Episode 179: What Yom Kippur Can’t Fix

There are many misconceptions about Yom Kippur but the most grievous is the lack of understanding of exactly what is cleansed and what is forgiven and what is not. Yom Kippur was good news for the community but not necessarily for the individual so this week we will talk about why.

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People get some strange ideas about what Yom Kippur is and isn’t about, so I want to talk about what it is very briefly before teaching what it most definitely is not. And I also want to talk about those social media blanket statements of remorse because someone asked me about them the other day, and I believe I have a better and more honest alternative.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist, and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have years’ worth of blogs at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on Amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids (affiliate link) I also have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for adults and kids. You can find the links for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com, and transcripts for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

So, what is Yom Kippur? Well, apart from being the tenth day of the seventh month on the religious calendar of the Bible (there are actually four separate calendars necessitated by or mentioned in Scripture), Yom HaKippurim is translated into English as the Day of Atonements or Coverings as Kippur is a hard to translate word. We don’t have a perfect word-for-word substitution in English because the concept is foreign to our language. We have no equivalent.

Yom Kippur was the day that the Temple or Tabernacle was ritually cleansed with blood all the way into the Holy of Holies. In the ancient world, blood was recognized as a cleansing agent. Of course, we know all about blood stains, right? But sin was seen to leave an invisible and more durable stain. Sin was a form of death, and so only lifeblood could completely cleanse an offense. The stain of sin infected people, homes, communities, nations and (if they were terrible enough) could even penetrate the Temple itself—meaning the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. If the sin was extensive enough then the Holy of Holies could become so defiled that Yahweh would have to leave—which we see He did in 586 BCE, leaving the city of Jerusalem spiritually undefended against the Babylonians who did God a huge favor by destroying a Temple that had become an abominable center of idolatrous worship and oppression so He didn’t have to do it Himself. Okay, so maybe not a favor, but you get the gist.

It was on Yom Kippur that the High Priest carried out these complex rituals which cleansed the Temple from the outside in, stopping with the cleansing of the Ark of the Covenant, which was hidden from the High Priest by a cloud of incense. Of course, when Yeshua/Jesus performed His own blood manipulation, that final blood cleansing penetrated all the way into the Heavenly Tabernacle. This is why His sacrifice was better and more effective than the sacrifices of the High Priest carried out with the blood of bulls and goats, which needed to be redone each and every year—after he also made atonement for Himself, something Yeshua never needed to do. The cleansing took care of the sins of the entire nation that had gone unknown or unaddressed (some sins weren’t able to be covered by sacrifices) and made the habitation of Yahweh uninhabitable. But what I don’t want you to assume is that there is any change in the requirement for repentance.

For example, if someone got away with murder, the cleansing of even the Holy of Holies wouldn’t pardon that person—it would just remove the offense from the community in terms of the stain it left in God’s House. The community wouldn’t suffer for it, and Yahweh’s House would return to an undefiled state, but the murderer wouldn’t get off scott-free with God. Yom Kippur was never a “if I can just go undetected until Tishri 10, I will be completely forgiven, and all will be right with the world.” If that was the case, then sanctuary cities wouldn’t have been necessary and unintentional murderers wouldn’t have to remain in those cities until the death of the High Priest. All would instead be forgiven by royal command, if individual slates were truly wiped clean. Yom Kippur was about maintaining the presence of God within His Temple by doing a yearly housecleaning with the sprinkled blood of goats and bulls. It was also about cleansing the community from their collective guilt. This is why, when you read Leviticus 16, you will see the repeated references to the consecration of this or that location in the Temple, the Temple furniture, the priests, and the people of the community but not for personal forgiveness.

As such, this was a day for the righteous to breathe a sigh of relief and to celebrate. The unrighteous had reason to fear because they hadn’t repented, made restitution, or made themselves right with Yahweh. Just think of the rape of Bathsheba by David and the subsequent murder of her husband when he wasn’t willing to go along with David’s poor attempt at a cover-up. Nathan the Prophet wasn’t sent to David until after the baby was born—which means that David likely went through Yom Kippur without repenting, and in fact, he must have because when he raped Bathsheba it was spring, the time of year when other kings were off fighting. That requires dry roads and wadis. The community was cleansed, the Temple was cleansed, and so were the priests—but not David. When Nathan came to David, he was still held responsible for everything that he had done, and the horrifying consequences lasted until the end of his life and beyond. It’s an important thing to remember.

Yom Kippur, when carried out properly, guaranteed God’s continued presence within His Temple. But Yom Kippur, unlike the Cross, didn’t change anyone. A murderer before Yom Kippur was still a murderer after Yom Kippur. A thief before Yom Kippur was still a thief afterward. We can obviously say the same for every sin there is. The community didn’t bear the collective burden, but the offender most certainly did. Same goes for us. We can’t lie all year, harm people, etc., and then perform a cut-and-pasted blanket apology on social media and have it mean anything. Repentance is and has always been required—even after the Cross. When we swear allegiance to Yeshua as King of kings and Lord of lords, our Savior, it is empty without also owning our offenses and making them right when we become aware of them. We are required to live as people who have been forgiven much and not as people whose sins no longer have consequences in the lives of others. God forgave David, but the ripple effects of His crimes far outlived him.

I think that, instead of blanket Yom Kippur apologies that don’t actually fix anything or show true remorse, perhaps we ought to have an invitation to a reversal of the Festivus ritual of the airing of grievances. And if you haven’t seen the Festivus episode of Seinfeld, it’s the only one I ever watched, and it is hilarious. What if, instead of people saying, “I am sorry if I did anything that I don’t remember,” people said, “What did I do to you so that I can say I am sorry and we can deal with the fallout?” I see a lot of people out there who are constantly venting about having been wronged over this or that, but I have never, ever, seen an invitation to accountability at the expense of their own pride. Blanket apologies ring hollow when someone has actually hurt you, and they don’t even remember. And sometimes, they don’t even know. A lot of people are out there slandering other folks as vile and evil over unknown offenses. Why is it more embarrassing to actually talk to a person who has hurt us than to go around speaking hate about them? Goodness, I have people out there who detest me, and when I ask them why, they say, “You know what you did,” except I don’t. I don’t know if I hurt them, or someone they know, or if there was a misunderstanding or what. They have no problem telling people I am terrible, with no details given. I mean, if you are going to gossip then go the whole hog and provide the details, right? At least then, the charges can be addressed. I don’t know about you, but I am not sorry for stuff that I don’t know I have done to hurt or offend people. How can I be? I haven’t been given the opportunity if the charges are withheld, and I am ignorant of them. I am upset at the concept of potentially damaging someone, but how can I truly repent without specifics? We would be better off to be more out in the open about those things that make us bitter in our hearts.

I talked to the kids this year about why God hates lies so much, but I want to touch upon it here as well. Some things are the complete opposite of how the Kingdom of God operates—death, oppression, violation, and lies. The first three, pretty much everyone agrees that those are wrong, but lies are tricky. Lies are useful, and usually for all the wrong reasons. For every person righteously lying to Nazi soldiers about harboring Jews in their attic, there are millions upon millions of people and especially professed believers, who lie without an ounce of remorse for their own personal benefit. I am going to give you an example, and I am sure you have seen this done, but I hope you haven’t done it yourself. Here goes—when we strongly believe something or have a cause to promote, it is easy to become morally compromised on behalf of said cause. We are quick to believe and pass on as “verified and true” anything that fits into what we already believe or want to believe. And I am not just talking about forwarding that Neimann-Marcus cookie recipe hoax (I am so, so very embarrassed to admit I fell for that one in the 90s). Anyway, when I was informed it was a hoax, I was super embarrassed and apologized. It was easy because I wasn’t emotionally invested in any cookie recipe war against Neimann-Marcus. But what happens when we are passionate about the content of a lie? What happens then?

Say you really truly believe something—meaning you have an agenda that you want to promote and therefore want people to accept as their own agenda so that they will act how you want them to act or stop doing something or believe this or that. In other words, it isn’t enough that you believe it—you feel compelled to go out recruiting and might even believe that it is the Holy Spirit telling you to do it. But the problem is that it is only a belief, no matter how desperately you believe it or have aligned yourself with it. Or maybe you have a little bit of proof, but it isn’t enough to convince people— people who might also have proof of the opposite position being legitimate. This happens a lot—sometimes we are both partially right, and sometimes we are both entirely wrong. But then, you see the post or video of your dreams—a claim tailor-made to prove your claims and even “signed” or at least attested by an anonymous source who got the information from their cousin’s boyfriend’s music teacher. You just know it’s true because it fits so perfectly with what you already believed, and you go ahead and hit that share button. Besides, you agree with the person who posted it and just know that they did their homework to make sure it was true before they shared it, so you don’t have to. (Unfortunately, they had the same attitude about the person who shared it with them, so no one has checked it out.)

So, you post it. “Eureka! The smoking gun! My point is proven! Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!” Okay, so that last Ozymandius quote was a bit over the top.

Only, it isn’t proven. It’s just a claim that you believe because it confirms your biases and you threw your brain out the window. And we do it because we like to think that people who agree with us are all good and honest people—like we assume ourselves to be. Plus, the Holy Spirit would tell us if it was a lie, and that didn’t happen so, it must be true—but the Spirit doesn’t protect us or save us from our own intellectual laziness or smugness. Honesty is hard work. Gossip and spreading dubious stories is easy. God isn’t going to reward us for that by forever pricking our conscience, and when we repeatedly shut Him down because we like what we are reading, we sear that portion of our conscience.

More often, God will communicate with us in such a situation by sending others to reason with us. Someone, for example, might inform us that we just posted an old hoax where someone lied and put someone else’s name on it. I see that a lot. They might even prove it by providing a credible statement (say, on said person’s website) denouncing the message as not being from them at all but falsely written in their name. Someone else might point out that the facts don’t line up with what the post is claiming—perhaps claims about scientific studies that do not exist or lying about the contents of actual studies. I see this often as well. Or someone may claim that such and such a teacher gave them permission to do X when the teacher teaches against X. I will never forget the time that a friend of mine was credited with giving people permission to perform ritual sacrifices in their backyard when that is the opposite of what they would ever teach in a million years. Or the congregation that assures everyone that I am telling people that we need to live in an honor/shame culture simply because I teach about that cultural mindset and tell folks all the time that I would hate living like that and am glad I don’t! But we are quick to believe claims without investigating them because outrage and condemnation are an addictive combination. In fact, the majority of the lies that many people tell are simply in the form of passing on stories that they chose to believe without any first-hand proof or due diligence to verify.

And so, what do people do when confronted with their error? This is what separates the honest from the mistaken from the actual liars. I would hope that most people (when they have spread an untrue story about someone else) would feel sick about it. Gosh, I know I do. I know what it is to be on the receiving end, and finding out that I have done it myself makes me literally want to vomit. Even after I get it fixed; doing so at least as publicly as I harmed them. Vindication is essential to God, and it should be important to us.

What if we double down and refuse to accept anything as proof that we are wrong? What if we accuse those whom God sent to us to reason with us of being naïve, or of doing this just because they disagree (and often assuming disagreement when it doesn’t exist), claiming cover-ups and persecution, assuming that the person really did say it but they retracted it later due to pressure (when there is no proof whatsoever that they said it in the first place—and nothing on the internet is ever truly deleted), or that the study they claim existed was erased from existence by whoever. And we could call it wishful thinking, to be generous, but what it really amounts to is lying in the form of presumptuous accusations. Well, this person must have done such and such because this information can’t be wrong. Do you see the dangers inherent when we are so determined to be right that we are willing to make liars and villains out of everyone else?–what we are capable of when we are so determined to defend our discernment that our response to correction is a scorched earth policy?

This isn’t Kingdom work but the work of the evil one in our lives. Instead of growing in humility, we sidestep and become accusers of the brethren. Yom Kippur doesn’t undo this or the damage caused by it to others and to our own souls. What’s more, it is an insult to God when we do not believe we can trust Him enough to work in ways that require integrity—when we think He needs us to compromise and become liars in His service. But lies stain the Kingdom in ways that non-believers aren’t blind to, even if we are. When we allow someone’s name to be attached to something they never said just because it fits our beliefs and will make us look more credible, we are guilty of slander and manipulation. In the ancient world, people feared having spells cast on them or drinking potions that would manipulate their thoughts and actions. It was called sorcery, our modern translation of Pharmakeia, and it was actually a crime in the Greco-Roman world. Now, we don’t do that anymore and don’t take it seriously, but we do lie and manipulate using our words to produce the same effect. In Galatians 3, Paul is so incensed about the circumcision group withholding table fellowship from the converted Gentiles unless they become formal, circumcised proselytes that he calls their words and pressure witchcraft.

The deepest and most profound law in the Torah, apart from the complete love we owe to God, is the kind of absolute love of neighbor that we wouldn’t ever do anything to anyone that we know would be harmful to ourselves. I have never met anyone who wanted their name attached to something they never said and never agreed with in the first place. I know that no one who finds out that they were wrong and issues a retraction out of the integrity of their heart wants to be accused of simply buckling to peer pressure. I know that no one wants to fight a battle where they are compromised because they can’t prove that something that never happened, never happened—which is just generally not possible. For example, I can’t prove that I have never committed a murder. You cannot disprove a negative, as the expression goes. And liars, opportunists, and manipulators take advantage of it.

They know that more people will hear the lie than the retraction or rebuttal.

As believers, we can’t do that and fast on Yom Kippur, call it good, and go back the next day to business as usual. You know, one of the most painfully embarrassing experiences of my life is when I found out that “what everyone knew about the Babylonian origins of Christian holidays” wasn’t actually true at all. I found out by accident when I actually began to study everything we know about Tammuz and Ishtar and the historical figure of Semiramis, who lived around the time of David–not Nimrod. And this was like back in 2015. I have found that there are people who will listen to corrections, check out your sources, and change their views accordingly and people who won’t. There are people who will look at the source material we now have and then look at unsubstantiated stories and will realize that if something can’t be proven, no evidence whatsoever behind it, then we can’t claim it with any sort of integrity. Geez, I had to rewrite a book over the paragraph I wrote about that. I am still apologizing for claiming to have “done my homework” when all I did was trust others who hadn’t done their homework either.

Honesty is essential to the Kingdom. Without credibility, our witness to the truth of the Gospel is worse than absolute silence about it. Better for people to think we aren’t associated with Yeshua at all than for them to see us as unrepentant liars, willing to say whatever we think we need to say to get people to agree with us on our agendas. Liars lie—it’s a fundamental truth of the universe. When we lie about one thing, we will lie about other things, and we cannot expect people to assume that we only lie “for a good cause.” Liars lie for selfish reasons; we all know that. Liars lie because they have no respect for the person they are lying to—all they care about is that the lie is believed. Of course, there is a difference between lying and not being open about our opinions. And we can give wrong opinions without being liars—we are all uninformed about stuff. But when we claim ourselves to be truthful, we had better not be compromising on the truth at all.