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Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is unique among the appointed times of the LORD. It’s the only holy day in which the people do very little, while one man, the high priest, does everything. Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), our high priest, sacrificed Himself for us and carried our sins away too, as the symbols of Yom Kippur memorialize. All the people are asked to do is humble themselves, do no work and bring an offering to the Tabernacle/Temple.
Without a Temple, what can we bring to God? It’s not about following the Torah to the letter with a physically perfect abstinence from food and water, but as Yeshua taught us, it’s about caring for those around us as we want them to care for us. The Torah is a covenant of life, not of death.
Every Yom Kippur, it’s obligatory to read through the texts in the Torah that tell us what Yom Kippur is and how God instructs His people to celebrate it. We look to Him to show us how to celebrate it; we don’t define it ourselves. Leviticus 16 tells us how the High Priest (including our Messiah Yeshua) was to celebrate Yom Kippur, while Leviticus 23 tells us how the people were to celebrate Yom Kippur.
“The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the LORD. You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the LORD your God. If there is any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut off from his people. As for any person who does any work on this same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall do no work at all. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. It is to be a sabbath of complete rest to you, and you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of the month at evening, from evening until evening you shall keep your sabbath.’” (Leviticus 23:26–32 NASB)
The people were given three instructions on how to celebrate Yom Kippur:
- Humble or afflict the soul
- Do no work
- Bring an offering by fire to the Temple
Since the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70 and therefore the furloughing of the Aaronic priesthood, we are prohibited by other texts of the Torah from bringing an offering to HaShem at the Temple on Yom Kippur.
However, we still are obligated under the “perpetual statute” to afflict our souls and to refrain from work on Yom Kippur.
We also can read Hebrews 7–10, which goes into great detail about how Yom Kippur is supposed to work internally, inside your person in your body and your mind and your soul rather than externally.
Getting your goats
There are strange things going on inside the Day of Atonement that don’t make a whole lot of sense when you look at them in detail. For example, the two goats. There’s one for HaShem, which is slaughtered on the altar. The other is cast out into the wilderness.
On the surface, which would you rather be? The one in the wilderness, right? It’s the one that gets to live a while longer, rather than the one given to HaShem that dies shortly after it’s chosen.
However, the goat that is sent into the wilderness, the one that is not given to HaShem is the one that carries all the burdens the sins with it.
Neither goat is actually guilty for your mistakes, is it? No. Both goats were sinless, just as Messiah Yeshua is sinless. The goat given to HaShem dies on behalf of the people, and the goat sent out into the wilderness to carry away the sins of the people is also an act performed on behalf of all the people.
What are the common people doing throughout Yom Kippur? Watching? Praying? That’s fair. There’s not much to do. It doesn’t involve you, right? Paying for your sin doesn’t involve you.
Sins have consequences, don’t get me wrong. There are consequences to sins, but the consequences of sin don’t actually pay for them. The consequences are just the fallout of sin.
For example, if I murder someone, I end up in prison. Going to prison doesn’t pay for the life I took. Going to prison, whether it’s for 20 years or for the rest of my lfe, that is simply the consequence of my sin. Paying for his death requires something beyond my just imprisonment for a period of time.
Now, so fast
What are we required to do on Yom Kippur? Observing, waiting, and fasting.
Isaiah 58 discusses the nature of fasting and how it’s supposed to affect you. You and I don’t have any influence, or partaking in all of what the High Priest does on Yom Kippur. Each individual did not supply the two goats God requires on Yom Kippur, the priest does that. It’s not it’s the whole community as a nation supplies two goats for each head of household or something. It’s only two goats for the entire nation.
“’Cry loudly, do not hold back; Raise your voice like a trumpet, And declare to My people their transgression And to the house of Jacob their sins.
‘Yet they seek Me day by day and delight to know My ways, As a nation that has done righteousness And has not forsaken the ordinance of their God. They ask Me for just decisions, They delight in the nearness of God.
‘”Why have we fasted and You do not see? Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?” Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire, And drive hard all your workers.
‘Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist. You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
‘Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself? Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the LORD?’” (Isaiah 58:1–5 NASB)
What is God correcting here? They were observing the fast on the outside but they weren’t observing the fast in their heart (Isa. 58:6–12).
“Fake it until you make it” doesn’t produce good spiritual results.
Something above the Torah
God has given us His laws and instructions in the Torah, but He also has oaths. He has oaths which are in the Torah and oaths that are outside the Torah. How can that be?
One of most common oaths we ask HaShem to grant us is His oath of mercy. How do we know this is outside the bounds of Torah?
If you commit a sin, transgression or iniquity, these are the consequences. It’s a pretty basic formula. And sometimes the constants are so severe, we can’t pay them. What that happens, what do we asked for? We ask God to go outside the law and say God have mercy on this. Mercy lives outside of the law.
Oaths are outside the Torah because that is where God we receive our promises, mercies and kindnesses from God.
Going back to Isaiah 58, we see that there are plenty of individuals who follow the Torah’s instructions and follow the law to the letter, but their hearts weren’t connected to their actions. They weren’t following the Torah with their entire lives, but only a part of their lives. They were following God’s instructions but they weren’t following the Torah in its ideal.
They were focusing on their own hunger and ignoring the hunger of those around them. They cared about their own needs but they didn’t notice anyone else’s needs.
Recall what we studied in Parashat Ekev, which is the reading of Deuteronomy 7-11 about God’s charge. Who are included in God’s charge? Well, He says quite clearly, those who are poor, those who are the outcasts, those who are mistreated and uncared for by the world. They are the ones that He takes control of.
So if you have a a fasting individual who does the best they can for them in their own lives, what about those who are suffering? God says, “Good job for taking care of yourself, but where is your fasting and prayer, fasting and effort for everyone else?”
“’If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word,
‘Then you will take delight in the LORD, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’” (Isaiah 58:13–14 NASB)
God says that if you correct your path, not just the actions you’re following, but the intent behind them, and those who it effects all of those around you. That’s when God says, “Now I’ll pay attention to you.”
Heavenly heart monitor
How does God know when your heart is truly in your actions?
- When you bless other people.
- When you share your bread with the hungry, God sees.
- When you share your money with the poor, God sees.
- When you help those who have no clothes have clothes to wear, God sees.
This is what God notices. That’s how He measures whether your external Torah observance has really sunk in and permeated your heart.
That’s how He measures it. He said that quite plainly, many times over in the Torah. How you treat the poor, the fatherless, the widow, the stranger in your gates. He tells us to remember that we were once like them? How do you treat them? That’s His measuring tool.
That’s what he’s using to verify your heart actually is following through, that you actually are paying attention.
So remember that when we’re measuring ourselves? We ask God, “Are you pleased with my work by fasting, whatever I’m doing?” God looks at how you care for those in your community who are suffering. If you are treating them well, you already know how God feels towards you, because He knows it’s in your heart to do so.
If you truly treat someone else the same way you treat yourself, your heart has finally caught up with your actions.
We know our heart followed when we treat everybody else the way God want them treated. We reach the point where God can say to us, “Well done. You have learned the lesson. That is what I am after.”
God has a list of good deeds we are to accomplish through our entire life. That is how the process of sanctification works.
This high priest is always in
I also want to jump briefly into Hebrews 7–8. We read about the priest Melchizedek, who Abraham gave a tithe of his spoils. The author of Hebrews tells us that the priesthood of Melchizedek is older than the priesthood of Aaron, because he came before Aaron.
The author of the book of Hebrews also says that the Messiah is supposed to step into the role of High Priest. But that’s also impossible, because it’s against the law for Messiah to fill this role because He is not a Levite from the line of Aaron. So you cannot have Messiah inserted in as high priest.
Messiah is not a descendant of Aaron as commanded by the Torah, so for the Messiah to act as the High Priest is a violation of the Torah. How do you get around that?
So what the book of Hebrews tells us is that God established a priesthood before the Torah was given at Mt. Sinai, that was outside of Aaron’s lineage. This is how Melchizedek was able to operate and function as a priest prior to Aaron.
Therefore we have a precedent that God already set up in advance so that God could break his Torah commandment, by establishing a priesthood for Messiah to inherit that was outside of Aaron’s line. That is what the book of Hebrews is talking about.
There are two simultaneous priestly houses in Torah: Melchizedek and Aaron. They operate side by side.
God established the Melchizedek line, which we are told is without lineage because that priesthood was not a hereditary line. It was a line created by God that God could appoint whomever He wills to carry it. It was not restricted by the laws of inheritance as Aaron’s priestly line was structured.
God cannot break his own Torah and tell us to break his Torah. That would be ridiculous.
Feast for the poor on Yom Kippur?
Going back to Isaiah 58, we see how God makes this connection with a duty to share food with the hungry on Yom Kippur, a day when everyone is supposed to be thirsty and hungry to afflict our souls. We see in Leviticus 23 that anyone who eats food or drinks on Yom Kippur is to be cut off from Israel. So how does this work?
How can we share food on Yom Kippur without breaking the fast? Is there a loophole somewhere in the Torah for that?
Because there are tools by which God wrote with inside His words that allow this to happen.
God gives us the tools by which we can override or supersede sections or portions of the Torah, in given scenarios.
If God places someone in our path who is literally starving on Yom Kippur, are we going to make them wait until sunset to have some food and water? No, certainly not. We give them the food and water because we want them to live, not to die. Our goal is not to cut their soul off from God, our objective is to help him survive another day so he will have another opportunity to meet God.
As the sages say, we keep the Torah to live, not to die.
I want to point out the only that we know our God is strictly because of the words He spoke. If He was silent, you and I would have no clue He ever existed. In fact, we wouldn’t even exist since He spoke — “let there be light” — to start the creation of the world.
It’s only through His spoke words that were written down for us, that we even know that God exists. But the only we know He spoke to Moses is because Moses wrote those words down and recorded them for us. We know Him strictly by the words Moses wrote.
So for God to go outside of His words. That’s outside of what we know. We only know what His words are.
The part of God that was not written down for us is not for us to know. That side of Him that works outside what was written is not something we can understand. We can guess and speculate but we can only know what has been written down for us.
We know one of the advantages of the written word is that as time goes on, we understand words better. God doesn’t do picture books for a reason.
If … then, while … else Torah programming
In Hebrews 8:1–7, we read about how God can overrule a portion of the Torah for a period of time, whether that’s one lifetime or a millennia. God has a tool he wrote in the Torah to do that.
Is there something inside our Torah where God can rewrite, alter or swap out one agreement for another? Is this a bait and switch? What is this strange covenant swapping?
It seems like the LORD programmed the Torah with an “if… then…” statement.
The Torah has stipulations and instructions. If this happens, this is the fall out or consequence of that action. The Torah has many channels and diverse paths, but ultimately there are two main paths: the path that leads to eternal life and the path that leads to eternal death. We can move from one path to the other. God gives us that freedom of choice.
You can always jump from life to death at any point in time. You can also jump from the death back to life at any point in time. The choices are always there.
Just as the Torah has “if … then” statements, it also has “while … else” statements running. We see this in the stacking of the covenants. Each covenant doesn’t usurp its predecessor, it complements and adds to it. For example, you can have both the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant running at the same time.
God programmed nature to do that. We see the same thing in God’s Torah.
Not so new ‘new covenant’
Although you may have believed in God 15 years ago, you are probably not on the exact same path now that you were on 15 years ago. You were following the same God 15 years ago as you are following now but your understanding has grown since then. You’re following the path He wrote for you, which is not the exact same path He wrote for your neighbor.
You may know people today who are at the exact spot you were at 15 years ago and they are following God just as you are.
For example, Jeremiah loved God with both his heart and his actions. Jeremiah was a partaker of the new covenant he prophesied about.
God’s laws were also written on Moses’ mind and heart. The same is true for Abraham, even though he didn’t have all the law. The ones Abraham knew and understood he followed.
We have to ask, “How new is the new covenant?” It already existed. Way, way, way, way, way back.
Joseph didn’t have all the law, but we know it was written on his heart and it flowed into his actions because he could not have withstood the trials he endured without it. Joseph knew his God.
This new covenant didn’t happen because Messiah died. It already existed generations before all the way back to the very beginning.
We also read about this in Ezekiel 18:1–9.
The proverb that is said in Ezekiel 18:1-2 was never really true because God does not repay me for the sins of my father and He doesn’t pay your children for your sins. You sins are your sins and your successes are your successes. You can’t transfer righteousness through inheritance. It doesn’t work that way. Job tried to do that and it didn’t work.
I’m sure somebody will bring it up when speaking out about the Diaspora of Israel. All the people were punished for many years for what the kings, nobles and the leaders.
Now, the righteous will sometimes get swept up with the unrighteous in a massive sweep, but just like Ezekiel was swept up and hauled off to Babylon just like everyone else, but God stood with him.
Although Ezekiel was cast out of the land, he was not punished.
The same is true for Jeremiah. He was swept up in the exile but he was not being punished for his own sin. God will not necessarily hold each individual responsible for the whole community’s failure, but each individual may be swept up along with the community if the community continues on the wrong path.
Remember Sodom and Gomorrah? What happened to Lot’s other children, the ones who refused to leave? They died, not because of their corruption but because they didn’t leave when they had the chance. They were told to leave but they didn’t and they were swept up, too. A righteous person still has a responsibility to do what God’s telling them to do.
We know that in the time of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, just before the Babylonian exile that there were those who refused to follow the corrupt example of their leaders and followed God’s Torah instead. So we have examples of how a righteous person can live in spite of the surroundings around them.
But don’t be shocked if the righteous don’t leave, they will get swept up with everybody. But if you do leave, well done. Just bring God with you.
If no Temple and priesthood, then …
So we have these great examples which we understand that God has His Torah written out with His instructions to follow. But there will be circumstances that when you follow God with your entire heart, soul, mind and strength, you might find yourself in a situation where you have to jump temporarily or permanently outside a Torah instruction and yet you will survive and be judged righteous by God for it.
An obvious example is the fact that none of you have offered a sin offering this year? Why not? Are you breaking the Torah by not slaughtering a lamb at Passover? No. You are actually following Torah by not making sacrifices on the high days because there’s no Temple in which you can lawfully present them.
However, Torah also says very explicitly that if the goats are not offered on Yom Kippur, the people are cut off from God. But we are not.
When Ezekiel was sent to Babylon, was he cut off from God’s people because there was no temple in service to present the offerings on Yom Kippur? No.
So we have examples of even before Messiah was born, lived, died and rose, that by an agreement God can create a scenario where you cannot fully comply with a particular Torah commandment. You follow the rules and instructions that you can follow because you love God.
So we have these examples of how our love of God and our obedience to Him, can supersede or go outside of Torah instructions and we can still be considered righteous.
One can violate the Torah’s basic instructions without violating the Torah’s laws. Daniel and his three friends were never able to offer their own sin offerings in the Temple, even though as mere human beings they sinned from time to time, yet they were righteous outside the Torah’s instructions. God spoke through them and worked miracles through them, even though they never presented a sin offering in the Temple.
How was this possible? Because God wrote down. “If you love me, I’ll write the Torah in your heart and your mind and your soul.”
Yom Kippur is an action based holiday. You’re afflicting your soul, you’re not eating, you’re praying to God. The idea is that your heart will then follow those prayers and this will lead you to desire to not screw up again.
How do we know that the actions we do on Yom Kippur are actually affecting our hearts? We see it in how we interact with people around us. Do we treat them the way we would want God to treat us?
Do we truly love people and care about what God commanded us to do? What He commanded us to do is take care of His charge which include the poor, fatherless, widow, the stranger and the levite. God wants us to take care of them.
Well, guess what? You are the poor, you are the fatherless, you are the widow. At different times your life you have been and when the Great Exodus comes, you will be. We are destined to be in the predicament of the poor, orphan, widow and stranger someday. God said so. He warns us that the nations will vomit us out and kick us out. They will evict us from this land at the time of the Great Exodus.
So we want to prepare ourselves by treating the poor, orphan, widow and the stranger the way we want to be treated at that time when we are the ones who will be poor, orphaned, widowed or treated as a stranger.
God does not break His oaths and vows, because they are written in the Torah. The Torah doesn’t tell us what our fasting is supposed to mean to us. The Torah does not discuss what the affliction of our souls is supposed to mean, but the prophets do.
The Day of Atonement is an important holy day, but also I want you to understand how valuable it is to understand the purpose behind it and inside you: how we treat the people around us and how God works with us — inside and outside of the Torah that He gave.
Summary: Tammy