Atonement
 
Moshe Ben Chaim
 
Question: How do we make atonement for our sins now that there is no spilling of blood? Also what of the Gentiles? How do they atone for their sins since they are not Jewish?
 
Reply: Whether one is Jewish or not, God recognizes any individual who abandons wrong, cleaving to what is right. "Right" being that which the Torah defines. Gentiles are bound to follow the Torah - the 7 Noachide commands. If they do not, God punishes them as well. If they do, God rewards them as well.
 
God does not favor the Jew over the Gentile. What God desires is modesty and adherence to His system. We see this clearly as all Jews today pray, using the words of King David, a descendant of a gentile - Ruth the Moabite. Ruth begot King David and King Solomon - two of our greatest figures. Had God favored the Jew over gentile, could He not find a Jewess to be the matriarch of the Kings? Evidently what God desires is a person who abides by the concepts and morals of the Torah, Jew and Gentile alike. Ruth followed truths of God, and therefore was selected by God for her essential role in mankind's development.
 
Both Jew and Gentile alike have prayer and should ask God for forgiveness. God will most certainly hear both equally, as we say in prayers, "...because you hear the prayers of all mouths". Ruth is a perfect example of how God recognizes a non Jew.
 
Regarding sacrifices, they cannot exist without the Temple. In place of sacrifices, the Rabbis instituted prayer. In the time of the Temple, gentiles were able to bring sacrifices as well as Jews.
 


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