Yom Kippur Scripture for All
Editor’s Note: Yom Kippur begins on at sunset on Sept. 15
I hope my Jewish friends will forgive my chutzpah, but I’d like to offer some reflections on the common scripture readings for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest of days in the Jewish calendar. These readings—Leviticus 16, Isaiah 57.14-58.14, and the Book of Jonah—have value for all faith traditions.
Scripture Readings for the Day
Leviticus 16, the main Torah reading for this day, first focuses on the need to purify the Holy of Holies through animal sacrifice. This may seem only of anthropologic interest. The sacrificed animals, a bull and a goat, were the ones chosen in many ancient cultures due to their association with fertility; the sacrifice of a goat in Greece gave birth to tragic drama (tragedy=goat song). Leviticus also presents another goat upon which the collective sins of the people are placed, then sent off into the wilderness; hence the term “scapegoat.” According to some Christian scholars, New Testament imagery envisions Jesus as both the sacrificed goat and the scapegoat, as the one who carries away the sins of the world. Who now are our scapegoats? How do we seek to purify our sacred places?
Leviticus 16:31 issues the Yom Kippur commandments still followed in Judaism: “It is a sabbath of solemn rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls” (JPS 1917). According to scholars, “afflict your souls” means that we are to fast and repent, to deny our animal appetites and seek reconciliation with God and each other. Islam, Christianity, and other faith traditions also encourage these practices. We could all use time to pause, stop consuming, and renew our relationships.
In Isaiah 57:14-58:14, the Haftorah (Prophetic) reading for Yom Kippur morning, Isaiah proclaims that what the Lord really desires us to do is not to fast but “To loose the fetters of wickedness, / To undo the bands of the yoke, / And to let the oppressed go free…../ to deal thy bread to the hungry…and bring the poor that are cast out into thy house….” (58.6-7; JPS 1917). One of the wonderful features of the Bible is that it provides alternative perspectives. Leave it to a pesky prophet to remind us that social justice is necessary for reconciliation.
The Book of Jonah is the Haftorah reading for Yom Kippur afternoon. Why is the funniest book in the Bible read on the most solemn of days? The book is filled with comic reversals. Jonah, the least willing of all biblical prophets, is perhaps the most successful. Instead of going to the wicked city of Nineveh as commanded, he heads in the opposite direction, boarding a ship that is soon shaken by a storm because it is carrying him. Even though it is proven by lots that Jonah is responsible for the trouble they are in, the pagan sailors prove to be sweethearts. They are very reluctant to toss him overboard and very quick to fear and honor the Lord who controls the sea.
A Deeper Look at Jonah
The Lord sends a big fish to rescue Jonah. It too is a sweetheart, not the sea monster Jonah deserves for his disobedience. Jonah, as George Gershwin put it, “made his home in/ dat fish’s abdomen” (“It Ain’t Necessarily So”). While there Jonah prays for deliverance, but does not repent. After three days the fish vomits Jonah out on shore. Maybe he gave the poor fish indigestion.
When he finally preaches to those wicked Ninevites, whom the Israelites had good reason to hate, they quickly repent and fast, from the king down to the beasts in their midst; all don sackcloth. How brilliant and generous for those who established the Yom Kippur readings to hold up traditional enemies as model penitents! Also brilliant is that we don’t learn the reason for Jonah’s flight until the last chapter: it’s not because he feared the Ninevites but because he knew that God was merciful and would forgive his enemies if they repented.
In a final brilliant touch, the Book of Jonah ends with a question. As Jonah sits pouting, sorry for himself because a vine that had been providing him shade withers, God asks, “And should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six-score thousand persons who cannot discern their right hand and their left and also much cattle?” (4.11 JPS 1917).
How Should We Respond?
We never hear Jonah’s response. What is ours? Should we not care for the welfare of our enemies as well as our own? Should we not acknowledge that the animals that serve us are part of our community and deserve our caring concern, as do the big and little fish that swim the seas? Doubtless the scriptures of other faith traditions call us to compassion, but the Yom Kippur readings do so with such force and wit that they deserve attention from us all.
