- Purpose of Yom Kippur
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- Rivka Olenick
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- "For on this day does He give you protection, to cleanse you;
from all your sins shall ye be clean before the Lord." Leviticus
16:30. What is meant by: "For on this day does He give you
protection, to cleanse you"? It seems that when a person is
cleansing oneself of past sins before God on Yom Kippur, one is
automatically given protection. We are specifically commanded on this
day to atone for our sins before God, as it says. So, does the day
automatically grant a person atonement for ones' sins because it is
Yom Kippur? "From all your sins shall ye be clean before the
Lord."
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- There are two separate ideas in this one sentence and each is
dependent on the other. God designated Yom Kippur as the day for the
Jew to atone with the purpose of cleansing and purifying ourselves. If
you atone appropriately you will be cleansed before God. What is
kippara, atonement and what is its' purpose for us as Jews? Only the
Jewish people are commanded to atone for their sins on this day; and
only Jews are cleansed and protected on this day. The day of Yom
Kippur distinguishes the Jewish person from a non-Jew through God's
command only if we utilize this day for its' real purpose. Even in
atonement the Torah gives us instruction and guides us in "how
to" atone. It is a complicated process yet, we capable of it.
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- On Yom Kippur like the Sabbath; we refrain from all work and we
sanctify God's name by not doing any work. On Yom Kippur we atone and
purify ourselves from the sins we committed that took us away from
God. He allows us not only to return to Him, but as we reclaim our own
devotion to the future He renews our life. The Sabbath too reinforces
our devotion to the future, as we guard the Sabbath and we keep it
holy. Even the Jewish people who partook of the sin of the Golden Calf
were forgiven by God, they were given protection, they admitted to
their corrupt ways and were granted atonement. The purpose of kippara
is to give a person the opportunity to reclaim the status of purity.
Through the absence of gratifying our senses and having physical
enjoyment we face our "moral philosophical self." This is
how we show our "internal moral self" as Jews on Yom Kippur.
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- We cannot survive as a people without this process of atonement. We
would just continue to sin until we are completely destroyed. So, we
are given Yom Kippur to atone wholeheartly with our request and of
hope for renewal from God. We are also aware that every sin we commit
has "chipped away" at our moral self, the part of us that
God demands to be righteous and holy. That is how He chose us to be
and declared us to be maintained; it is our purpose and the purpose of
our being given the Torah. All of the sins we engage in take us away
from who we were originally created to be and who ideally we are to
be. Sin removes a person's free will, so a person merely survives and
in just surviving like an animal, we are no longer "Adom"
and we forfeit our relationship to The Creator. God gives us this
positive opportunity by depriving ourselves of all the physical
enjoyment that we partake of on the Sabbath and He gives us Yom
Kippur. The opportunity to regain our purity, to begin again, a
rebirth, it is another great gift. God gives all of us everything
needed to exist the best possible way. So we realize that our present
existence because of our repeated transgressions is a spiritually poor
existence.
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- We are really not worthy of continued existence since we are so far
away from our true purpose, to be an Eved Hashem, the reason we were
created. On Yom Kippur God allows each of us to be completely in touch
with our moral self, and we desire to have new and pure moral
feelings. With honesty and sincerity we beg God to renew our lives and
to give us the strength to live the correct life! This is our
realization that our true existence is dependant only upon the
service of God. God frees us and gives each of us a new future through
kippara. He renews our life that is His gift to us. Truthfully, Yom
Kippur should be the happiest day of the year for every Jew. What
greater gift is there than the renewal of one's life! Just as it is a
mitzvah to eat on Erev Yom Kippur, it is also a mitzvah to fast on Yom
Kippur.
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- Approach Yom Kippur with hope, not dread and feel joy in the
opportunity to be this close to the Creator, our Judge and our Father.
"Happiness is thine, O Israel, before Whom dost thou obtain thy
purity! Who maketh thee pure? Thy Father in heaven! For it says:
"I pour pure water over you and ye become pure!" The fount
of Israel's purity is God, even as a Mikvah purifies the unclean, so
doth God make Israel pure." (Yoma 85b)
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