Yamim Nora’im – the Ten Days of Awe, start with the two days of Rosh Ha Shanah until Yom Kippur (Tishri 10). Shanah Tova U’metukah – Good and sweet year
The Jewish people have a tradition that on the first day during this 10-day period, God opens two books in Heaven: the Book of Life and the Book of Death.
Those who have led righteous lives over the past year are written in the ‘Book of Life’ and will live for another year. Those whose lives have been very wicked are written in the ‘Book of Death’ and they will die. For all others, in between, representing the bulk of humanity, prepare to stand before God for judgment. According to tradition, God makes His judgment and closes the books on the last day, the Day of Atonement.
We greet each other: ‘Shanah Tovah: Ketivah Ve’Chatima’ – ‘May you be written and sealed in the Book of Life.’
During this period of time believers can reflect upon the ‘sure hope’ that we have in Messiah Jesus (Heb. 6:19;), not a tentative hope represented by the Israeli national anthem, ‘Ha Tikva.’
In Rev.3:5 we read “He who wins the victory, will be dressed in white clothing; and I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life.”
Our desire during Yamim Nora’im is to take stock that we allow nothing to deter us from entering into the fullness of our destiny and calling in Messiah Jesus.
Here during these 10 days of Awe is that only at this time do the Jewish people kneel to pray because the pagan nations used to prostrate themselves before their pagan gods. But on this one occasion they do so as a sign of humility before their Maker.(2Chron 7:14 – humble , seek His face, pray, turn from wicked ways)
However, we also read in Psalm 95 where David calls us to bow before God and worship Him, maybe during Yamim Norai’im (verses 6-11)
Yeshua separated Himself for forty days of prayer before the commencement of His public ministry, and this may well have been during the forty-day period between Elul and Yom Kippur. (40 represents a period of completion).
As disciples of Yeshua, we know that we have been cleansed of our sins by the blood of the Lamb, and walk in right standing before Him, but there is something else of importance here which is our debt unto God who has freely forgiven us all our sins, a debt we can never repay.
God’s forgiveness holds many implications for us, in terms of forgiving others, because we are clearly commanded to do so not as something optional but mandatory – and it is an issue all of us have struggled with at some time or other.
FORGIVENESS
Forgiveness is a key focus during Yomim Nora’im. Unless we release unforgiveness against every person who has hurt us, it will hold us captive to bitterness and hatred, something that will ultimately consume us.
We pray, ’Forgive us our sins as we also have forgiven those who have sinned against us,’ which underlies an important Jewish concept. Yeshua Himself taught that God cannot forgive us until we first reconcile with others who may have wronged us or been wronged by us:
“Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matt 5 23-25)
Why is it important for us to forgive (from the heart) others? Foremost, it is because God Himself is merciful and has forgiven us a debt, through Yeshua, infinitely greater than we can imagine or ever repay, so it makes our forgiveness of others pale into insignificance in comparison. Yeshua made this point very clear in the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matt18: 21-35.
Here is a modern day example of this. Dr. Arieh Eldad, an Israeli doctor wrote:
“I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank, which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war time or mass casualty situations.
This skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the Chairman of plastic surgery. This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza, who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, after her family burned her. Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair.
We supplied all the needed Homografts for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague, Prof. Lior Rosenberg and discharged to return to Gaza. She was invited for regular follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheva.
One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her.”
So here we can see two very different types of forgiveness: one is counterfeit which is manipulative and destructive. It is conditional and based upon doing things ‘my way’ and ‘my terms’ instead of God’s way, and can manifest itself in all manner of different guises. The other is the one demonstrated by the Israeli plastic surgeon who demonstrated love to an enemy instead of hatred and was completely unprejudiced.
Even more so, God has provided us with His divine forgiveness through Messiah Yeshua which is extended to the whosoever who humbles himself and receives. It is an all embracive, unconditional forgiveness no matter how far we may have fallen into sin; it is never beyond the forgiveness of God whilst there is still breath in our mortal bodies.
ISRAEL AND ANTI-SEMITISM
How do all these things relate to the current day end-time situation with Israel? The two key elements we should take note of are to distinguish between God’s covenants and His judgments. God’s covenants are irrevocable and totally reliable, so when we read about His covenants to Israel, we have every confidence that He will fulfil them.
God’s Covenants – A selection of scriptures
Gen 15:18-21: “On the same day the Lord made a covenant (promise, pledge) with Abram, saying,
‘To your descendants I have given this land,
From the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates—
[the land of] the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim, the Amorites
and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites.’”
This includes the countries of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Oman.
Psalm 105: 8-11: “He has remembered His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded and established to a thousand generations, (FROM CREATION TO THE END OF MILLENNIUM)
The covenant which He made with Abraham,
And His sworn oath to Isaac,
Which He confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
Saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan, As the measured portion of your inheritance.” (AMP)
Isaiah 41:8-9: “But you are my servant Israel,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the descendant of Abraham, my dear friend.
I have taken you from the ends of the earth
and called you from its most distant places.
I said to you, ‘You are my servant.
I’ve chosen you; I haven’t rejected you.” (NOG)
Romans 11:29: “From your point of view as you hear and embrace the good news of the Message, it looks like the Jews are God’s enemies. But looked at from the long-range perspective of God’s overall purpose, they remain God’s oldest friends. God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.” (MSG)
Romans 3:1-4: “So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn’t abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth.” (MSG)
Romans 11:1-2: “Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he’ll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can’t get much more Semitic than that! So we’re not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them.” (MSG)
Jeremiah 31:35-37 “Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day and the fixed order of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, Who stirs up the sea’s roaring billows or stills the waves when they roar—the Lord of hosts is His name: 36 If these ordinances [of fixed order] depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the posterity of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me throughout the ages.
We see that God’s eternal purposes always have a good ending:
Zechariah 12:10-14: “(In the Last Days) I’ll deal with the family of David and those who live in Jerusalem. I’ll pour a spirit of grace and prayer over them. They’ll then be able to recognise me as the One they so grievously wounded—that piercing spear-thrust! And they’ll weep—oh, how they’ll weep! Deep mourning as of a parent grieving the loss of the firstborn child. The lamentation in Jerusalem that day will be massive, as famous as the lamentation over Hadad-Rimmon on the fields of Megiddo: (MSG)
Is this not equally true also for every disciple of Yeshua? “All things work together for good…..” Rom 8:28
We have seen the demonstration of God’s covenant promises overshadowing the Jewish people and Israel throughout history and especially in modern times since it became a sovereign State once again in 1948 ( wars) so that whereas her enemies have sought her complete annihilation, she has prospered disproportionately.
At Yamim Noraim, our focus is upon God’s judgments, and see that they are distinct from His covenant promises.
GOD’S JUDGMENTS
We must never forget that God is holy and righteous and hates sin and this should be a sufficient deterrent. When we experience His holy presence it is something devastating and life changing: (Isaiah 6;1-4)
Whenever, Israel sinned, it resulted in God’s judgments because His covering was removed. This makes it an extremely serious situation currently for Israel. Take these facts as an example:
- Tel Aviv is one of the gay capitals of the world
- Abortion is freely accepted and approved
- Jerusalem is the capital city and headquarters of the Illuminati
- Israel is one of the main hubs in the world for human trafficking and drugs
- Well over 60% of Israelis and world Jewry are agnostics or atheists
- Many secular and orthodox Jews are heavily involved in the occult
God will take extreme measure to fulfil His covenant promises against a people who have betrayed Him, but the ending will be good. So far, God has miraculously preserved and prospered the nation of Israel, but we know that at the end there will be huge collateral damage and loss that will make the Holocaust seem like kids play in comparison.
ANTI-SEMISITSM
Amid the reality of God’s covenants and judgments with Israel, we have a third phenomenon to content with, something that has dogged the Jewish people throughout history. Satan has repeatedly attempted to destroy the Jewish people and failed! Now in these days, we see the armies of the world gearing up to a final confrontation against Israel and humanly speaking things do not look good. The momentum for this is primarily a demonic and irrational hatred known as anti-Semitism. This has seen a steep rise in recent years throughout the world on unprecedented levels in modern history. From Satan’s perspective, he knows that if he can destroy the Jewish people, he will have made God out to be a liar for failing to uphold His covenant promises to Israel, and it would give him the legal right to usurp God’s throne.
SUMMARY
Bringing all these things together, believers both Jew and Gentile as ‘One New Man’ His bride and His remnant, stand together with Israel and the Jewish people to combat the demonic powers who seek her destruction, through our practical expressions of love in addition to our prayers.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me. (Martin Niemoller)
Raphael ben Levi
