Atonement

In this essay, I will show that Jews do not need Christianity for salvation. For this paper, I will use general historical knowledge of the ancient world, and of the Jewish people, as well as the Torah (The Five Books of Moses). For my English translations of Torah, I will be using Davka’s CD-ROM Bible.

The general premise is that G-d punishes for sin, and does not forgive until repentance / atonement is complete. For the sake of this argument, we will leave one factor of the equation as a variable, which is: What is the sin that caused the exile?

From whom is repentance required? While Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments from the Lord, the people were doing the most heinous of sins. They had Moses’s brother Aaron make for them a golden calf as an idol. This is where Moses broke the two tablets of the commandments. Moses is mad, but goes before the Lord and offers himself as a repentance offering to G-d. Torah tells us the responsible parties are the only people that can repent for sin, as in Exodus where G-d tells Moses:

Exodus 32:33 And the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot from my book.

There we learn that if we sin, it is on ourselves to repent. If we sin as a nation, it is upon our nation to repent.

Here we see the procedure for sacrifices described in detail. The following two verses illustrate the reason behind such sacrifice:

Leviticus 19:21 And he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord, to the door of the Tent of Meeting, a ram for a guilt offering. [22] And the priest shall make an atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin which he has done; and the sin which he has done shall be forgiven him.

Here we see that the man shall bring a sacrifice from his possession and that shall atone for his sin which has committed. However, being that we are without the Temple in Jerusalem, there must be another way to atone, which G-d foresaw, and gave to us. There are two types of repentance that do not involve blood.

Leviticus 5 shows that if one can afford to do so, it is required for this person to give a blood sacrifice in the form of a lamb, or a kid of the goats. However, if the offending party cannot afford such an animal, this person can get two turtledoves and sacrifice them. However, if this person cannot even afford this, there is another way:

Leviticus 5:11 But if he is not able to bring two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, then he who sinned shall bring for his offering the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering; he shall put no oil upon it, nor shall he put any frankincense on it; for it is a sin offering. [12] Then shall he bring it to the priest, and the priest shall take his handful of it, a memorial part of it, and burn it on the altar, according to the offerings made by fire to the Lord; it is a sin offering.

Clearly a blood offering is not a requirement to achieve atonement in G-d’s eyes. Elsewhere we see that the poor and the rich are not to be discriminated against.

Leviticus 19:15 You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; you shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.

Clearly, if G-d expects us to not discriminate the poor and rich, then certainly G-d would not discriminate against the poor who cannot afford as much as two turtledoves.

To this day, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is practiced yearly by Jews around the globe: Leviticus 23:27 Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement; it shall be a holy gathering to you; and you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. [28] And you 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 G-d.

Herein, aside from an offering by fire, we are to afflict our souls, and today this is performed by fasting and praying on this day.

The book of Jeremiah tells the story of how the people of Judah sinned, and as punishment for their actions, were taken into the Babylonian Exile. This exile lasted the seventy years for which Isaiah spoke. At the end of the exile, most of the Jewish people were indeed brought back from their captivity. Jeremiah speaks of seventy years for which the people will be in exile. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon did indeed capture Judah, and destroy the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The people were carried off to Babylon. At the end of the seventy years, the people did come back. The sin was idolatry, the people repented through their punishment of exile. However, their repentance occurred without the Holy Temple. There were no blood sacrifices in this seventy-year period. Such a heinous sin as this, and it does not require the shedding of blood on the alter? Animal sacrifices are obviously not required for repentance. All that is required is that our hearts turn to G-d and His Word.

In the book of Deuteronomy (Devarim), chapters 28 through 30 show a long hard future ahead of the Israelites. Moses prophesies first that good things will come with the adherence to all of G-d’s commandments (mitzvot), and that performance of mitzvot is the way to success. However in chapter 28 verse 15, we get the flip-side of the story, wherein if the Israelites do not do G-d’s word, curses so numerous and enormous will befall the nation, that it is incomprehensible. The profound part is in verse 48 though:

Deuteronomy 28:48 Therefore shall you serve your enemies which the Lord shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you. [49] The Lord shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, which will swoop down like the vulture; a nation whose tongue you shall not understand;

Let us look at history. In the year 63BCE, there were two major sects of Judaism. The Sadducees and the Pharisees. There was civil war at this time, and the war was resolved when Pompey conquered Judea. Pompey was a Roman. Romans speak Latin. Latin was a foreign language for the time. Greek and Aramaic were the "English’s" of the time. Again: "a nation whose tongue you shall not understand." Rome imposed heavy burdens upon the Jews. This would be regular, as far as Roman times are concerned, anyhow. Again: "and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you." It was not until 70CE, some 134 years after the invasion, that the Temple was destroyed. It was another 65 years after that when the Bar Kochba revolt ended and the Jews were crushed.

Moving on to later in the chapter:

Deuteronomy 28:64 And the Lord shall scatter you among all people, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, of wood and stone.

Now this is original. No place in all the corners of all history books is there ever a people that are scattered amongst all others. Rome, being the large Empire, makes its money from taxing the conquered. Therefore it would be more profitable for the Jews to stay and be taxed. This is unique, in that not only were the Jews exiled, but exiled amongst all the peoples. This is verifiable. Jews have been everywhere from Japan and China to Western and Southern Africa, even in the Americas.

To recap so far. G-d has put the Jewish people in exile. Torah was speaking of Romans. These events were and still are far too uncommon to be a mere coincidence. The next step on this journey is the redemption.

For redemption, Deuteronomy 30 is required. Here are the first few verses:

Deuteronomy 30:1 And it shall come to pass, when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations, where the Lord your G-d has driven you, [2] And shall return to the Lord your G-d, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul; [3] That then the Lord your G-d will turn your captivity, and have compassion upon you, and will return and gather you from all the nations, where the Lord your G-d has scattered you.

Verse 1 speaks of how the Jewish people shall realize that all these words which were prophesied did happen, and shall be made evident to all those on this earth. Verse 2 tells us that at the end of the exile, we shall return to the Lord and obey His voice according to the mitzvot. G-d will then return us from our captivity, for He will have compassion on us. We will be gathered from all the nations back to the land of our fathers. Israel is a melting pot of Jewish culture. Jews have gathered from Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Literally from all lands did the Jews return. This also has happened. We have completed the entirety of this prophecy.

With the help of Torah and history, we have established that this prophecy in Deuteronomy did, in fact, occur. These events have befallen the Jewish people as Moses told us in the desert more than three millennia ago. Now, we must apply it to our spirituality.

Rome was brought into the picture in the year 63BCE, long before Jesus lived. This was punishment for some sin. Still we leave this as an unknown variable. The concept of a nation invading that speaks a foreign tongue is in the same breath as that they will destroy the nation of the Israelites for their sin. Herein we must presume that whatever the sin was, it occurred before Pompey invaded Judea in 63BCE. But let us leave this out of the equation.

The Jews sinned. It is unknown for sure what it is, for we are without prophets. However, we also know that G-d does not forgive without repentance and/or atonement. So whatever it is, those that G-d has returned to Israel must have atoned for it. Nowhere in the prophesied exile and redemption is any sort of sacrifice mentioned. Fact: The Jews in Israel either practice Judaism, or nothing at all. So G-d returned Jews who practiced the Jewish religion from Israel. But some of you out there may be saying "but they have not accepted Jesus as Lord!" And to you I say, "G-d would not have brought us back from captivity with such a heinous and basic sin on our hands. We must be doing something right to return from our exile!"

If belief in Jesus or the lack thereof are of so much importance that a soul would either go to heaven or hell based on belief alone, why have 5 million Jews returned from Exile as prophesied, if prophecy tells us that it will only happen when this occurs: "And shall return to the Lord your G-d, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul."

Therefore we can conclude that the salvation of the Jewish people is based on Torah, and not on belief in a man. On the least level, I can say to all Jews: "G-d has made our covenant based on G-d and His mitzvot. Anyone who tells you that you must believe in more is wrong. Torah tells us so. And it is enough."