Joke:
A house painter who deeply regretted stealing from his clients by diluting the paint, but charging full price. He poured out his heart on Yom Kippur hoping for Divine direction. A booming voice comes from Heaven and decrees, "Repaint, repaint ... and thin no more!"
Deuteronomy 6:4/Mark 12:29
Atonement is about what God did.
He built a bridge by the Shed Blood of Christ.
Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:”
Atonement = Bridge
The “Bridge” brings the One True Living God and fallen man
“At-One-Ment”.
At-One-Ment is the reconnecting and strengthening of our relationship with the Almighty, and therefore the reconciliation of the Almighty with us.
Yom Kippur begins next Tuesday evening, September 25th, 2012 for the Jewish Calendar.
Yom Kippur was the Old Testament Hebrews opportunity to reunite with the Almighty God.
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is our opportunity to unite with God.
Atonement under the New Covenant comes, if you will: upon a knee in repentance.
One Sage of old (Gemara (Macot 24)) stated that the Prophet Habakkuk summarize the entire Torah in chapter 2 and verse 4, saying: “…the just shall live by his faith.” (“tzadik b’emunato yihyeh”).
In like manner Yom Kippur can be summarized into one word, Repentance (Teshuva) meaning “To Return”.
“To Return” to “At-One-Ment” with God.
Acts 17:29-30 “29- Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. 30- And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:”
On Yom Kippur the Hebrews read the Book of Jonah.
The lesson is that God accepts repentance, just as He did with the people of Ninveh.
Jonah 3:5 “…the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.”
King David spent a lifetime of trying to atone for his illicit encounter with Bathsheba (Batsheva). David said, “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin [is] ever before me.” – Psalm 51:3
The Hebrew used here for Sin is “Chatosi;” alternatively meaning “vulnerability”, weakness.
Hence: “My vulnerability is before me always.”
In that case David was outlining a path for steering clear of his past behaviors/failures.
Repentance brings Atonement;
And Atonement brings At-One-Ment with God.
And one aspect of At-One-Ment means knowing God.
And you can only truly know God through His Word.
That in itself gives a very good (tov) reason for the 613th commandant (Mitzvah).
By the time you reach Deuteronomy chapter 31 Moses (Moshe) has given out 612 commandants to the Israelites.
Then in Deuteronomy 31:19 he gives the final mitzvah of his life and the last one in the Torah:
“Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel:...”
The oral tradition understood this to be a command that each Israelite should take part in the writing of a Sefer Torah.
Maimonides states the law as thus: Every male Israelite is commanded to write a Torah scroll for himself, as it says, "Now therefore write this song," meaning, "Write for yourselves [a complete copy of] the Torah that contains this song," since we do not write isolated passages of the Torah [but only a complete scroll]. Even if one has inherited a Torah scroll from his parents, nonetheless it is a mitzvah to write one for oneself, and one who does so is as if he had received [the Torah] from Mount Sinai. One who does not know how to write a scroll may engage [a scribe] to do it for him, and whoever corrects even one letter is as if he has written a whole scroll. (Laws of Tefillin, Mezuzah and Sefer Torah 7: 1)
Moses left this law until the last as if he were saying to all future generations:
"It is not enough to say, the Hebrews of old received the Torah from Moses. You must take it and make it new and your own in every generation."
In like manner we “must” take the Word of God and make it new in our lives.
Another aspect of Yom Kippur is what the Hebrews termed:
Yetzer tov (the desire to do the right thing, which is identified with the soul)
Yetzer hora (the desire to follow your desires, which corresponds with the body).
The Talmud compares the body to a horse and the soul to a rider.
If you’ve ever ridden a horse then you know it is better to for the rider to be on top of the horse.
The rider “must” control the horse rather than the horse controlling where the rider is going!
Let me leave you with two questions:
1. Are you eating to live or living to eat?
2. If you are eating to live, then what are you living for?
I hope it is At-One-Ment with God!!!
