bread alone, but longs for a new life, a new age ...
not stained by the deaths and impurities of the past."
THE ORIGINAL
Into the ancient, time-honored ceremony Israel read a new
meaning. (Really the old original meaning with God - Keith Hunt).
The essential thing about it became the fact that it had
to be performed "in the presence of the Lord." This means that it
was no longer a mere mechanical act of purgation, a mere riddance
and dispatch of impurity. The people had now to be cleansed not
for themselves but for their God: before Jehovah shall ye be
clean (Lev. 16:30). Sin and corruption were now regarded as
impediments not merely to their material welfare and prosperity
but to the fulfillment of their duty to God and of their
obligations under the Covenant. If the dispatch of the scapegoat
could serve to expel the actual contagion, it had still to be
supplemented by an act of expiation before Jehovah; a
sin-offering, too, had to be presented.
Moreover, the waving of frankincense, which had originally
been but a means of fumigation, was now interpreted as designed
to interpose a smoke screen between the glory of God, hidden
behind the Veil, and the mortality of the high priest: "He shall
place the incense, in addition to the fire, before Jehovah, that
the cloud of the incense may cover the veil which is upon the
(ark of) the testimony, and that he may not die" (Lev. 16:13).
Translated into broad terms, what the Israelite
transformation affirmed was that impairment of holiness not
only impeded the prosperity of men but also inflicted injury upon
God. For to the extent that a man was tainted and sullied, he
lost his effectiveness as an instrument of, and partner in, the
divine plan. Accordingly, when once impurity had been introduced
either into a human being or into anything dedicated to the
service of God, more was necessary than a mere removal of it;
something had also to be done to make restitution to God, or, at
least, to repair the damaged relationship with Him. Not only
expiation but also propitiation was now required; not only the
scapegoat but also the sin-offering.
This conception revolutionized the entire approach to evil.
For loss of holiness, or moral turpitude, was now no longer a
matter of mere personal and communal degeneration nor was its
consequence mere personal misfortune; it was a crime against the
Kingdom of God, and the expiation of it therefore involved
atonement as well as purgation. The dominant motif now changed
perceptibly from mere disinfection and decontamination to
reconciliation and truce with God. The entire frame of reference
was enlarged. What was now sought through the traditional rite
was not only clearance but also forgiveness; evil was something
which had to be shriven as well as repaired, and repentance
became not only a process of inner rehabilitation but also a
positive "return" to the service of God.
THE CLOUD OF SMOKE
Nor this alone. The Israelite development of the ancient
ritual also brought home another important and universal truth.
Even the high priest, for all his elaborate purifications and for
all his entry, this once in the year, into the very holy of
holies itself, could not behold the full glory of God, which
remained hidden behind a cloud of smoke. What is here affirmed,
albeit in primitive terms, is that the attainment of holiness can
be, at best, but partial, and that, given the limitations of
human existence, the religious quest can never actually reach its
goal, its value and validity lying in the search itself. The
religious adventure consists essentially in a continuous effort
to reach beyond, but the making of this effort, far from being
futile, itself expands the nature of man to its maximum extent.
Moreover - and this is supremely significant - the cloud
which is finally interposed between the glory of God and the
mortality of man is not the dense, black smoke of the mundane but
the thin vapor which issues from two handfuls of incense and from
a few coals taken off the altar itself. So long as the Temple
stood in Jerusalem, the Day of Atonement was mainly a temple
celebration. The manner of its observance during the time of the
Second Temple is described in detail in a special treatise of the
Mishnah, entitled Yoma, or "The Day."
Particular care was taken to insure that the high priest
would not incur impurity during the preceding night, thus
rendering himself unfit to perform the ceremony. He was kept
awake by Scriptural readings and expositions, and whenever he
seemed inclined to doze, younger members of the priesthood would
crack their finger joints beside him or force him to pace up and
down on the cold stone.
DISPATCHING THE SCAPEGOAT
The ceremony of dispatching the scapgoat was carried out in
particularly picturesque fashion. As soon as the lots had been
cast, the goat which felL to Azazel was marked by a crimson
thread tied around its head.
The task of leading it away was assigned to a member of the
priesthood on the grounds that, however disagreeable it might be,
this was still a sacred office and should therefore not be
delegated to a layman. A special causeway was constructed for the
purpose, in order to prevent the heathen from laying hold on the
animal and trying to use it for the expiation of their sins. The
goat was taken to a ravine some twelve miles outside of
Jerusalem, the journey being divided into ten stages, each but
the last marked by a booth. For the first nine stages
the officiant was accompanied by dignitaries of the city, but
from that point on he had to travel alone. When he reached the
edge of the ravine, he divided the crimson thread, tying one part
of it to the rock and the other between the horns of the goat.
Then he pushed the animal from behind till it went rolling down,
"and," says the Mishnah, "ere it reached half-way, it was broken
to pieces." The officiant then returned to the last booth and
remained there in quarantine until nightfall, the successful
conclusion of the ceremony being indicated to the high priest in
the Temple by the waving of towels from easily visible lookout
posts.
RECITAL OF CONFESSION
An equally important feature of th ceremonies was the
recital of the Confession. A prescribed formula was used. When he
offered the sin-offering for the priestly household, the high
priest pressed his hands upon it and proclaimed: O God, I have
committed iniquity, transgressed and sinned before Thee, I and my
household. O God, forgive the iniquities and transgressions and
sins which I have committed and transgressed and sinned before
Thee, I and my household, even as it is written in the Law of Thy
servant Moses: 'For on this day shall he make atonement for you,
to cleanse of all your sins; ye shall be clean before Jehovah'"
(Lev. 16:30). The same formula was likewise repeated over the
scapegoat except, of course, that the guilty persons were then
identified as the entire House of Israel. In each case, when he
came to the final word of the Scriptural quotation, the high
priest pronounced it as it was written, instead of substituting
for it the usual reverential paraphrase "the Lord" (Adonai). This
utterance of the otherwise ineffable name was, in a sense, the
high point of the entire service. "When," says the Mishnah, "the
priests and the people who were standing in the courtyard heard
the Ineffable Name issuing from the mouth of the high priest in
purity and holiness, they bowed and prostrated themselves and
fell upon their faces and said: Blessed be the name of Him whose
glorious majesty endures for ever!"
THE HAPPY SIDE TO ATONEMENT FEAST
But there was also, curiously enough, a gayer dise to the
Day of Atonement. On that day, the Mishnah tells us, 2 it was
customary for the girls of Jerusalem to dress up in spotless
white finery and to go out and dance in the vineyards in order to
attract suitors. As the young men gathered around them, they
would raise their voices and chant: "Lift your eyes, pick your
prize;/ Care for race, and not for face!" and they would quote
the Scriptures (Prov. 31:30) to prove that, since "charm is
deceitful and beauty vain," it is inner virtue, and not outward
grace, that should count in choosing a bride! This ceremony, so
utterly incongruous with the general spirit of penitence and
austerity, is probably to be explained as a survival in popular
usage of the common primitive practice of mass-mating around the
time of harvest. The idea behind this practice is that such
mating promotes the fertility of mankind and even the fecundity
of the earth at that annual moment of crisis when the collective
life of the community and of the
......
2 Ta'anith IV, 8.
......
world seems to hang in the balance. Thus - to cite but a few
instances - among the Hereros of German Southwest Africa and
among various Bantu tribes, mass-mating and sexual promiscuity
are obligatory at specific seasons of the year; and the Garos of
Assam encourage men and women to consort together at certain
major agricultural festivals. Similarly, in some parts of the
Ukraine, couples copulate openly in the fields on St. George's
Day (April 23) in order to promote the growth of the crops; and
at Arcal and Santo Tirso in Portugal they perform the rite of
rebolada or "rolling together" before the reaping of the flax in
May. The familiar Classical legend of the rape of the Sabine
women probably reflects this usage, for the incident is said to
have taken place at a festival (possibly the Consualia) in
August; and such may also be the basis of the Biblical tale
(Judg. 21:16-23) relating how the men of Benjamin carried off the
women of Shiloh on the occasion of a seasonal celebration.
There are many attenuated survivals of this custom in
European and Oriental folklore. In certain parts of England, for
instance, girls may be lifted up and kissed with impunity on May
15; and at Hungerford, in Berkshire, the second Thursday after
Easter is "hocking day" when the "tutti-men" go about the streets
lifting up or "hocking" (cf. German hoch, "high") the women and
exacting a kiss from each. A more usual form of attenuation,
however, is the belief that certain days are auspicious for
selecting husbands or wives. Thus, in some parts of England, St.
Roch's Day (August 16) is especially favored for this purpose,
while elsewhere St. Luke's Day (October 18 ) is similarly
regarded. In the same way, too, it is the custom in Spanish
Galicia for girls to repair at harvest time to a duly selected
barn, where their ardent swains attend upon them; while among the
Thompson River Indians of British Columbia, husbands and wives
are chosen at a seasonal festival held in the socalled "spring
house." It is such an attenuated form of the primitive
institution that is to be recognized, in all likelihood, in the
usage mentioned in the Mishnah.
(The Feast of Atonement surely does have a LIGHT HAPPY side to
it. It pictures the time when the world will be at-one with God,
when sin and Satan will be banished, so to speak, for 1,000
years. It will be a time of holy correct romance, in a figure,
the man being God, and woman, being romanced, the nations of the
world, as they come to love the Eternal God. It is written, the
knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover
the sea beds. There is truly a joy and wonderful emotion of a man
with a woman. In type then, God with the world at-one with Him.
Like all things good and holy, this idea no doubt got sulified
and abused with carnal lust in nations as they retained the
original, though in time perverted, and moved away from the
cradle of civilization. Possibly indeed, the Jews were able to
retain the purity of it all. Certainly there is a joyous side to
the Feast of ATONEMENT, and a side of sorrow and what must
translate for the nations before they can be at-one with God;
that I have spoken about in other studies for this feast day -
Keith Hunt)
THE SYNAGOGUE SERVICES
When the Temple was destroyed in o C.E., and sacrifices came
to an end, the traditional Day of Purgation necessarily underwent
a profound change. The taint and corruption which were anciently
removed, from year to year, by the almost mechanical ritual of
the scapegoat and the sin-offering, had now to be purged by a
process of personal catharsis, involving the successive stages of
contrition, confession, reform and absolution. At the same time,
the collective character of the institution remained paramount.
.................
Judaism and the Feast of Atonement #2The community confession of Sin! JUDAISM AND THE FEAST OF ATONEMENT #2
From the book "Festivals of the Jewish Year" by Gaster, written
in 1952/53.
(Remember Judaism is a mixture of truth, error, and adoptions and
adaptions of traditions - Keith Hunt)
THE SYNAGOGUE SERVICES
When the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., and sacrifices
came to an end, the traditional Day off Purgation necessarily
underwent a profound change. The taint and corruption which were
anciently removed, from year to year, by the almost mechanical
ritual of the scapegoat and the sin-offering, had now to be
purged by a process of personal catharsis, involving the
successive stages of contrition, confession, reform and
absolution. At the same time, the collective character of the
institution remained paramount. When the community declared in
the statutory confessions of the day, "we have robbed, we have
slandered, we have committed adultery," it was their collective
conscience that was speaking, and what they were acknowledging
were not merely individual misdeeds, but collective defilement of
their character as an "holy nation and a kingdom of priests."
In this there was no inconsistency, for Israel never
elevated the collective to the status of an independent,
transcendental entity. It was but the aggregate of individuals.
The taint which had to be removed might be one that infected the
entire community, but it was entailed and occasioned by
individual misdeeds and could be removed only by individual
regeneration. This conception has endured to the present day. The
Jew who attends the synagogal services on Yom Kippur is not
merely attending a public exercise but actively participating in
a collective effort; and it is upon such individual participation
that the success of the collective enterprise depends.
The Day of Atonement is described in the Bible as "a sab-
bath of sabbaths" (Lev. 16:3 1). It is marked by a rigorous
fast--an interpretation of the Biblical command to "afflict your
souls" (ibid.)--and by abstention from all work and normal
occupations from sunset to sunset. The fast may be broken, and
the abstention from work infringed, only in case of serious
illness or where life is imperilled. The preceding evening and
the whole of the day are devoted to religious services in the
synagogue, and more religions Jews even spend the intervening
night reciting psalms, meditation, or studying the treatise of
the Talmud relating to the holy day.
In most communities - though, curiously enough, not in
Jerusalem--the prayer-shawl (tallith), which is normally worn
only in the morning, is also worn at the afternoon and evening
devotions, and it is a common custom for the rabbi, cantor and
married men of the congregation to don the long white robe of
purity (kittel) which eventually serves also as their shroud. The
latter may not be embellished with any form of ornament,
especially not with a golden neckband, for this would recall the
idolatry of the Golden Calf. It is likewise customary to cloak
the scrolls of the Law in white mantles, to deck with a white
curtain the "ark" or closet in which they are contained, and to
spread white cloths over the cantor's reading desk and the
pulpit. For this reason the day is sometimes known as "the White
Fast," in contrast with "the Black Fast" of the Ninth of Ab, when
the synagogue is draped in mourning.
Pious Jews remove their shoes, or wear felt slippers, and
remain standing from the beginning until the end of the services.
Throughout the day, the ark of the Law is kept open and the
cantor is flanked by two honorary assistants (seganim) ready to
lead the prayers, should he fall sick or falter.
The devotions begin, a few minutes before sunset, with a
solemn declaration pronounced from the rostrum by the rabbi and
two of the more learned members of the congregation, each holding
a scroll of the Law in his arms and each covering his head with
the prayer-shawl. Constituting themselves an ad hoc rabbinical
tribunal, they announce that "with the consent of the Court on
High and with the consent of the court below, with the knowledge
of God and with the knowledge of the congregation, we declare it
permissible to pray alongside of transgressors." The formula is
repeated three times, the three men uttering it in unison. Its
purpose is to invite even the most recalcitrant Jew to return to
the fold on this sacred day and at the same time to absolve his
brethren from the normal duty of keeping him at arm's length. It
is believed to have originated at the time of the Spanish
Inquisition, and to have been designed to permit forced converts
to rejoin their brethren, albeit clandestinely, on this sacred
day.
All but one of the scrolls of the Law are then removed from
the ark (for the ark may never be left entirely empty) and
carried in procession to the rostrum. When they are all
assembled, the cantor begins the service proper with the
chanting, to a traditional South German melody of the sixteenth
century, of an Aramaic formula called from its opening words Kol
Nidrei ("All vows"). This is simply a more elaborate form of the
abjuration made during the preceding afternoon (see above, p.
133). It has come down to us in two versions. The older version,
adopted by the Sephardim, is retroactive, referring to all vows
contracted from the previous to the present Day of Atonement; the
more modern, adopted by the Ashkenazim, is prospective, referring
to all vows which may be contracted between the present Day of
Atonement and the next. The formula is recited three times:
first, in a whisper; then in a somewhat louder voice, and
finally, in clear, resonant tones, symbolizing the initial
trepidation and gradually developing confidence of the suppliant
who approaches the throne of God. The recitation must begin while
the sun is still on the horizon, and must be timed to end when it
has finally sunk.
The formal abjuration of vows (Kol Nidrei) appears to have
originated in the Orient at some time between the sixth and tenth
centuries, but the recital of it was consistently opposed by the
highest rabbinic authorities and was not permitted in the seats
of the leading academies on the grounds that it might encourage
the charge that Jews forswear their obligations in advance or
subsequently revoke them. Because anti-Semites have indeed used
it to bolster such an accusation, the recital of it has now been
discontinued by modern Reform congregations. At the same time,
those who defend the custom have repeatedly pointed out that the
formula refers only to vows which have been forgotten, since,
according to the express statement of the Mishnah, those which
are indeed remembered cannot be annulled even by the Day of
Atonement but, once made, must be faithfully fulfilled.
When the scrolls have been returned to the ark, the regular
evening service begins. In this case, however, it is expanded by
the inclusion of special penitential prayers (Selihoth, see
above, p.125) and by the recital, first privately and then
publicly, of the great confession of sins.
The Confession (Yiddui) is the primary feature of the
Atonement liturgy, and is included in each of the services of the
day. It consists in an alphabetical catalogue of sins coupled
with prayers for pardon. The Confession is essentially
collective, and is couched throughout in the first person plural,
e.g. "We have trespassed, we have erred," etc.
There are two forms. The one, known as "the Minor
Confession" (Yiddui ze'ira), contains, as a rule, but one Hebrew
word for each letter of the alphabet, e.g., we have aggressed,
betrayed, cheated, defamed, erred ... intrigued, lied, mocked,
etc. It is first recited silently, then repeated aloud and in
concert; and it is customary to cover the head with the
prayer-shawl and to beat the breast as each of the sins is named.
The other form, called "the Major Confession" (Vid-dui
rabbd), contains two complete sentences for each letter of the
alphabet. Each sentence is introduced by the phrase: "For the sin
which we have sinned in Thy presence," and the whole is
punctuated at regular intervals by the refrain:
For all of these, O Thou forgiving God,
Pardon us, and shrive us, and forgive!
The scheme may be best conveyed by the following excerpts:
For the sins which we have sinned in Thy presence through
blindness of judgment, through blasphemy of tongue; through
carnal concupiscence, clandestinely or clearly; designedly,
deliberately, through open declaration; through exploitation of
others; through encitement of lust; through impurity of mouth,
through incontinence of speech; knowingly, unknowingly,
through kneeling to base instinct; through lying and deceiving;
through laying hands on bribes; through mockery and malison;
through malice and malevolence; through venomous vendettas,
through voiding vows ... For all of these, O thou forgiving God,
Pardon us, and shrive us, and forgive!
This catalogue is followed in turn by a further listing of
sins according to the traditionally prescribed punishments, e.g.,
presentation of a guilt-offering, burnt-offering, or
sin-offering; submission to forty stripes; extirpation;
extirpation and death; death from God; and death at the hands of
an earthly tribunal. The key to this list is to be found in the
Law of Moses and in two special treatises of the Talmud dealing
respectively with the penalty of stripes (Makkoth) and of
extirpation (Keritoth). Thus, according to Leviticus 19:21, a
guilt-offering is due in certain cases of rape, and, according to
Numbers 6:12, when a nazirite breaks his vow and partakes of
strong drink. Similarly, according to the Mishnah, forty stripes
are prescribed for such crimes as incest, sacrilege, entering the
temple in a state of impurity, eating leavened food on Passover,
working on the Day of Atonement, and tattooing upon one's person
the symbol of a heathen god; while extirpation is decreed for
gross immorality (Lev. 18:29), use of force (Num. I5:30),
dedicating one's seed to Moloch (Lev. 20:5), practicing sorcery
(Lev. 20:6), desecrating the sabbath (Exod. 31 :14), and
neglecting the duty of circumcision (Gen. 17:14).
Of special interest is the comprehensive reference to
sins committed "knowingly or unknowingly," for this formula is
characteristic of liturgical confessions everywhere. Thus, in the
penitential psalms of the ancient Babylonians, the suppliant not
infrequently asks pardon for "the sin which I know and the sin
which I know not"; while in one of the hymns of the ancient Indic
Rig Veda, the god Varuna is entreated to "cancel all those sins
which we have committed as if in jest, knowingly and
unknowingly," and similar expressions occur both in Greek
inscriptions from Asia Minor and in the norito or formal
recitation which accompanies the Japanese expiation ceremony of
Ohoharahi.
Ashkenazic Jews recite the entire list of offenses literally
from A to Z. The Sephardim, however, reduce it to a few
sentences, not even arranged alphabetically; and it would seem
that there was also an ancient version consisting of but eight
verses.
Neither the Minor nor the Major Confession is attested
before the Gaonic Age, which began in the seventh century C.E.,
but there is reason to believe that they were in fact composed
during the preceding epoch of the Amoraim (fifth century). Even
then, however, they hark back to a more remote antiquity, for we
have protoypes of them in the Bible. Isaiah 59:12 ff., for
example, is probably to be read as a quotation from a liturgical
catalogue of sins:
Our transgressions abounded before Thee,
and our sins bore witness against us.
Verily, our transgressions were ever with us,
and as for our iniquities-they were our familiars:
transgression and deception against Jehovah,
backsliding from our God,
giving utterance to oppression and rebellion;
conceiving and emitting from our hearts words of falsehood.
Similarly, the afflicted job, protesting his innocence
before God, recites a kind of "negative confession" (Job 31)
which would appear to reproduce (with poetic elaboration) a
contemporary ritual formula:
I made a covenant with mine eyes
that I would not think upon a virgin.
I have not consorted with vanity,
neither hath my foot hasted to deceit.
My step hath not swerved from the path, nor my heart followed
mine eyes, nor corruption clung to my palms.
I have not been enticed by a woman,
nor lain in wait at my neighbor's door.
I have not refused justice to my servant
nor to my handmaid, when they contended with me.
I have not withheld the poor from their need, nor beclouded the
eyes of the widow.
I have seen no wanderer without clothing, no beggar without
covering,
but that his loins have blessed me,
and he hath been warmed with the fleece of my sheep.
I have not looked on the sun when it shone,
or the moon walking in brightness,
and allowed my heart to be secretly enticed
to blow kisses thereto,
and thereby commit a penal sin
by denying the God Who is above....
No stranger was left to sleep the night outdoors;
I opened my doors to the traveller.
Such "negative confessions," it may be added, appear to been
well known in the Near East from earliest times. Egyptian texts
dating back as far as the sixteenth century B.C.E. contain a form
of protestation believed to have been uttered by the deceased
before the tribunal of the netherworld, and the offenses of which
he claims to be innocent are, in many cases, precisely those
specified in the Viddui. e.g., "I have not blasphemed . . .
injured . . . stolen . . . caused perversity . . . lied . . .
trespassed . . . practised usury . . . spoken scandal . . .
lusted."
Modern worshipers often find the whole conception of
punishment underlying the Confession somewhat crude and
distasteful. Thus, the prescription of "forty stripes" for
immorality or for working on the Day of Atonement seems at once
futile and barbarous, while extirpation for sorcery or, in fact,
for many of the offenses listed, appears, to say the least,
unnecessarily harsh and drastic. It must be remembered,
therefore, that in the primitive mind those things tend to be
represented in concrete form which, in more advanced
civilizations, can be apprehended as abstracts. The flaying of
conscience assumes the form of a physical, corporal castigation;
while the sense of separation and ostracism which accompanies (or
follows) any violation of common custom or accepted mores is
represented by legal and physical extirpation. In historical
perspective, therefore, the drastic penalties imposed in ancient
Hebrew law are merely a more primitive and more concrete
expression of what to us are but the psychological consequences
of sin. Once again, it is only the formulation that is primitive,
not the underlying concept.
(The confessions of sins by various cultures and nations to their
gods, would indicate once more, that the formula of God's true
religion for his people, had been somewhat retained, at least in
part (even before the days of Moses) and was carried forth with
the nations as they migrated from the cradle of original
civilization, and also after the mighty flood of the days of
Noah. But as Noah's flood was local rather than worldwide (proved
in other studies on this Website), the nations had already be
scattered abroad at the tower of Babel, and so would have
retained some parts (though now greatly perverted at times to
their gods) of the true worship and rites to the true God - a
community cofession of sins being one of them - Keith Hunt)
The Kol Nidrei service is, as it were, the first movement of
a devotional symphony which increases in momentum from minute to
minute throughout the day. The dominant note of this service is
one of nervous trepidation, tempered by confidence in the mercy
and understanding of God, i.e. (in modern terms), in the
inevitability of evoking the Divine, once a sincere effort is
made. This twofold mood is reflected especially in the special
poems (piyyutim) interspersed throughout the regular prayers and
usually chanted to haunting traditional melodies. The note of
hesitant approach, for example, is sounded, as if in a tremulous
whisper, in the medieval and anonymous Ya'adeh, which is recited
antiphonally by cantor and congregation in the Ashkenazic
rituals. In the original, this is an alphabetical acrostic, but
its spirit may be best conveyed in the late Nina Salaman's famous
rendering, which forgoes this literary virtuosity for the sake of
inner intensity: 3
O let our prayer ascend from eventime,
And may our cry come in to Thee from dawn,
And let our song be clear till eventime.
O let our voice ascend from eventime,
And may our merit come to Thee from dawn,
And our redemption be at eventime.
Let our remembrance rise from eventime,
Let our assembly plead to Thee from dawn,
In glory visible till eventime.
Thus at Thy door we knock from eventime,
O let our joy come forth for us from dawn,
And may our quest appear till eventime.
......
3 Adler-Davis, Atonement, i, 31.
......
More resonant, on the other hand, is the demand for
forgiveness-(in modern terms) for the power of inner regeneration
- in the famous poem, "Omnam Ken," composed by Jacob of Orleans,
one of the martyrs of the riot at York which followed the
accession of Richard Coeur de Lion to the throne of England in
1189. The following is an excerpt from Israel Zangwill's
celebrated rendering:
A y, 'tis thus Evil us hath in bond;
B y Thy grace guilt efface and respond,
"Forgiven!"
C ast scorn o'er and abhor th' informer's word;
D ear God, deign this refrain to make heard,
"Forgiven!"
R aise to Thee this my plea, take my prayer;
S in unmake for Thy sake and declare,
"Forgiven!"
T ears, regret, witness set in sin's place;
U plift trust from the dust to Thy face
"Forgiven!"
V oice that sighs, tear-filled eyes, do not spurn
W eigh and pause, plead my cause, and return
"Forgiven!"
By the time the morning service comes around the worshiper
has already begun to feel the stirrings of the Divine working
within him. But he has not yet reached that point in the process
of atonement where he can feel confident of its outcome. He has
attained only to a sense of wonderment and gratitude that the
Divine is, after all, so readily accessible - that there is, in
the final analysis, no real contrast between the cosmic power
that animates the universe and the indwelling spirit which
informs his own being.
.......................
Judaism and the Festivals of the Lord #3The Feast of At-One-Ment! JUDAISM AND THE FESTIVALS OF THEW LORD #3
DAY OF ATONEMENT continued:
From the book "Festivals of the Jewish Year" by Gaster, written
in 1952/53.
In the more primitive language of ancient thought, what
strikes him most forcibly at this stage of his atonement is the
discovery that God is enthroned not only in heaven but also in
the human heart. As a well-known tenth-century hymn expresses
it: 4
Where Angels through the Azure fly,
Where Beams of light illume the sky,
Where rides Celestial Cavalry,
Where Dim, Ethereal voices cry,
Is seen the wonder of Thy ways.
Yet dost Thou not disdain the praise
Of Flesh and blood who eager throng
About Thy Gates and, all day long,
Hapless raise their plaintive song,
Invoking Thee to right their wrong;
And this Thy glory is.
Where, in the clear and cloudless height,
Jostle the cherub hosts, and bright
Flaming Legions pierce the night,
'Mid all the Ministers of light,
Is seen the wonder of Thy ways.
Yet dost Thou not disdain the praise.
Of them who, in the here below,
Do Naught of bliss and comfort know,
Who, Overwhelmed with grief and woe,
Tread their Petty Pace and slow;
And this Thy glory is.
Where Quires celestial at Thy side,
And Regiments of grace abide,
Where the great Bond of Souls is tied,
And all the Thund'rous cohorts ride,
......
4 "Aaher Omexz Tehillateka," by Meshullam b. Kalonymos (d. 97o),
Adler-Davis, Atonement, ii, 68.
......
Is seen the wonder of Thy ways.
Yet dost Thou not disdain the praise
Of them who, Unredeemed, late
And early in their Vigil wait,
Watching at the heavenly gate,
Yearning that Thou wilt mark their fate,
Zealous that thou wilt purge the stain,
And take them back to Thee again.
And this Thy glory is.
The worshiper now feels that he can attest by his own
present experience the truth of what is said in Scripture about
the inherent compassion and condescension of God: 5
A ll justice holds He in His open hands,
And all avow that constant He remains.
B eyond all veils He sees, and understands;
And all avow: He probes the heart and reins.
C lamorous Death through Him gives up its prize;
And all avow: no champion is as He.
D wellers on earth are judged before His eyes;
And all avow: His rule is equity.
E rstwhile "I AM that which I AM," He said;
And all avow: He was, is, and will be,
F or His renown is as His name widespread;
And all avow that nonpareil is He.
G od thinks on them who think on Him alway;
And all avow: He keeps His promise true.
H e portions life unto the living; they
Avow that He doth live the ages through.
I n His wide covert good and bad find room;
And all avow: His good on all is thrust.
......
5 "Ha-ohez be-yad middath mishpat." Adler-Davis, Atonement, ii,
152.
......
K nitting our substance in the very womb;
Yea, all avow: He knows we are but dust.
L ong is His arm and doth all things embrace;
And all avow: by Him all things are done.
M id darkness dwells He, in His secret place;
And all avow: He one is and alone.
N o king there is but He doth him install;
And all avow: He is the world's great King.
O mnipotent, He rules the ages all;
And all avow: from Him doth mercy spring.
P atient, from froward man He turns His gaze;
And all avow: He pardons and He spares.
R emote on high, He guards His servants' ways;
And all avow: He answers whisper'd prayers.
S inners ne'er beat in vain upon His door;
And all avow: nor is His hand clos'd tight.
T he wicked seeks He out, says: Sin no more;
And all avow that He is just and right.
U mbrage with Him comes slow, compassion fast;
And all avow: He is not soon enrag'd.
V engeance and W rath by Mercy are outpass'd;
And all avow: He swiftly is assuag'd.
Y oung and old by Him are levelled,
And great and small are equal in His sight;
O ne net of judgment over all is spread;
And all avow that He doth judge aright.
Z ealous is He for blamelessness, and they
That blameless are do reap His rich reward;
And all with one consent avow and say:
Blameless in all He doeth is the LORD.
At the same time, he is supremely conscious of the fact
that, however accessible the Divine may be, man has to make
active contact with it in order to achieve regeneration;
atonement, as a modern rabbi has expressed it, is at root
at-one-ment. The classic formulation of this yearning for
communion is the great poem of Jehudah Ha-Levi (1086-1 I45) which
forms one of the most prominent elements of the Sephardic morning
service:
Before Thee, Lord, my every wish is known,
Ere that one word upon my lips do lie;
Lord, grant me but one moment of Thy grace,
One moment only, and I gladly die.
One moment, Lord, if Thou wouldst but accord,
Gladly would I commit into Thy keep
All that may yet remain of this frail breath;
And I would sleep, and sweet would be my sleep.
When I am far from Thee, my life is death;
My death were life, if I to Thee might cling;
Yet lo, I know not wherewith I might come
Into Thy presence, nor what service bring.
Teach me, O Lord, Thy ways, and grant release
From Folly's prison and her heavy bond;
Show me to bow my soul, while yet I may,
And when I bow it, spurn to respond,
Now, e'er the day come when unto myself
A burden am I, and my head bends low,
And age and slow corruption take their toll,
And I grow weary, and my feet are slow;
Ere that I go where erst my fathers went,
And reach the final goal, which is the tomb--
A stranger and a sojourner on earth,
Whose only portion is her ample womb.
......
6 "Adonai negdeka kol ta'avathi." Pool, "Atonement," p.128.
......
My youth hath all in wantonness been spent,
And ne'er have I prepared for my long home;
The world was too much with me, veil'd my sight,
That ne'er I thought upon the world to come.
How now can I my Maker serve, when I
Serve this dull clay, and am the thrall of lust?
How seek the lofty height, who yet may lie
Tomorn a-mouldering in the silent dust?
How can my heart respond to present joy,
Which knows not if the morning will be bright,
When day conspires with day but to destroy
And but to ruin night conspires with night?
My dust shall yet be wafted on the winds,
My flesh into the common earth descend;
What shall I say, who am pursued by lust
From life's first dawning to her bitter end?
What profit lies in time or length of days,
An they be empty of Thy grace? What thing
Have I for guerdon, if I have not Thee?
Naked I am; Thou art my covering.
Yet wherefore words, which are but words alone?
Before Thee, Lord, my every wish is known.
The Scriptural readings in the morning service offer an
inspired blend of the ritual and spiritual aspects of the day.
The Lessons from the Law are taken from Leviticus 16 and Numbers
29:7-11 and describe respectively the ancient ceremonial of
"purgation" (kippurim) and the special sacrifices appointed for
the occasion. The Lesson from the Prophets, on the other hand, is
taken from Isaiah 57:14--58:I4 and represents, in striking
fashion, the sublimation of the traditional rite through the
progress of Jewish thought.
Is such the fast that I have chosen?
The day for a man to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush,
And to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Wilt thou call this a fast,
And a day acceptable unto the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen?
To loosen the fetters of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free.
And that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry
And that thou bring the outcast poor to thy house?
When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him,
And that thou had not thyself from thine flesh?
The symphony of the Yom Kippur devotions reaches its most
thunderous movement in the so-called "Additional Service" which
today serves as a substitute for the extra sacrifices offered in
the Temple on this occasion.
The principal feature of this service is the recital of what
is known as the Abodah, i.e., a detailed account of the atonement
ritual anciently performed in the sanctuary. Originally, it would
appear, this consisted solely in excerpts from the relevant
tractate of the Mishnah. In course of time, however, synagogue
poets felt tempted to compose elaborate versified paraphrases of
this somewhat prosaic narrative, and these came to be substituted
for the original Talmudic text. No less than thirty-five
different versions are known to us. Two, however, found special
favor. The one, by the fifth-century Palestinian poet, Jose ben
Jose, is today the standard form in Sephardic congregations; the
other, written by the Italian hymnologist, Meshullam ben
Kalonymos in the tenth century, is adopted by the Ashkenazim.
Both begin with a brief review of human history from Adam to
Aaron, intended to demonstrate the primordial character and
divine authority of the priestly ritual about to be described.
This is followed by the description itself, the latter adhering
closely to the text of the Mishnah while at the same time
elaborating it with a number of poetic images and tropes. At the
end comes a poem (in various versions) portraying the glory and
splendor of the high priest when he finally emerged from the holy
of holies.
The recital of the "Abodah" is regarded as the most solemn
moment of the Atonement services, and when the precentor reaches
the passage which describes how the high priest pronounced, this
once in the year, the ineffable name of God, every member of the
congregation follows the ancient gesture of his ancestors and
"bows and prostrates himself and falls upon his face," exclaiming
in a loud voice, "Blessed be the Name of Him Whose glorious
kingdom endures for ever." 7
It has long been recognized that the final poem of the
Abodah, that which describes the radiance of the high priest,
bears a remarkable resemblance to a passage in the apocryphal
Book of Ecclesiasticus - a resemblance so close, indeed, as to
suggest dependence. Here is Meshullam ben Kalonymos' version of
that poem: 8
There shone a splendor on the high priest's face
When safe he came forth from the holy place,
Like as the spangled curtain of the sky; Like as the sparks that
from the angels fly:
......
7 The more sedate Sephardim, however, content themselves with a
decorous bow.
8 "Mar'eh Kohen." Adler-Davis, "Atonement," ii, 166.
......
Like as the azure skeins we wear so proud; 9
Like as the rainbow poised within the cloud;
Like as the sheen which our first parents wore
In Eden's garden in the days of yore;
Like as a rose within a garden bed;
Like as a crown about a kingly head;
Like as the radiance in a bridegroom's eye;
Like snowhite robes in all their purity;
Like courtiers stol'd for audience with their kings;
Like as the daystar when the morning springs.
And here is the passage from Ecclesiasticus 10
How glorious was he when he shone forth from the Tent,
and when he came out from the curtained chamber; 11
As a shining star from amid the clouds,
and as the full moon on the festiva1; 12
As the sun dawning on the palace of the king,
and as the rainbow seen, in the cloud;
As the blossoming foliage on the festival, 13
and as a lotus by streams of water;
As a flower of Lebanon in summer days,
and as the glow of frankincense in the censer;
As golden vessels, [basin and bowl,] 14
tricked out with precious stones;
As a green olive-tree in full bloom,
and as a verdant tree rich in leaves.
......
9 On the praying-shawl; cf. Num. 15:37.
10 Eccles. 50:5-21. Our rendering follows the Hebrew version,
discovered in 1896-1900. This differs in many places from the
Greek text, from which the standard English translation was made.
11 i.e., the holy of holies.
12 i.e., on Passover or Booths, which commence at full moon.
13 i.e., on the Feast of Booths; cf. Lev. 23:40.
14 The text is defective; it is here restored on the basis of
Ezra 1:9-10.
......
When he was clothed in the glorious garments,
and robed in the raiment resplendent,
When his lustre beamed upon the altar
and bathed the court of the temple in beauty;
When he received the portions from his brethren,
himself standing by the dressed sacrifices,
Then (his) sons formed a crown around him,
like the saplings of a cedar of Lebanon,
And they compassed him round about like willows of the brook,
even all the scions of Aaron in their splendor,
with the offerings of the Lord in their hands,
before all the congregation of Israel.
When he had finished ministering at the altar,
offering oblations unto the Most High,
Then the scions of Aaron, the priests,
Blew on the trumpets of beaten work;
They blew, and they cried in a voice majestic,
to make memorial unto the Lord. 15
Then promptly all mortal flesh
fell upon their faces on the ground,
Prostrating themselves before the Most High,
before the Holy One of Israel.
And the choir gave forth its voice,
and over the throng made their voices ring out;
And all the people of the land
intoned prayers unto Him Who is merciful.
And when (the high priest) had finished ministering at the altar,
and had brought unto it its due,
Then he went down, and he lifted his hands over all the
congregation of Israel;
And the blessing of the Lord was upon his lips,
and he was glorified (in pronouncing) the Name of the Lord;
And for a second time
all the people fell down before him.
This remarkable resemblance has recently inspired the
ingenious theory that the passage from Ecclesiasticus was
......
15 Cf. Num. 10:10; I Chron. 16:4.
......
anciently used in the synagogue as a supplement to the formal
recitation of the Abodah from the text of the Mishnah, and that
the modern poems are but later substitutes for it. In support of
this conjecture, it is pointed out that the relevant verses of
the apocryphal book are indeed prefaced by a rapid survey of
world history (chaps. 44 ff.), just as is the modern
Abodah-service in the synagogue. 16
The high point of the afternoon service is the reading (or
chanting) of the Book of Jonah as the Lesson from the Prophets.
The reason for this selection is that the central theme of the
book is the value of true repentance and the clemency of God
toward all who evince it, even though they be confirmed
idolators.
Jonah ben Amittai, a prophet of Jehovah, is commanded to go
to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, and call upon it to repent
its evil ways. Instead, however, he flees to Jaffa and there
takes ship for distant Tarshish.
During the voyage there is a violent storm. Faced with the
prospect of shipwreck, the sailors start calling on their several
gods and throwing cargo overboard to lighten the ship. Jonah,
however, lies fast asleep in the hold and has to be roused by the
captain and reminded of his duty to pray to God. The crew then
casts lots to determine - in accordance with ancient belief - who
has offended the gods and thereby caused the disaster. The lot
falls on Jonah, whereupon they inquire his identity, provenience
and occupation. The prophet tells them that he is an Hebrew and
adds, formally if not accurately, that he "fears Jehovah, the
Lord of heaven, who made both sea and dry land." At these words,
the sailors grow very frightened, and ask him what might be done
to allay the tempest which is raging more furiously by the
minute. Jonah replies that he should be cast overboard, because
it is obviously as a punishment for his disobedience and flight
that God has em-
......
10 Cecil Roth, "Ecclesiasticus in the Synagogue Service," Journal
of Biblical Literature, LI (1952), 171-78.
......
broiled the waters. The mariners, however, are reluctant to take
such a drastic step, fearing that the prophet might perhaps be
mistaken and they would then be taking his life without cause. So
they first try desperately to row to shore, and only when their
efforts prove unsuccessful do they finally throw their passenger
to the waves, at the same time offering sacrifices to Jehovah and
vowing further gifts should they reach safety.
Meanwhile, Jehovah has prepared a "great fish" to swallow
Jonah, and for three days and three nights the prophet remains in
the belly of the monster, praying to God for release and
promising to make offerings should he be delivered. "They that
wait on vain idols," he adds - in a smug, oblique allusion to the
mariners - "eventually renounce their pledges, but I will indeed
make offering to Thee and loudly proclaim my thanks. Whatever I
vow, I will certainly pay." Thereupon Jehovah orders the fish to
disgorge Jonah upon dry land. Then he commands him for the second
time to go to Nineveh and deliver his message.
Now, Nineveh is a huge city, and it takes a full three days
to cross it. But the prophet has not been walking about in it for
more than one day, proclaiming its imminent doom ("Forty days
more, and Nineveh will be overturned") when the inhabitants
instantly turn to repentance, proclaim a fast and, upon orders of
the king, clothe themselves in sackcloth and sit amid ashes.
Thereupon God relents his decision and spares them.
At this the prophet is exceedingly annoyed, for he feels
that he has been sent on a fool's errand. "Isn't this just what I
was saying back home?" he complains to Jehovah. "That was why I
fled to Tarshish in the first place. I knew all along that you
are a gracious and merciful and longsuffering God, and that you
would relent of the fate which you had decreed. Now I am sick to
death of the whole business, and if you want to punish me for
disobedience- well, I would rather be dead than alive!" But
Jehovah merely replies: "So you are as annoyed as all that?" and
says nothing more.
Then Jonah departs from the city and, constructing a rude
shack some distance from it, sits down in its shade to see what
is going to happen. While he is sitting there, Jehovah creates a
gourd to grow over his head and shelter him from the heat. But
the prophet's joy at this unexpected relief is shortlived, for
the very next morning, in the flush of dawn, Jehovah orders a
weevil to start gnawing away at the gourd, so that by sunrise it
is completely withered. Then he orders a sultry wind to blow from
the east, and the sun beats fiercely on Jonah's head until he
feels faint and wishes to die. At that moment, however, Jehovah
addresses him. "So you are really annoyed about the gourd?" he
asks. "Yes," replies the prophet, "I am really annoyed." "Well,"
rejoins Jehovah, "there you are having pity on a gourd for which
you never labored and which you yourself did not rear - a gourd
which happened to spring up in a night and perish in a night.
Should I not, then, have pity on Nineveh, that great city,
wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons who know not
their right hand from their left hand, and also much cattle?"
One of the major points in the Book of Jonah is the contrast
between the instant trust and piety even of the heathen and the
lack of confidence and the infidelity of the servant of God. When
the storm rages at sea, the idolatrous mariners immediately call
upon their gods; the prophet, however, remains asleep in the
hold. When he reveals to them that he is the cause of their
misfortune, they nevertheless refrain, out of pity and humanity,
from casting him overboard, and do so only as a last resort.
Moreover, even then, they will not consent to so drastic an
appeasement of Jehovah without themselves acknowledging his power
by sacrifices and vows. Similarly, when Jonah eventually goes to
Nineveh, the inhabitants of that evil city do not even wait for
the completion of his mission before expressing their repentance.
Nor is this merely a popular demonstration, a mere outburst
of public hysteria; it is an act officially ordained by the king,
who himself participates in it (3:6). Nor this alone; in the
original text there is a subtle point which, even at the risk of
grotesqueness, serves to emphasize the ready piety of the
heathen: because they seek deliverance not only for themselves
but also for their cattle, even the dumb beasts are obliged to
observe the general fast, and they too are clothed in sackcloth
(3:7-8)!
Nowhere, perhaps, has this basic lesson of the book found
better expression in modern literature than in Father Mapple's
sermon at the Whalemen's Chapel in Melville's "Moby Dick":
As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a
story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears,
the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the
deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men,
this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the
command of God - never mind now what that command was, or
how conveyed - which he found a hard command. But all the
things that God would have us do are hard for us to do -
remember that--and hence, he oftener commands than endeavors
to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves;
and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness
of obeying God consists.
The ancient rabbis, however, not content with such purely
general homilies, sought also to explain why the Book of Jonah
had been selected especially for the liturgy of the Day of
Atonement and, more specifically, why it was recited in the
afternoon rather than the morning service. To both questions they
found ready answers. On the Day of Atonement, it was observed,
Israel is naturally apprehensive lest, for all its repentance, it
fail to receive divine forgiveness. God therefore reassures it,
through the Book of Jonah, that if He was ready to accept the
penitence of heathen Nineveh, he is all the more ready to accept
that of His own people. And the reason why the book is read in
the afternoon is that this is a time of day when prayers are
especially acceptable; for was not Elijah the prophet answered on
Carmel "when noon tide was past . . . at the time of the
afternoon sacrifice" (I Kings 18:29,36)? 17
In ages less enlightened than our own, when it was
considered blasphemous to see in the stories of the Bible
anything but the record of historical fact, commentators and
ecclesiastics were often put to considerable pains to
"authenticate" the more grotesque and bizarre elements of the
Book of Jonah, and wondrous and ingenious were some of the
explanations they propounded.
What troubled them most, of course, was the incident of the
"great fish," for they knew - or thought they knew--that the more
common type of whale or shark does not in fact possess a gullet
wide enough to swallow a human being. The creature in question,
it was patiently pointed out, was a special kind of whale - the
so-called right whale, of which Melville tells us that its mouth
"would accommodate a couple of whist-tables and comfortably seat
all the players." Indeed, even in the edition of Jonah contained
in the Cambridge Bible for Schools, published toward the end of
the nineteenth century, there is a special appendix citing
instances of whales having swallowed human beings, and carefully
identifying the species!
Moreover, even if the prophet was swallowed, how, it was
asked, could he have managed to survive in the belly of the
monster for three days and three nights, seeing that its gastric
juices would at once have poisoned him? Not so, replied the
learned Bishop Jebb, the "great
......
17 The English Bible distorts the sense by rendering "at the time
of the offering of the evening sacrifice." The Hebrew term is
minhah, "mealoffering." In the Biblical context, all that is
really meant is that Elijah was answered at the moment when the
smoke of the meal-offering ascended from the altar. But the word
came to denote the afternoon sacrifice in the Temple, and it
survives as the name of the afternoon service. Hence the
rabbinical explanation.
......
fish" which Jehovah prepared was a dead fish, in which all such
noxious elements had already ceased to function. That, too, was
why, at the end of the appointed period, it was able to disgorge
the prophet whole, unchewed and undigested!
Others found an even more fantastic explanation: "Great
Fish," they said, was the name of a ship, which God provided to
rescue His servant, and which eventually landed him on terra
firma, the "belly of the fish" being simply the hold or steerage.
(This vagary, it may be added, actually finds place in Ferrar
Fenton's curious Bible in Modern English, likewise published at
the end of the nineteenth century.)
Others again tried to surmount the difficulties of the
narrative by the ingenious supposition that the whole incident of
Jonah's being awakened by the captain, thrown overboard and
swallowed by the "great fish" was simply what he dreamed when he
was lying fast asleep in the "sides of the ship"!
Lastly, if these interpretations failed to carry conviction,
there was always another way in which the inspiration of the
sacred text could be defended without embarrassing commitment to
its factual truth: the story could be taken allegorically. Jonah
is the Hebrew word for "dove," and--following the allegorical
interpretation of the Song of Songs, in which the beloved is
addressed as "my dove" - this became a favorite symbol for the
people of Israel. The whole story, therefore, though told as if
it referred to the historical Jonah ben Amittai, was really an
allegory of Israel's constant disobedience to God's command and
of its vain attempts to flee from His presence. The "great fish"
was simply the personification of that lawlessness and chaos, or
perhaps even of the Exile and Dispersion, in which it would find
itself "engulfed" for a certain span, until finally released by
the mercy of God!
Such extravagances are now, by and large, a thing of the
past. We now know that the Biblical writers made abundant use of
current folklore in order to bring home their message; and the
story of Jonah and the "big fish" reveals itself as a skillful
Hebrew adaptation of a widespread theme. An ancient Indian tale,
for example, relates that once upon a time there lived a princess
who refused to marry anyone except the man who had set eyes on
the Golden City of legend. The hero Saktideva accepted the
challenge, and proceeded to roam the world in search of that
fabulous place. In the course of his travels, he set sail for the
island of Usthala, to seek direction from the king of the
fishermen, who dwelt there. On the way, a storm arose, and the
ship capsized. Saktideva, however, was swallowed by a great fish
which carried him to the island and eventually disgorged him
whole.
The same story is told in Ceylon about the hero Buhadama;
while an ancient Greek legend relates that Heracles was once
swallowed by a whale near the port of Jaffa, and remained within
the animal's belly for three days.
Similar tales, it may be added, are current to this day in
the popular lore of Melanesia and Indonesia and among French-
Canadians.
What the Scriptural writer did, therefore, was simply to
take a familiar legend, associate it with a Hebrew prophet, and
re-tell it for homiletic purposes - a process later repeated
times beyond number by the preachers of the Middle Ages.
Although the Book of Jonah deals with a historical character who
lived in the eighth century B.C.E., during the reign of the
Israelite king Jeroboam II, it was not written by him, but is
simply a folktale later attached to his name. Modern scholars
believe, on the evidence of style and of the author's evident
indebtedness to later Biblical writings, that it was composed at
some time between 500 and 400 B.C.E. - that is, in the century
following the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Exile. Its
purpose would have been to remind the renegade, "assimilated"
elements of the Jewish people that escape from their ancestral
faith and from their duty of bearing witness to God's presence
and of exemplifying His dispensation was, in the long run,
impossible and vain. The choice of Jonah ben Amittai as the hero
of the tale would have been especially pointed, for this was the
prophet who, in olden times, had inspired the renegade and
apostatic Jeroboam to extend and stabilize the confines of Israel
so that those who had been living unprotected on the fringes of
the kingdom might again be gathered within its fold. As the
ancient record put it:
[Jeroboam] restored the boundary of Israel from the entrance to
Hamath even unto the Sea of the Wilderness, in accordance with
the word of Jehovah, the God of Israel, which He spake through
His servant, the prophet Jonah ben Amittai, who came from
Gathhepher. For Jehovah saw that the affliction of the Children
of Israel was very grievous . . . and that Israel had no helper,
and Jehovah was resolved not to blot out the name of Israel from
under heaven; so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam.
(11 Kings 14:25-27)
The situation would have had a certain resemblance to that
which obtained at the return from the Exile, and the parallel
would scarcely have been lost upon the men of that age.
(Pretty fancy foot work by the Jews, in figuring the book of
Jonah was to be made up, from the history of unfaithful Israel,
and was only figurative and not to be taken in any literal way,
as Jonah being literally called to do what the book asserts. It
was the imfamous Origin in the first centuries A.D. that became
known for allorying or interpreting the Bible from start to
finish with "this story means this" and that story means that"
and nothing was to be taken as literal theology. Hence with such
reasoning it is possible to make the Bible say anything you want
it to say, as some skeptic and atheists have asserted Christians
[all many differing denominations] do with the Bible - Keith
Hunt)
For the rest, the afternoon service represents a certain
easing of tension after the tremendous moment of the Abodah. It
is, as it were, a kind of interlude between
...................
To be continued
Note:
Certainly the day of At-one-ment pictures and demonstrates the
abundant MERCY and GRACE and LOVE of God.
The physical side of fasting on this day, a little time spent in
physical deprevation of the food and drink of life, is to teach
us that the nations of the world will needs have to go through
physical sorrow and deprevation of the physical good life, and
taste of punishment, to bring the people to the attitude of the
humble fasting person, who is to change his lifestyle to serving
God and other people in the spirit and truth, that the Lord
desires from the humble repentant faster.
It is nevertheless a "feast" day of some joy and lifting up of
the heart, for in this day, we see the mercy of the Lord towards
all nations. His plan of eventually bringing all peoples from all
nations, to REPENTANCE, and humbly walking with the One and Only
True God of the universe; when all nations and peoples will be
AT-ONE with God. Oh indeed, what an age that will be. So on this
day, lift up your head that is blowed low, rejoice in the Lord,
for His goodness and MERCY will be seen towards all nations. The
fulfilment of this day, is more wonderful than our human mind can
really comprehend. A day when the knowledge of the Lord shall
cover the earth as the waters cover the sea beds. Though we
meditate upon it, though we rejoice in the fact of it, that it
will be so one day; it is hard to really get your mind around the
truth of it. But with our looking through a glass darkly at the
meaning of this feast day, we can only get a fraction of its
reality in our mind at this time. Nevertheless friends, REJOICE
in this at-one-ment Feast. Maybe study and read the prophecies of
old that tell about the age to come, when the RESTITUTION of all
things will take place and the world will be at one with its
Creator!
I once attended an Atonement service (way back in the middle
1980s) with the "Reformed" Jewish congregation. The service was 3
HOURS long, and no one seemed to mind, not even the children of
various ages. And indeed they ALL did FAST, even the young
children (of course not babies or toddlers - actually did not see
babies or toddlers in the service ... ah, but could have been, my
memory fails me to remember). It was a most interesting service.
Oh yes, in "dress" the "reformed" Jewish congregations dress no
differently than the average person in the country ... not sure
if today they would come in sweat-shirts and blue-jeans and
garden type clothing, as a lot of "Sunday" observing groups do
today (which I personally find distastful - would you come before
the Queen, President or Primeminster in garden clothes? Maybe so
if you had nothing else, but I think you get what I mean).
Keith Hunt
Judaism and Feasts of the Lord #4The Feast of Atonement JUDAISM AND THE FESTIVALS OF THE LORD #4
From the book "Festivals of the Jewish Year" by Gaster, written
in 1952/53.
FEAST OF AT-ONE-MENT
Conclusion:
For the rest, the afternoon service represents a certain
easing of tension after the tremendous moment of the Abodah. It
is, as it were, a kind of interlude between that moment and the
impending urgency and intensity of the concluding devotions. But
it is not without its moments of poetry, and in this respect the
following quaint lines from Isaac ben Israel's "Prelude to the
Confession" in the Sephardic rite are perhaps worthy of
quotation: 18
Said I to head: Head, do thou plead for me.
Said head: on many heads such plea were vain.
How can I hope His mercy to obtain
Who am lightheaded, full of levity?
How can the head which shame and sin do bend
Be raised to Him Who doth all heads transcend?
Said I to lips: Mine innocence relate.
Said lips: that is a thing we cannot do.
For how shall God regard our words as true,
Who nothing know but to dissimulate?
Said I to mouth: Call thou upon His name.
Said mouth: I have no words but words of shame.
Said I to heart: O pour forth thy complaint
To Him Who dwelleth in the world on high.
Said heart: here in the slough of sin I lie
And cannot move from evil's hard constraint.
How can the heart which forgeth evil things
Be turned in prayer unto the King of Kings?
Said I to hands: Hands, be your palms outspread
To God in heaven, and His mercy seek.
Said hands: the hands that base corruption wreak
Are unavailing, fruitless hands and dead.
Said I to feet: Feet, do ye plead for me.
Said feet: it were a feat to find His grace.
......
18 Pool, Atonement, 290 ff. The rendering is free.
......
How can the feet which e'er to evil race
Now tread the humble path to clemency?
The concluding service of Yom Kippur is call Ne'ilah, which
is the Hebrew word for the "Closing of the Gate." Originally,
this appears to have referred to the closing of the Temple gates
at dusk, but by an inspired extension it is now taken to mean the
closing of the heavenly gates of prayer.
The service commences at the moment when the setting sun
seems to be level with the treetops, and it must be timed to end
with the appearance of the first stars. For the latter reason, it
is customary to recite the prayers without an excessive amount of
cantillation, the precentor refraining from the protracted trills
and tremolos which characterize the other devotions of the day.
Ne'ilah represents the last chance for repentance on the one
hand, and for divine forgiveness on the other. According to the
ancient fantasy, it is at this hour that the roster of the
living, which is compiled on New Year's Day is finally sealed.
Accordingly, in all those statutory prayers wherein, throughout
the day, God is besought to "inscribe us in the Book of Life," He
is now entreated to "seal us."
The dominant mood of the service is one of urgent, nay
desperate, insistence. The worshiper feels that he has now all
but exhausted his own inner resources in order to achieve
atonement and regeneration; if these have not sufficed, nothing
remains but reliance on the clemency of God. This mood is caught
to perfection in the stirring poem by Moses ibn Ezra (ca.
1070-CA. 1139) which introduces the service in the Sephardic
ritual: 19
......
19 El Nora. Pool, Atonement, p. 294.
......
LORD, though every power be Thine
And every deed tremendous,
Now, when heaven's gates are closing,
Let Thy grace defend us.
Few we be yet, trembling, cry:
Lord, Thy mercy send us.
Now, when heaven's gates are closing,
Let Thy grace defend us.
Lord, we pour our hearts to Thee;
Rend the sins that rend us.
Now, when heaven's gates are closing,
Let Thy grace defend us.
Be our shield, annul our doom;
Joy and bliss attend us.
Now, when heaven's gates are closing,
Let Thy grace defend us.
Shew us pity; bring to end
All our foes horrendous.
Now, when heaven's gates are closing,
Let Thy grace defend us.
Lord, renew the days of old;
Our fathers' deeds commend us.
Now, when heaven's gates are closing,
Let Thy grace defend us.
In quieter vein, this spirit of resignation likewise finds
expression in the short poem, "Yahbienu," by a certain Isaac ben
Samuel, which is chanted to a haunting melody in the Ashkenazic
service 20
Now, folded in the shadow of Thy hand,
Now, coverted beneath Thine outspread wings
......
20 Adler-Davis, "Atonement," p. 262.
......
O Lord Who probest hearts, now let us stand
Made clean of all perverse and froward things!
Lord God, arise! In all Thy strength arise!
Lord, bend Thine ear and hearken to our cries!
Like all the other services of the day, that of Ne'ilah
works up to the crescendo of the great public confession; but
even this is but a prelude to the tremendous final moments. When
the evening twilight is finally merging into night, and the
incessant devotions are nearing their end, a solemn hush falls
upon the congregation, and the cantor, covering his head with the
prayer-shawl, cries out in a loud voice, "Hear, O Israel, the
Lord is our God, the Lord is One" (Deut. 6:4), following this
immediately with a threefold repetition of the words, "Blessed be
the Name of Him whose glorious kingdom endures for ever," the
words which were anciently uttered by the attendant worshipers
when the high priest pronounced the name of God in the Temple.
Then, beginning in a whisper and progressively increasing
the volume of his voice, he declares seven times, "The Lord, He
is God" the cry of the people when they beheld the miracle
wrought by Elijah on Mount Carmel (I Kings 18:39). These are the
three declarations which every Jew is expected likewise to utter
at the moment of his death, and which have received a special
sanctity in Jewish tradition from the fact that they have so
often proceeded from the lips of those who have "gone through
fire and water for the hallowing of God's name."
When the last notes of the chant have died away, a long
blast is sounded on the ram's horn (shoffar), and the Fast of
Kippur is at an end.
But immediately, without a break, the normal evening
service begins, introducing the new day. For the devotion and
commitment of the Israelite are continuous.
Modern scholars believe that the Day of Atonement on the
tenth of Tishri did not become a regular institution in Israel
until after the time of the Babylonian Exile, and that the
passages in the Pentateuch which refer to it 21 really date from
that relatively late epoch.
(Judaism goes way off the track here, and into the ditch of
secular reasoning - Keith Hunt)
The reasons for this view are the following:
(a) The Day of Atonement is not mentioned in the so-called
"ritual decalogue" of Exodus 34:14 ff. - generally regarded as
one of the oldest portions of the Pentateuch - whereas the
seasonal festivals of Passover, Pentecost and Booths are indeed
specified.
(It was given by the Lord in Lev.16 and 23 and was therefore
inspired instruction as well as inspired law within the framework
of the festival year as brought into being under Moses. The first
argument falls with a crsh - Keith Hunt)
(b) Neither is it mentioned in the ancient "Book of the Covenant"
embodied in Exodus 23-24, although there too the seasonal
festivals are duly prescribed (23 14-19).
(Second argument falls also with a crash. The Sabbath of Genesis
2 is not mentioned again until the days of Moses, but that does
not prove it was not being observed by the people of God, as I've
proved it did exist from Adam to Moses in other studies on this
Website - Keith Hunt)
(c) The law of Leviticus 25:9 enjoins that the year of jubilee is
to be reckoned from the tenth of Tishri. This, it is contended,
proves that the latter date was originally regarded as New Year's
Day rather than as a Day of Atonement.
(Proves nothing but that the Jubilee is reckoned from the day of
Atonement. God can tell us what He reckons from when He reckons
it, as He wills. He is the boss not us. The day of Atonement as
in Lev.16 and 23, was always there from the days of Moses. There
is nothing to suggest that it was any other way - Keith Hunt)
(d) The prophet Ezekiel, writing during the Babylonian Exile,
signalizes the tenth of Tishri as New Year's Day, but says
nothing about its being the Day of Atonement (40:1).
(Another weak, very weak argument. For Ezekiel to use the phrase
"in the begiining of the year, in the 10th of the month.." can be
taken as a "general statement" - it was the new year already and
in the 10th day of that beginning of the year, the hand of the
Lord came upon him. This verse does not prove Atonement feast was
the first day of the year per se, here in Ezekiel's captivity.
And it certainly does not abolish Lev.16 and 23, where the feast
of Atonement is given as the "feasts of the Lord" and hence the
commandments of the Lord to be observed by Israel from that time
forth - Keith Hunt)
(e) The same prophet, in sketching a new religious order for
Israel, designates the new moon of the first and seventh month 22
(i.e., Nisan and Tishri) as the
......
21 Lev. 16:29-34, 23:26-32; Num. 29:7-11.
22 There is an error in the traditional Hebrew text of Ezek.
45:20. In place of the words, "So also shalt thou do on the
seventh of the month" we should read (with the Greek
septuagint version): "So also shalt thou do on the first day
of the seventh month."
......
two dates in the year when the sanctuary is to be purged
(kapper). This, it is contended, implies that a statutory Day of
Atonement was not yet in existence.
(Purging the sanctuary has nothing to do with observing the day
of Atonement. For Jews to claim the laws of any part of Lev.16
and 23 were not practiced till hundreds of years later is putting
their ideas and their theology above the inspired word and
instruction of the Lord. The "feasts of the Lord" are a complete
package which were to be proclaimed and observed from that moment
on as given to Moses to proclaim to Israel. There is nothing in
those festivals that could or would prevent them being observed in
the 40 years in the wilderness and on inheriting the promised
land, in their basic form, even if some particulars had to wait
until they were in the promised land. It is like the Jews
themselves still observe the "feastivals" even if there is no
Temple and Priesthood and animal sacrifices taking place in
Jerusalem. The basic festivals have to do with time and days, and
worship, regardless of any other physical commodity - Keith Hunt)
(f) Nehemiah, describing the events which took place in Jerusalem
in Tishri, 519 B.C.E., when the exiles returned from Babylon,
duly mentions the holy first day of the month and the Feast of
Booths, but says nothing whatsoever about a Day of Atonement on
the tenth. Nor this alone; he tells us expressly (9:1 ff.) that
the people convened especially "on the twenty-fourth day of the
said month, with fasting and with sackcloth and with earth upon
them." This, it is maintained, would have been well nigh absurd,
if there had indeed been a fullscale ceremony of penitence and
atonement only two weeks earlier!
(No, we should find no such absurd notion at all. It is clearly
stated in Neh.8 that they had the book of the law, the five books
of Moses, and it was read to them. They discover by reading that
the very day they were gathered together was holy to God. Common
sense would tell you that they would have discovered Lev.16 and
all of Lev.23. Common sense would tell you that the day of
Atonement would have been discovered and like the other fall
festivals, they discovered, would have been observed. Just
because only Trumpets and Tabernacles and eighth day are
mentioned in specifics, does not mean they did read read about
the feast of Atonement and observe it. The Gospels are an
example. Some gospel writers did not write about things that
other gospel writers wrote about. John's gospel is way different
that Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The fasting argument used here to
claim Atonement feast was unknown, is grasping at straws, for in
this history of the Jews, under the situation we read about in
Neh.8 and 9, I'm sure there were lots of fasting and crying, and
sackcloth upon the Jews, many more times than what is recorded or
specifically mentioned to us. Just because one writer states
certain events, gives emphisis, chooses to write about only
certain observances and events, does NOT mean other events and
observances were not held. Even if for some "strange reason" the
feast of Atonement was not observed at this time, that happening
here (if it was so) does not prove that feast day was unknown and
not observed in ancient Israel under Moses or any other "good and
God-fear" king of Israel. Silence is not always a proof of
"unknown" and "un-observed." The weekly Sabbath is not mentioned
after Genesis 2 until the days of Moses, but I've proved by other
parts of the Bible that it was a sin to break any of the Ten
Commandments before the time of Moses, including the weekly Sabbath
- Keith Hunt)
These arguments, however, are by no means so conclusive as
might appear at first sight; each can be readily answered.
First, the laws of Exodus 34:14 ff. and 23:14-19 are concerned
only with the seasonal festivals (Hebrew, hagim), so that their
silence on the subject of the Day of Atonement, which does not
fall into this category, is no proof that it did not exist at the
time.
Second, the law of Leviticus 25:9, far from proving that the
Day of Atonement did not exist at the time, in fact proves just
the opposite. The jubilee year, we are informed (Lev. 25:10,12),
was regarded as a holy period; accordingly it could not begin
until the annual ceremony of purgation and resanctification had
taken place; otherwise it would have been beset from the start
with all the unshriven impurity of the preceding year. The fact
that it is reckoned from the tenth of Tishri thus implies that on
that day the required purgation indeed took place, i.e., that
Tishri 10 was the Day of Atonement.
Third, it is by no means certain that Ezekiel 40:1 has been
correctly interpreted. What the prophet says, in literal
translation, is that "in the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at
the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month . . .
the hand of Jehovah was upon me." Now, although the expression
"beginning of the year" (Hebrew, rosh hashanah) came to be
applied to New Year's Day, the prophet need not have been using
it in so precise a sense; the tenth day of a year can surely be
described, without abuse of language, as "at the beginning of the
year."
Fourth, Ezekiel's reference to the two days of purgation, on
the new moon of the first and seventh months respectively, is no
evidence of current practice, and does not prove that the Day of
Atonement on Tishri 10 did not exist in this time. For the fact
is that the prophet is deliberately suggesting a new and reformed
system somewhat like that of the Japanese Ohoharahi ceremonies -
whereby the purification of the sanctuary is to be undertaken not
only before the autumnal Feast of Ingathering but equally before
the vernal harvest festival of Passover. The point of the reform
is, in fact, to repeat in the spring what was already standard
practice in the fall; and (although the prophet shifted the date)
this implies, rather than denies, the existence of at least some
sort of Day of Purgation in Tishri.
Fifth and last, it is difficult to see why the narrative in
the Book of Nehemiah should be taken to imply that there was at
the time no Day of Atonement on Tishri 10. The reason why it was
not celebrated on that particular occasion is easily explained. A
major feature of the day was, as we have seen, the purgation of
the sanctuary from the impurities of the past year. In this case,
however, the sanctuary had only just started functioning, so that
there was virtually nothing to purge, and the rite had perforce
to be abandoned or postponed. (Indeed, if any general conclusion
is to be drawn, the more logical one would surely be that the Day
of Purgation was necessarily suspended throughout the period of
the exile.)
(And as I've stated the main part of any of God's festivals is
the "spirit" of the law and the day. You can still observe a fast
day without all the fancy physical laws of a sanctuary. The Jews
have no problem today in observing the fast of Atonement, even
though they have no Temple or "official" Priesthood in Jerusalem
- Keith Hunt)
As for the fast on the twenty-fourth of the month, this was
in no sense a day of atonement. The sanctuary was not purged, and
the crucial word "kapper" is nowhere employed. The purpose of the
fast was simply and solely to express the remorse of the
returning exiles over the religious laxity and defection which
had characterized their lives in Babylonia. Ezra, we are informed
(Ezra 9:1 ff.) likewise fasted when he heard of the extensive
assimilation and intermarriage that had taken place. Moreover,
the reason why the fast was held on the twenty-fourth of the
month was that this was the earliest opportunity of doing so
after the close of the festal season on the twenty-second. One
day had to intervene because the twenty-second was a festival
(the Day of Solemn Assembly), and preparations for a fast could
not be made on a holy day.
Thus, all the arguments for the relative "modernity" of the
Day of Atonement prove vulnerable. (I guess so - Keith Hunt)
On the other hand, there are at least two good reasons for
believing that it was really ancient. The first is that the
scheme of seasonal festivals all over the world provides that the
moment of joy be preceded by one of mortification and austerity,
expressing the decline of vitality - the state of "suspended
animation" - before the commencement of a new lease of life. On
general grounds, therefore, the existence of a solemn day of
purgation and abstinence before the autumnal feast or Ingathering
is extremely likely.
The second reason is that the scheme of the Hebrew festal
cycle in autumn corresponds in general with that of the festal
cycle in spring. In both cases, the first new moon is regarded as
New Year's Day and in both cases the first full moon introduces
the harvest festival (Ingathering and Passover respectively). It
is therefore logical to suppose that there was something on the
tenth of Tishri corresponding to the selection of the expiatory
paschal victim on the tenth of Nisan. The dispatch of the
scapegoat and the ceremony of purgation would readily have
constituted such a counterpart.
(Yes indeed, the lamb was to be set apart on the 10th day for
sacrifice on the 14th day. The 10th of the 1st month had an equal
typology on the 10th of the 7th month. Then as they were part of
the overall laws of the Lord, Lev.16 and 23, given by God to
Moses, to instruct the Israelites how to worship the Lord on
weekly, monthy, and annual days, so it would have all been a part
of the worship year in Israel, to observe all the festivals as
given in Lev.23 - Keith Hunt)
In short, the Day of Atonement would have been originally
but one element in a continuous festal program extending from the
new moon of Tishri until the close of the Feast of Ingathering.
For the modern Jew, the real difficulty about Yom Kippur
lies in the fact that what we now regard as an internal process
is traditionally presented as an external one. God is portrayed
as working upon us rather than in us, and this leads to an
overemphasis upon atonement and forgiveness at the expense of the
more advanced conceptions of self-purgation and regeneration.
Once it is realized, however, that the difference is in the
final analysis, simply one of idiom and expression, it becomes
evident that the process involved is indeed the supreme spiritual
experience of which man is capable, and that it is by virtue of
this fact, and not of the mere solemnity of its ritual, that Yom
Kippur justly ranks as the holiest day of the Jewish year.
(What is holy is holy. Man cannot make a day holy, or holy-er. It
is a travacy for the Jews to claim Yom Kippur ranks as the
holiest day of the year. I guess as man, in this case the Jew,
worships God in the manner of what man esteems as holy or un-
holy, you can therefore claim one day is holy-er than another
holy day. In the sight and mind of the Lord, His holy days of the
Festival year, are as holy as He is holy - Keith Hunt)
......................
September 2009
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