YomKippur

I am hoping that those of you who are celebrating alone and using this as a guide will be blessed on this Feast of Trumpets

RoshHashanah

This is a very good question and one that I believe every individual and family needs to work out for themselves. However, I hope that sharing how I approach this issue will give some questions for you to consider as you wrestle with the issue and make the decision for yourself.

You might be surprised to even learn there are options about when to celebrate. The calendar says when the holiday is so what is the problem? Well the problem is that the calendar was pre-set after the Jewish people went into diaspora (dispersion around the world) and the Biblical instructions for celebration are based on sighting the new moon in Israel each month. For some more black and white thinkers this creates a moral dilemma. Before modern times the moral dilemma was easier to address–we aren’t in Israel and we can’t see the moon there. In modern times, however, not only is Israel a Nation where many Jewish people are living and can report seeing the moon, but the internet provides the opportunity for the appointed appropriate people in Israel to post the sighting of the new moon and everyone to have that info fly to their cell phones and email accounts. It could even be posted on facebook! And, in fact, that is what some have opted to do.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with this approach. At the same time, I see very impractical issues here. For instance, Israel is 9 hours ahead of where I live. So do I begin my celebration of Rosh Hashanah when the new moon is sighted in Israel and stop what I’m doing around 8 or 9 in the morning and gather with everyone to corporately celebrate (because if we’re being sticklers for the instructions this is a corporate worship festival). Or do I wait until night fall which is 9 hours later than the original sighting in Israel which makes it still not the exact time that Scripture says we are to celebrate?

Even more important to me than seeking to engage in a literally accurate celebration is Yeshua’s admonition that love of God and our neighbor is to be our guide for whether or not we are approaching the instructions and commands in Torah with the right goal. While it’s true that our congregation isn’t currently engaged in hardcore outreach to the Jewish people, it is also true that a desire to teach all believers who are on the tree of Israel (whether grown there by birth or grafted in) to live in such a way that the Jewish person who has removed himself from the tree will desire to be grafted back in (see Paul’s Olive Tree teaching in Romans) means we have the current and local Jewish community in mind when we approach these decisions.

What I see in Scripture is that Yeshua was a Pharisee. And he upheld all of the tradition that wasn’t constructed in error of interpretation. Very often he told the people listening to him to do everything the Pharisees *said*–just to not live the way they were living because that wasn’t in agreement with their words. It was the Pharisee sect that had power in Yeshua’s day and in order to be recorded as reading in the Temple, and discussing the things he did wtih the people he did he would have had to be part of their sect. In fact, it was the Pharisees who held to the Resurrection of the Flesh and other things that the Torah teachers and scholars and rabbi’s questioned Yeshua about directly to see where he stood. Yeshua also told his disciples that they had the authority to interpret Torah and trust that He was guiding them in the interpretation–and that their interpretation was to be binding for all of the believers.

When Yeshua chastised the Pharisees it was in the area of creating obstacles for people wanting to get to God. It was for causing Torah living to be experienced as a burden. When it comes to asking people living in diaspora to celebrate the feasts and festivals according to the sighting of the New Moon in Israel I have three great concerns that weigh in.

1) While living in diaspora believers are in different communities and quite often not in a place to practically stop everything at 9am on an unplanned day to celebrate. Because many moadim are shabbats, or days of rest, it is important that they be able to set up time to take off of work or plan to not be in school. Corporate holy days require planning of time and location for everyone to be present–this is especially challenging for those communities who do not have a regular place for meeting. There are very often more instructions for how to properly celebrate a moed than just making sure the timing is right. There are foods that must be prepared, often in advance, and there are items for ritual that must be gathered. Using the current calendar that was set up for those living in diaspora allows those in diaspora to do these things and be ready for the celebration.

2) If one of the reasons for celebrating the moadim is to provoke the modern Jewish person who does not know their Messiah to envy so that they will want to be grafted back into the tree that they were always intended to be a part of, it creates an additional and unnecessary stumbling block to their acceptance of Messiah if the call for them to come and worship not only includes this new presentation of Messiah, but an insistence that their own worship of God has been on the wrong date and not done correct according to Scripture. It becomes, “You need to know Messiah . . . AND let me tell you how you’re doing everything wrong.” When I follow Yeshua’s instruction to take everything back to love this leaves me feeling there is much lacking.

and 3) I ask myself in most things what my motivation is for doing something how I’m doing it. Everything I read about observing the high holy days based on the sighting of the New Moon in Israel is focused on being “right” in our celebration. Please don’t hear what I’m saying as an argument for being wrong. What I’m saying is I don’t think that right and wrong are supposed to be our standard for concern. As I already mentioned, Yeshua himself said that love was to be our standard for whether we are properly interpreting things. And I go back every time I look at this issue to the instruction that timing everything based on the sighting of the New Moon in Israel is for “when you are in in the Land which the Lord will give you.” So if I were in Israel I would most assuredly take literal and serious the instruction for how we should time our celebration. And I would rally everyone around me to follow this instruction so that we could corporately experience the expectation of waiting and the ambiguity of the exact time and date would create excitement in me! While in am not in the Land, however, I am very comfortable with planning my celebration–my practice for the time to come when we will see and understand even better the reasons that we are called to practice these things each year and to learn from them each time we celebrate–around the calendar that is being used by everyone around the world who is anxiously awaiting the coming of Messiah (whether they understand it to be His first coming or, like us, His second).

As a last thought on this topic, in Yeshua’s day it was the Sadducees who were the group that held most tightly to the literal interpretation and application of what was in Scripture and rejected the oral tradition that helped interpret and apply these things. It would be the Sadducees today who would be arguing loudest for the celebration wherever you are of the High Holy Days to be celebrated according to the sighting of the New Moon in Israel–regardless of where you personally live. It was the Sadducees in Yeshua’s day who rejected the resurrection of the flesh and other things that Yeshua challenged them about. Yeshua did not come as a Sadducee. This doesn’t suggest to me that Yeshua loved them less–only that Yeshua was not as concerned with being literal and right in the way that we humans sometimes set as our personal goal.

Ultimately, though, as I said at the beginning, everyone needs to determine for themselves how they will approach this question and how they will answer it. I encourage you to embrace the dating that will best support your celebration of Messiah, your obedience to the commands and instruction of Torah, and your love for God and your neighbor. As you do these things, I pray that you will have a blessed and holy celebration!

Messianic Haggadah

This Power Point presentation is the message given November 27, 2010 and discusses Daniel 11 and the prophecies of Hanukkah, and the End of Days.
Hanukkah prophecies

Hanukkah blessings

This document is a pdf of the three Hanukkah blessings. The first two are to be sung every night of Hanukkah at the time of lighting the candles. The third blessing is done only the first night of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah Song Lyrics

Most of the things that I’ve read from a Messianic perspective about Yom Kippur focus Yom Kippur as the Day of Great Judgment. Rosh Hashanah is presented as the New Year and the prophetic day of the Coming King, a Wedding, and Messiah. It is the day of which no one knows the hour or the day because it only begins when two witnesses see the moon in Israel and the Sanhedrin announces it has begun. All of these things are true about Rosh Hashanah, but it is on Rosh Hashanah that the da of “Great Judgment” begins each year. The days of Awe begin with Rosh Hashanah and end with Yom Kippur and the entire season is one of Judgment prior to Sukkot, when God tabernacles with man.

Tradition says that the “books” are opened on Rosh Hashanah. Most believers are familiar with the Lamb’s Book of Life from Revelation, but most people do not realize there is more than one book. Daniel 7:10 says, “A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.” Revelation 20:12 reads, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” Both passages speak to “books” being opened and judgment being according to what was written in the books.

According to Tradition there are three books for sure: The Book of the Wholly Righteous, the Book of the Wholly Wicked, and the Book of the Undecided. There is some debate over whether the book of the Wholly Righteous is the Lamb’s Book of Life or if that is a separate book. (Revelation 20:12 suggests it may be a 4th book, but many argue it is simply another name for the book of the wholly righteous. That is not the subject of this article.) On Rosh Hashanah all three books (Righteous, Wicked and Undecided) are opened. On Rosh Hashanah the books of the wholly righteous and the wholly wicked are closed. Their judgment is set. The Days of Awe are for the Undecided to have until Yom Kippur to move their name into the Book of the Wholly Righteous. On Yom Kippur the Book of the Undecided is closed and the course of the year is set.

In ancient Biblical times the Israelites understood that they had received their atonement and were forgiven their sins from the past year when they had completed the Yom Kippur service and they had transferred their sins to the Scapegoat who had been run off into the Wilderness to carry their sins away. They would tie a scarlet string to the door of the Temple and when it turned white they understood that atonement was received. The problem is that without a standing Temple there is no Yom Kippur sacrifice, there is no scapegoat, and there is no scarlet string that turns white each year to confirm the atonement having been applied to the people. In fact, according to Rabbinic record, at the time of Yeshua’s ministry here on earth the scarlet ribbon stopped turning white. It was one of a few specific signs that the Ruach HaKodesh had left the Temple and atonement was no longer being received through the sacrifices.

The Apostles understood that this was because Messiah’s sacrifice provided the atonement that the Yom Kippur sacrifice was a picture of each year. The sacrifice was to point to what Messiah would do and once He did it the picture had done its job. For those who do not yet understand that Yeshua is Messiah the remembrance of the picture each year is important. For those who do understand that Yeshua is Messiah, this season becomes about doing this in remembrance of Him.

On Rosh Hashanah one of the most revered prayers is Alvinu Malkeinu, “Our Father, Our King.” This prayer cries out to “Our Father” who is able to give mercy, and “Our King” who sits in judgment. It is understood that we require mercy before we can stand up under judgment. Without mercy no one can stand! Most Jewish people admit and understand that they fall into the Book of the Undecided. To the Rabbi’s this means that it has not yet been determined if they are righteous or wicked. It is believed that your works are what determine which book you fall into and most people’s works are a combination of righteous and wicked as we are human and fall short of the Glory of God.

Paul speaks to the ancient and deeply held belief that our righteousness comes from our works—our own efforts at living out Torah. He agrees that we cannot always measure up, that we are hindered by the flesh in which we dwell and our souls are limited in our ability to fully understand. He also uses long held analogies and stories, changed only slightly, to emphasize that our righteousness is NOT from our works, but by the saving grace extended by Messiah’s shed blood. The Messianic Believer is able to approach this Holy Day with a somber appreciation for what they have already received, and without fear of the Day of Judgment.
Yeshua taught us to pray, “Abba.” This is not a flip word for “Daddy”. Rather, it is a very reverent but also very intimate word for Daddy that speaks to a depth of relationship built on trust and knowing one another. Rather than praying to “Our Father” who we know is able to give mercy and who we hope will extend it to us, we can pray “Abba,” Our Father who HAS given us mercy! Our Father who has extended grace—not mercy we deserved or earned through our works, but mercy freely given, out of love. We can rejoice on Rosh Hashannah that we have received Mercy! We can have assurance that our name is in the Book of the Wholly Righteous and is opened and closed in one day. During the Days of Preparation we can check our hearts and make sure that no leaven has taken root. We can forgive and seek forgiveness from others so that we harbor no unforgiveness as we enter the new year. During the Days of Awe we can rest in awesome respect of all that Messiah has done for us. And during Yom Kippur we can have a somber reflection on all that we have received that was without our effort and not because of our worth while we rejoice with great thanksgiving that we have still received it! We need not fear Our King because we have received the fullness of mercy extended by Our Father.

This is why Messiah had to come two times. This is the mystery of the two pictures of Messiah—the suffering servant and the conquering King. Yeshua died at Passover—the feast of personal salvation; the feast that teaches us about applying the blood to the doorpost of our hearts and homes so that the angel of death will pass over us and we can enter into the Promised Land. When we have partaken of the benefits extended in the First Coming—salvation received as a free and underserved gift of grace—we can approach the days that teach about the Second Coming with assurance that we are able to withstand judgment because we are in the Book of the Righteous. We have received mercy from Our Father; we need not fear judgment from Our King.