Special holiday reading for Yom Kippur on 10 Tisrei, 5764 - October 6, 2003 Yom Kippur Minchah: Holiday Torah reading Leviticus 18:1-30; Haftarah: Jonah 1:1 to 4:11; Brit Chadashah: Romans 7:1-25; 8:1-39


The Bagel: The fault is yours. You say: "But I followed G-d's way and obey the Torah, and He promised life if I obey, but why all the tsuris (troubles)?" It goes deeper: "I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death" (Romans 7:10 NIV). Just when the Minchah of Yom Kippur should confirm forgiveness there is the threat of condemnation.

The Haftarah reading in Jonah expands the concept of forgiveness. Even when G-d planned to destroy Nineveh, because they were like the Nazis of their day. Jonah knew the Chesed of Adonay that could forgive such a recalcitrant people as the Ninevites. This was the quarrel Jonah had with Adonay at the end of the book. If Jonah could express it in terms familiar to us: "How could G-d forgive those Nazis and that only on the basis of repentance?" "Where's their Temple, atonement, Cohanim (priesthood), and expiatory mediation?" he might've reasoned. Yet, their sackcloth, ashes, and a repentant heart was enough. "Well, if that was good enough for them, then that should be good enough for me?" you might reason. Maybe the ultimate reason for the Ninevite deliverance was to come at a later date. Adonay sort of overlooked an incomplete atonement and forgave on the basis of a future atonement, a sort of a reverse-retroactive atonement. It is like a buy-now,-and-pay-later model, only someone else paid later.

The reading in the Brit Chadashah presents the problem of the promise, which is: Torah obeyed equals life. But in the human condition it results in death/condemnation. The fault is yours. Our best shot is not good enough. The target, the Torah, gets missed by our human-frailty arrows. How much sin tips the scales against us? One. Hence, the need for a greater temple, atonement, Cohen Ha Gadol (High Priest), and expiatory mediation. The text resolves the problem by that greater provision - Yeshua's work on the cross: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1-4 NLT).

Cream Cheese: The Tables (Stone Tablets) are turned favorably for us in Yeshua.

Special holiday reading for Yom Kippur on 10 Tisrei, 5764 - October 6, 2003 Yom Kippur Minchah: Holiday Torah reading Leviticus 18:1-30; Haftarah: Jonah 1:1 to 4:11; Brit Chadashah: Romans 7:1-25; 8:1-39