The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is the most solemn day in the calendar of the Jewish religion.
Instituted two and a half thousand years ago, or more (see note), it was a time when the sins of the people, including the High Priest, were expiated and the temple cleansed.
The ritual has changed over the years, especially since the temple was destroyed in Roman times. But the last three years have seen increasingly dramatic innovations.
Tough reading
Parts of the Old Testament (which is more or less the same as the Jewish scriptures) make for tough reading for anyone with a soft heart.
God is depicted as killing the eldest child of every Egyptian family, drowning the Egyptian army in the Red Sea and ordering the mass killing (virtually genocide) of various tribes and cities in and around Canaan.
Archaeology and history indicate that most of these atrocities didn’t actually occur, and there are good reasons to believe God didn’t actually give those commands.
Nevertheless, some Christians try to justify the behaviour attributed to God, though it seems to me that they blaspheme God’s character to support their doctrine of the Bible – doctrines which I don’t believe have a basis in the Bible itself.
More recently, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used these ancient commands and events to justify his nation’s murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Teachings not set in stone
Christians generally are taught that the Bible is fixed, and what it says cannot change. But the ancient Jews, who wrote the texts included in the Bible, didn’t necessarily think this way.
If we read the Old Testament with open eyes, we find that it presents more than one view on many topics, and sometimes records different versions of the same events.
I have come to see that this is because God’s revelation to them unfolded over centuries. As the Israelite people worked their way through issues, they learnt more, and so they adjusted their teachings and the texts.
This process was still happening at the time of Jesus – their scriptures weren’t settled and final, and various rabbis had different interpretations. There is evidence that both Jesus and the apostles likewise reinterpreted and sometimes disagreed with and changed some Old Testament teachings.
And so to the present …..
The Jewish holy days, like Passover and Yom Kippur, are all about remembering and celebrating God’s care for them through hard times in the past and into the present, and then remembering and atoning for their failures to live up to their role as God’s people.
But inevitably they also can be seen as celebrating their special status as Yahweh’s chosen, compared to the surrounding nations. The Exodus, when both these holy days are recorded as being commanded, was a time when this special status led to death and genocide for their opponents.
Many modern Jews now see the dangers and evil inherent in this. Yahweh is the good God of the universe and Jews believe the image of the divine is in all people – including those who the Jews once saw as enemies, even those the state of Israel now sees as enemies.
Earlier this year I wrote about how some US Jews were updating the Passover Haggadah (more or less the liturgy) for the present day. Instead of celebrating their ancestors’ safety while the Egyptian first born perished in their beds and the Egyptian army was drowned in the Red Sea, they wanted everyone to pass through the Red Sea safely together.
Now they are doing it again for Yom Kippur and Sukkot (a harvest festival that follows just days after Yom Kippur).
Yom Kippur, 2026
So in New York just last week (and perhaps in other places too), Rabbis for Ceasefire gathered for a more public time of remembering, repentance, refusal and recommitment.
In particular, their focus was on Palestine, the genocide in Gaza (where to date 74,000 people including 20,000 children have been killed) and the settler murder, destruction and dispossession in the West Bank.
These Jews believe the Netanyahu government has behaved in a deeply immoral way that is totally contrary to the ethics they follow as Jews.
Things that stood out for me at their gathering:
- The invited interfaith allies (“sacred guests”) to attend, and some to speak – including a Palestinian woman, a Muslim man and a Christian pastor.
- Stones were often used as memorials in the Old Testament, and at modern Jewish funerals. At this Yom Kippur, small stones were placed one by one on the names of some of those Palestinians killed in the last few years, as a way of remembering, honouring and (in a sense) hearing their voice (see above photo).
- Ripping of clothing is a traditional Jewish way of expressing grief. Here, a large white sheet was ripped by the many participants into small pieces while they all wailed with grief.
- Then the pieces were placed on the ground and heads bowed to the ground as a sign of repentance (see top photo).
- The phrase “For the sin of genocide, we atone” was repeated as part of their repentance on behalf of their people (see photo below).
What would Jesus do?
Jesus was a Jewish man, the eldest child in his family. He would have participated in Yom Kippur memorials for most of his life, possibly even led them.
He taught non-violence, love for enemies and care for the disadvantaged.
I believe he would approve of this Yom Kippur celebration. Repentance and turning away from evil can surely never be wrong.
I only wish so many right wing Christians who support Israel no matter what, could see Jesus’ teachings as clearly as these Jews, who don’t follow Jesus.
I wish all Christians, especially Christian Nationalists, would be willing to judge ourselves and our nations by the non-violent teachings of Jesus.
The fine print
If you’re reading this and feel I haven’t spoken out against Hamas and their atrocity in October 2023, please read on.
- I think both sides have committed atrocities beyond imagining. However my reading on the subject leads me to conclude that the original “sin” was the establishment of the state of Israel by simply over-riding the wishes of those already living there. Jews, Muslims and Christians had been living mostly peacefully in Palestine before 1948, and returning Jews could have chosen to live within that structure. But the Europeans (feeling guilty about the Holocaust) and Zionist Jews chose a different, confrontational and destructive course. The attitude of Britain and other allies to both Jews and Arabs doesn’t look good in hindsight. The killing by both sides since then has been the result.
- In the present war (since 2023), 74,000 Palestinians have been kiled by Israel, retaliation for about 1,200 killed by Hamas, a ratio of about 60:1. In all the conflict since 1948, the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli dead has been about 6:1. This is surely excessive killing.
- In the present Gaza war, there seems little doubt that Israel has targetted children, medical staff, reporters and other obvious non-combatants, and used starvation as a weapon. As a result, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Minister for Defence.
- For all these reasons, I abhor the Hamas artrocities but also believe the Israeli response has been deeply evil and disproportionate, requiring condemnation and repentance.
Photos from the Rabbis for Ceasefire Instagram.
Note: According to the Bible, Yom Kippur was instituted during the Exodus from slavery in Egypt to Canaan, dated somewhere between 1500 and 1300 BCE. However many historians believe it may actually have begun much later, possibly as late as 300-500 BCE and ascribed to Moses to give it more authority. I’m not concerned about the exact date, as I am interested here in modern developments in the ritual.
