According to the Sages, part of the transgression committed by Aaron’s two sons is that not only did they offer improper offerings, but they entered into the Holy of Holies, which only the Kohen HaGadol (the High Priest) is allowed to do. Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah (First Century) comments that either sin would have been enough to warrant their death. As a result, the entire rest of the chapter deals with the proper protocol of Yom Kippur and the order for the High Priest’ to enter into the Holy of Holies.
It is taught that Moses’ long process for seeking forgiveness on behalf of the Jewish people for the sin of the Golden Calf ended on the tenth day of Tishrei (Yom Kippur) when he returned with the second set of tablets. That day became associated with forgiveness. The Torah, in several references, goes into great depth as to the specifics of Yom Kippur and the proper way of observing the most holy day.
The obvious question is why the Torah goes into so much detail regarding the observance of Yom Kippur? The Jewish holidays are known as mo’edim. The word mo’ed, in Hebrew, is best translated as a divine set/appointed time. It is a time when G-d chooses to meet with us. Yom Kippur is our opportunity for a supernatural encounter, and the day G-d’s forgiveness and mercy is most abundant. G-d wants to be in relationship with us, and Yom Kippur is our opportunity to perfect ourselves and prepare ourselves to be used by G-d in the coming year.
According to Tosefta Rosh HaShanah 1.13:
"All things are judged on Rosh HaShanah, and their fate is sealed on Yom Kippur."
Beginning on Rosh HaShanah, when the Book of Life is opened, and judgment begins, the shofar is sounded to call our souls to repentance. The Rambam states that the shofar beckons our souls to:
"Awake, you sleepers, from your sleep! Arise, you slumberers, from your slumber! Repent with contrition! Remember your Creator! (Hil. Teshuvah 3:4)"
The shofar serves to call us to teshuvah (to repentance), and for G-d to act mercifully toward us and pardon us for our shortcomings.
G-d gives us the opportunity of the High Holiday period to prepare ourselves and make things right with both our Creator, and with those around us. The Torah is concerned about all these details because G-d cares about protocol. Each detail on Yom Kippur teaches us that it is not about ourselves. That the world does not revolve around us. Each one of us is reminded of our ultimate fate and judgment on Yom Kippur, and our individual, as well as corporate need for atonement.
Yom Kippur is also a reminder of G-d’s mercy and ability to bring atonement for our shortcomings. According to Hebrews 9:6-28, Yeshua is our Great High Priest, and it is through him that kapparah, that atonement for sin has already been made. By seeking to truly make things right this Yom Kippur, and to carefully observe G-d’s instructions regarding this most holy day, let us merit the sealing of our names in the Book of Life, and the ultimate assurance of our atonement through Yeshua. May the final shofar blast at the end of Ne’ilah, the final Yom Kippur service, truly be the blast which announces the arrival of our long-awaited and beloved Messiah!
G’mar Chatimah Tovah – May you be sealed for a wonderful New Year!
Joshua,
You wrote that Jesus, whom I'd thought you believe is the messiah, is your "High Priest".
In order to be a messiah, one must be able to trace his fathers back to King David (Gen. 49:10, Num. 1:2). But the "new testament" introduces Jesus as lacking a human father (Matt. 1:18-25).
And in order to be a priest, one must be able to trace his fathers back to Aaron (Num. 18:1, Num. 1:2). But Jesus is reported in the "new testament" to be the product of an "immaculate conception" and a "virgin birth".
Please explain how Jesus qualified as both messiah and priest, which we know from the Jewish Bible are mutually exclusive heritages.
Thank you.
Anonymous,
Regarding the lineage of Yeshua, he can legitimately be descended on both sides. Of Mary, I will not even go into as it is self-explanatory.
So what about Yosef? There is some precedence in halachah for an adopted child to be considered of the lineage of the adopted father. In fact, the Gemara seems to state in a few places that there is no difference between an adopted child and a child who was born into the household.
Here is just one example:
"Why was she [the daughter of Pharaoh] called a Jewess? Because she repudiated idolatry, as it is written, And the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the river, and R. Yochanan, [commenting on this,] said that she went down to cleanse herself from the idols of her father's house. 'Bore': But she only brought him [Moses] up? - This tells us that if anyone brings up an orphan boy or girl in his house, the Scripture accounts it as if he had begotten him." (Megillah 13a)
So your argument does not on its own automatically deny the possibility of Yosef.
As to how Mashiach can be both a son of David, and a priest? That is easy.
In the Torah, Moshe functions at times in the role of High Priest (mediating b/w Israel and HaShem, the consecration of Aaron and his sons, etc.) As such, the Gemara itself declares that Moshe was a High Priest (Zevachim 101a).
We also know from the Torah and our rabbis that Mashiach is to be a "greater Moses" ( In fact, Bamidbar Rabbah 11:3 states, "As it was with the first Redeemer, so it will be with the Last Redeemer. The first Redeemer was Moshe ..."
As such, Moshe was both a leader and redeemer figure, as well as a High Priest. And so it will be with Mashiach.
So Mashiach will be a "Greater Moses," but instead of being from the lineage of Moshe, he would descend through David as prophesied elsewhere in the Tanakh.
Joshua,
I've had trouble getting my comment to post, I think due to it's length, so I'm breaking it up for your site into several postings.
I am accustomed to challenges to traditional, Torah-based Judaism from you that are as subtle, sophisticated and intelligent as your response to me, above.
I'll address your points one by one. Regarding the combination of Jesus' patrilineal lineages, that's obviously absurd. No one can trace a direct line through their fathers to two different men, one of whom is not a descendant of the other. Additionally, even if it were possible for Jesus to have had patrilineal parentage of two mutually exclusive patriarchs, which it isn't, let's understand clearly that your beliefs assert that Jesus' patrlineal parent was neither Aaron nor Judah--it was, according to the "new testament", G-d.
I appreciate your decision not to sidetrack this discussion into an irrelevant discussion of Mary's family tree, since it has no bearing in the Jewish tradition on Jesus' qualification either as a priest or as a messianic candidate.
Here is part 2:
You wrote that "there is some precedence in halachah for an adopted child to be considered of the lineage of the adopted father", but the reality is that no person has ever joined one of the tribes of Israel except by birth, and that while someone can certainly be considered just like a son by an adoptive father, that has never qualified anyone for the priesthood or afforded them entry to any tribe. You will note that Basya, Pharaoh's daughter (I'm not recalling her Anglicized name just now), is never declared a member of any tribe, nor is Eliezer, Jethro or anyone else. Converts to Judaism do not gain membership to any particular tribe, and there is no such thing as a convert to the priesthood or to Levitical or kingship status.
Last part:
Prior to the priesthood accruing to Aaron and his sons, it was meant to belong to the firstborn of every family. Only with the incident with the golden calf did the non-Levitical families forfeit their ability to staff that function. Additionally, Moses was slated to be the father of the priests, but he blew it by resisting G-d's orders to be His spokesman to Pharaoh in Egypt. The bottom line is that G-d put Moses into the role of high priest only for a temporary assignment that was clarified in the Jewish Bible prior to it falling "forever" into the hands of Aaron's sons hands--again, "forever". So your argument that Jesus will be like Moses in terms of assuming the priesthood contradicts the Jewish Bible and tradition from Sinai. But, at first blush it seems very creative.
To wrap up a lengthy post (sorry!) on a congenial note of agreement, I am fully with you on the necessity for the messiah, who will be the Jews' king, to be Davidic. Thus, the parentage claimed for Jesus by Christian writings, such as G-d and Aaron, fail to satisfy G-d's prophetic promise about the messiah. I also want to agree with you that the messiah will be a great leader like Moses was, and I look forward to his coming everyday, may it be speedily in our days.
Anonymous,
Thank you for your response. I hope you had a very meaningful Yom Kippur.
First, maybe I should clarify that I not claiming Yeshua is descended from both Aaron and David.
The geneology issue is simply to establish Yeshua's davidic descent, as that is a primary prerequisite for Mashiach. The Messiah must be "of David."
As far as the priesthood aspect, both the rabbis and the Jewish writers of the NT understood that Yeshua and Moshe were/would be cohanim, but not in the Aaronic sense (as neither are a descendant of Aaron).
The book of Hebrews in the NT makes a case that Yeshua will be a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. In Jewish thought of the Second Temple period, this was a very plausible claim, as there is a number of different Jewish texts from the time period attributing very lofty language and status to the mysterious figure of Melchizedek (see, for example, 11Q13 in the DSS).
Either way, we know, and our rabbonim taught, that Moshe was also a priest (see b. Zevachim 101a). As such, Moshe was a "different kind of priest." Mashiach, as our rabbonim teach us, will also be a different kind of priest, like unto Moshe.
You and I can again differ as to WHO this kind of Mashiach will be, but this is pretty clearly understood within classical Jewish thought.
Joshua,
First, thank you for asking about Yom Kippur. It is a wonderful day, a gift from G-d in which He expunges our records, our guilt, not in exchange for washing our hands in innocent blood, but as a free gift because He is magnanimous as our king and loving as our father. I hope yours was a meaningful day, and that the fast wasn't too hard on you.
And second, I'm sorry about clogging up the machinery here with my fouled up attempts to post lengthy feedback. It is the nature of this dialog mechanism to limit its length, and yet the subject begs an in-depth exploration.
I'll get to my response to your note in the next entry....
Joshua,
Your clarification that Jesus is not descended from both Aaron and David is well received, and we agree fully on that matter.
I think we're also on the same page about the Davidic geneology that is prerequisite to any messianic candidate. However, since Jesus' father was not a son of David, I remain confused about your continued belief that Jesus fulfilled geneological Jewish messianic prophecy.
While the rabbis acknowledged Moses' historical stint as a priest, they also agree with the Jewish Bible's explicit declaration that from the time Aaron and his sons took over that role, the priesthood would never again fall into anyone else's hands. Now, the writers of the "new testament" or other religions' foundational texts, like the DSS, Koran or Book of Mormon, which broke with the Jewish tradition from Sinai, certainly did offer a range of alternative messianic prophesies. The ethnicity of those documents' authors is, of course, irrelevant. What matters is if their concoctions are properly construed as insights into G-d's word or challenges against it.
I want to emphasize my (and, infinitely more importantly, the Torah's) agreement with you about the indisputable fact that Moses once served as a priest. But, I can never agree to believe that a paternal descendant of David could ever be a priest, since that much is ruled out by the Jewish Bible.
I want to let you know how much I'm enjoying this dialog, and I hope that you are as well.
Anonymous,
I too often enjoy our dialogues.
Again, as I have said in the past, my goal is not to convince you I am right. Rather, the discussion itself is lishma - valuable in its own sake.
What I find difficult in our ability to truly dialog is comments like this:
"The writers of the "new testament" or other religions' foundational texts, like the DSS, Koran or Book of Mormon, which broke with the Jewish tradition from Sinai."
That is not even a rational statement.
So if we cannot even discuss Jewish communities like the Qumran Community as a Jewish movement, or the DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls) as Jewish texts, we'll only continue to speak past each other.
Dr. Lawrence H. Schiffman is a professor at NYU. He is an Orthodox Jew and a scholar of the DSS and Judaism of the Second Temple period. As an Orthodox Jew he is in no way threatened by the idea that there were competing forms of Judaism within the Second Temple period - none of which "broke away with Jewish tradition from Sinai."
I would greatly encourage you to pick-up a book or two of his. Also by another Orthodox Jew, Daniel Boyarin.
I truly feel they would only add to your own critical thinking, and enable us to speak more of the same language - better enabling us to not speak past each other.