Yom Kippur

Hi Job,

Yom Kippur is one of the most holy days of the Jewish year it comes ten days after Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year, literally "Head of the year"). Yom Kippur is considered a High Holy Day. Observance of it concludes the ten days of repentance. It occurs on the 10 day of Tishrei (Sept-Oct). This holy day is shown biblically in Levitcus 23:26-33 Here's a small portion:

26 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
27 Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.

Yom Kippur atones for sins between man and God, not for sins against another individual. For the most part many Jews spend this holy day in their synaguoge in prayer. Services end around nightfall and end with a long blast on a shofar ( Ram's horn). This year Yom Kippur is on Oct 6, 2003 which is the Jewish year of 5764.

Biblically the day of atonement (Yom Kippur) was when the Jews came out of Eygpt and made the golden calf and worshipped it. Moses then had to plead with God for 40 days and nights for the forgivness of his people. Moses started this praying on the first day of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah. 40 days later the 10 of Tisheri occured. On the day God forgave the Jews. That is considered when God first forgave His people for a major sin and was selected as the Day of Atonement for all future generations.

Here is some comments from Rabbi Benjamin Blech about the Holy Day called Yom Kippur
"Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is a holy day in the Bible it is called "The Sabbath of Sabbaths". It shares the weekly day of rest and emphasis on introspection, on self-evaluation, on trying to figure out them meaning and purpose of life.

Pious Jews spend the entire day from sunset on Yom Kippur eve to complete darkness on Yom Kippur night of the next day in prayer, in meditation, in confession of sin, and in reconcilation with God and with his fellow man and woman.

For 25 hours, Jews neither eat nor drink. Yom Kippur, is a "festival without food".

Hope this helped.

Missy

Yesterday at 12:58 AM Job_38 said this in Post #1

 Excuse me if I mispless the name. I was just curious to what this celebrates and where it is found in the Bible. I was interested because of the war of attrition fought by modern day Israel that carried this name.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Hi Job_38,

Don't' worry, your spelling is perfect! Yom Kippur is translated into the English "Day of Atonement", and is Israel's MOST Holy of Holy Days as well as the most solemn..

The words mean this – "Yom" is the Hebrew word for "day" and is used in many Jewish holidays. "Kippur" does not mean "Atonement", but is from the Hebrew word "kaphar" meaning "to cover" or a "covering". This helps to explain what the day is all about, it was a day that the priest went into the Holy of Holies and made Atonement, or a covering for the sins of Israel.

Israel as you know does not have a Temple at present, but this still is an important day to Jews all around the world. In 1967 even without a Temple they still could follow some of the requirements of the Holy day.

In answer to your question, the reason for the name was that the Arab world took advantage of this most Holy Day to the Jews and made a surprise attack on them on this day, when they, as a nation, were afflicting their souls following a fast. You can see from an enemies vantage point how this would seem the most opportune time.

Their goal was to wipe Israel and all her people off the map, however they made one "small" miscalculation , and that is that they weren't dealing with just any army otherwise occupied, they were dealing with a people supernaturally protected by their G-d.

Sonworshipper that was interesting. Thanks for the info.

Do you know of any other Biblical areas where Yom Kippur was instituted besides the one I posted in Lev 23: 26-33 ?

I was just wondering because you didn't answer that part of Job's question and I was wondering if you knew of any more biblical verses about it ?

Missy

Job, I found this online and figured you might be interested. It's about the Yom Kippur War. I found it extremely interesting.

It's called "The Yom Kippur War" by Mitchell Bard from the Jewish Virtual Library: A Division of The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/73_War.html