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This week Ray and Adam discuss the vitally important subject of repentance, forgiveness and atonement. Why is this so important? Because it is for each of us to understand that we, as individuals, are responsible and held accountable to HaShem. Join us as we  journey down this most important road together. 

While the sacrificial rites were the only means of impressing upon the people God's holiness and the dreadful consequence of man's sinfulness, the idea of the Atonement assumed a far deeper and more spiritual aspect in the lives and teachings of the Prophets. Neither Hosea, Amos, and Micah, nor Isaiah recognizes the need of any means of reconciliation with God after estrangement by sin, other than repentance. "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously: so will we render as bullocks the offerings of our lips" (Hosea xiv. 2, Hebr.; compare Amos v. 22-24; Isa. i. 13-17, and the well-known passage, Micah vi. 6-8): "Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?.. Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?").

But the prophet Ezekiel—a priest and therefore more deeply penetrated with the sense of sin and purity than other prophets—is not satisfied with the mere negation of ritualism. Repudiating, like Jeremiah, the idea held by his contemporaries that men undergo punishment on account of their fathers' sins, he lays the greater stress on the fact that the fruit of sin is death, and exhorts the people to cast away their sin and, returning to God, to live (Ezek. xviii. 4-32). For him Atonement is wrought by acquiring "a new heart and a new spirit" (ib. 31). In striking contrast with the other prophets, Ezekiel combines the belief in a complicated atoning ritual (as mapped out in Ezek. xl.-xlvi.) with the prophetic, hope in the redeeming power of God's spirit which shall cleanse the people from their impurities and endow them with "a new heart and a new spirit" (xxxvi. 26).

In no one, however, does the most elaborate ritualism of the Atonement sacrifice appear so closely intertwined with the profoundest spiritual conception of God's atoning powers as in Moses the lawgiver himself. When the worship of the Golden Calf had provoked God's wrath to such a degree that He said to Moses, "Let me alone... that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation" (Ex. xxxii. 10), the latter, desirous of making an Atonement for their transgression, asked the Lord to forgive the people's sin, or else to blot Moses' own name out of His book (the book of life); and he persisted in imploring God's pardon even after He had said, "Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book," until finally, in answer to Moses' entreaty, the full glory of God, His compassionate mercy, His long-suffering and forgiving love, were revealed and Moses' prayer for the people's pardon was granted (Ex. xxxiv. 1-9;Num. xiv. 17-20). There Moses' own self-abnegating love, which willingly offered up his life for his people, disclosed the very qualities of God as far as they touch both the mystery of sin and the divine forgiveness, and this became the key to the comprehension of the Biblical idea of Atonement. The existence of sin would be incompatible with a good and holy God, but for His long-suffering, which waits for the sinner's return, and His condoning love, which turns man's failings into endeavors toward a better life. Each atoning sacrifice, therefore, must be understood both as an appeal to God's forgiving mercy, and as a monition to the sinner to repentance. "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon" (Isa. lv. 7).

For a deeper understanding of the Seven Noahide Laws (Sheva Mitzvoth) we encourage you to include the books and audio Torah classes in your study by clicking on Torah Audio Classes on CD or Noahide Books. You can also visit the Noahide Nations Torah Network.

Discuss this topic on the new Torah Spirituality for the Nations forum