Wisdom for Life: Mitzvot in Proverbs (Part 3)

Kaly Marie welcomes Rabbi Eric Tokajer for meaningful conversation about the significance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rabbi Eric shares insights into the importance of honoring these mitzvot (commandments), emphasizing the relevance in modern life, encouraging listeners to embrace these moments as opportunities for transformation and intentional living.

You can find Rabbi Eric online at rabbierict.com to subscribe to his blog and explore the books he has written.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Coffee with Kaylee Marie. Let's increase our learning and obtain wise counsel. Grab your coffee and let's get started. Oh, do you hear that? That's wisdom calling. Let's answer that call. Hello and welcome. I'm Kaylee Marie, your host. Today I'm delighted to be joined by a couple actively involved in their community for an insightful conversation. They have been married almost 44 years, have two sons who are married, and four grandchildren. Rabbi Eric is a well-known author and serves as a rabbi at Briton Messianic Synagogue in Pensacola, Florida. Rebus and Pammy is actively involved in Briton Messianic Synagogue's women ministry and shares her beautiful voice through song. Rabbi, thank you again for coming back and to discuss the last two appointed times.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

These podcasts have been so fun. We've really enjoyed being here and being with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Well, thank you so much. So we want to start off with Rosh Hashanah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Okay, so Rosh Hashanah is interesting because biblically, when it's actually spoken of, when God actually commands the day to be kept, it's called Yom Tarua or the day of the sounding or the day of the shofar, the day of the trumpet. It became known as Rosh Hashanah also because Rosh Hashanah is believed to be the day that man was created, time was created, and so we count our year from Rosh Hashanah. So in other words, when God gave Nisan I or Avib one in Exodus and says, now this will be the beginning of your months, that was thousands of years after creation. So they didn't start a new calendar time from there saying, okay, this is year one and month one. They said this is the first month of the year, but we're still from creation those many years in. So we have both of those beginnings to count. One for how we do our years. So this year is 5786, 87. Hold on, I'll tell you. I'm terrible with numbers. My wife usually is the one that tells me and reminds me of those things. 5786. So 5,786 years ago, according to what we believe, Adam was created in the garden and time began. Because there was no time before Adam. There was no need for time before man was there. So the year begins then, but then when the Exodus happened, God established a new calendar by the months. But that wasn't year one. Year one was way back at the beginning. So I hope that makes sense why there is. Now in Judaism, there's five new years, so don't get caught up in the fact that there's we have the new year that happens on Nisan or Aviv one, both the names for the same month. Rosh Hashanah is one. Yom Kippur's a new year's because on Yom Kippur is when the Yovel or the Jubilee and the Shemitah, the years of ri of redemption, the years of deliverance, uh the years of where they set free the slaves and so on. Um that's the annual year for that. So that's when you count year after year. So the 50th year for the Jubilee is counted from Yom Kippur to Yom Kippur. The annual years, 5786, is from Rosh Hashanah. The months for the Hebrew calendar start in the spring in Aviv or Nisan. Then we have uh Rosh Hashanah Lehabimoth, which is the new year for giving tithe on animals, and then there's a new year for tithe on trees, which comes in the uh March-April area of time, February, March, usually somewhere in there. So there's five new years, but don't get all caught up in that because all of us celebrate a bunch of new years. My wife and I are about to celebrate, or by the time this is on, may have celebrated our anniversaries, so we count 44 years from when we got married. So we have a new year every time that goes around. I have a birthday, so every year when my birthday comes around, I celebrate a new year. My wife has a birthday. There's taxes that get paid on April 15th every year, that's a new year. January 1st on the Greek calendar is a new year. So our children's birthdays are all new years. Uh, you know, the fiscal new year for businesses is a new year. So all of those things, so it shouldn't get us all can caught up over the fact that there's more than one biblical new year. We just need to recognize it for counting the months, and which is how it establishes when we celebrate the holy days that starts in the spring.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Well now, Rosh Hashanah is an appointed time, correct, Rabbit?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

It is.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

And how do we treasure um Rosh Hashanah uh-huh?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Okay, so I want to before we get to that for just a moment, um, it's interesting in the Bible we when the holy days are listed in Leviticus 23, it begins with Shabbat as the first holy day. Now there are 52 Shabbats in a year. So there's more Shabbats than there are any of the other holy days. But it's it's funny because when you tell people to name the holy days, they usually do you know Passover, Shavuot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kibur, and Sukkot, and leave Shabbat off. But Shabbat's one of the holy days God gives. But then we have the three pilgrimage feasts, which were the major holidays in biblical times, which are Passover, Shavuot, or Pentecost, and Sukkot. And then there was Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, or Yom Tarua and Yom Kippur, all feasts of the Lord, all holy days. But in biblical times, the ones that were thought to be the major holy days were the days that people went to the temple in Jerusalem on the three pilgrimage feasts, which you didn't have to do for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. There was no commandment for those two that you would have to make a journey to Jerusalem. Now they did celebrate it in Jerusalem, but they were not in the same category as the three feasts that everybody had to go to Jerusalem or have a representative of their family go to Jerusalem every year. Nowadays, the primary holidays in Judaism, when we talk about the High Holy Days, it's Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, not the three pilgrimage feasts, and then Passover comes as the third. So we've kind of changed because there's no temple and so on, now you're not making feasts, pilgrimages to Israel. So the primaries have become Yom Turua or Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So when Jewish people, uh in the same way that Christians gather together for church on Easter and Christmas as their highest days, uh Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur have become the high days in Hebrew thought, biblical thought or Judaic thought. Um but it's not really that way biblically, and I'm not saying any have a hierarchy, but there were three that were deemed pilgrimage feasts where you had to go to Jerusalem to celebrate, and but Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were not those those pilgrimage type holidays. So on Rosh Hashanah, the shofar is blasted traditionally, we blast it a hundred times. Um we believe that the shofar is blasted, connected with the great shofar of God, which both sounded on Shabu when the Torah was given, but also we're told in Isaiah, Ezekiel, other places that the shofar will sound at the end of time, including Thessalonians, which tells us that at the return of Yeshua there will be a shofar blast that sounds the trump of God. Uh and so there's a connection to that. And many people believe that the return of Yeshua will happen on Rosh Hashanah. On Rosh Hashanah, we read the text from the Akita or the binding of Isaac, where Abraham brings Isaac up the mountain and is going to sacrifice him, and just at the last minute the angel stays his hand, and Abraham looks over and he sees a ram caught in the thicket by his horn. And so, because of the connection of the horn and this substitutionary sacrifice, there's a connection to that, which I believe is why the scripture says Yeshua said the words, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced. I think it was a connection of that substitutionary sacrifice. Because remember, when Abraham goes up the mountain, Isaac says to him, I have the fire, we have the wood, but where's the lamb? And Abraham says, God will provide himself a lamb. Now, that day God provides a ram, not a lamb. But I think Abraham saw into the future to the sacrificial atoning, substitutionary sacrifice of Yeshua. And so there's this connection that happens between Rosh Hashanah and Yeshua and the return of the Lord all in one.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

And we gather at Rosh Hashanah again, correct?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yes, we gather together in our synagogue, and everybody gathers together. We wear uh traditionally today white representing the priestly garments because the priest would gather together on Rosh Hashanah. There were separate special sacrifices and offerings that were made for Rosh Hashanah. And uh again, it was remembering the creation of man and the creation of time and the beginning of that year, the new year, was part of that. And we look at it even deeper to, I believe, that at someday uh we'll hear that great shofar sound and we'll be called to be together with the Lord. And uh, one of the neat things about Rosh Hashanah is that it happens on a Roshkodesh, on a new moon, and so it's known uh by in some terms as the uh the day that no one knows of. Uh it's used in that term because you have to actually wait until you see the new moon to know that it's the new moon. Where other holidays, for instance, Passover is on the 14th of Nisan. So you you've already into the month, so you know when it's going to start. And then from there you have Shavu where you count the days, so you know when the 50th day is going to be. Uh Rosh Hashanah is the one of the feast days where you don't know it's going to be until that day. So no one knows the day or the hour until they actually experience the new moon. So again, that connection with no one knows the day or the hour of the return of the Lord is tied into that concept of until you actually see it, you don't know it's there.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Wow. Such a great um connection there. Rabbi, I'd like to go ahead and talk about Yom Kippur, and I know you recently wrote a blog on Yom Kippur and why you actually sell why you honored us.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah, it's funny uh because it was my first time I've ever been AI'd, which I thought was pretty funny. Um I wrote a a blog and it explained why I kept um why I keep Yom Kippoor even though I'm a believer. And so I'm going to real quick look up that post so I can say it in the order that I wrote it in the post. Um it basically tells four of the many reasons that I keep Yom Kippur as a believer. Um the first reason is Leviticus 23, which we've been reading from and talking about. Uh it says that these God said this is going to be forever. And forever hasn't come yet. So because God said it would be a forever holiday, then I believe until forever comes, we should keep it. The second reason is the Daniel reason. Daniel was living outside of Israel. There was no temple standing, there was no priesthood active, and yet he still did everything he could looking toward the day when he'd be able to do all. Daniel didn't seem to think that because he couldn't keep all the commandments, he shouldn't keep any of them, or he shouldn't even try to keep any of them. His mindset appears to be that I need to do everything I can. I desire to do everything I can. So that's the second reason. The third reason is that when Yeshua appeared as the Koengadol, it was out of time. Like he went from the earth to the heavenlies, which is outside of time and fulfilled that Day of Atonement sacrifice by putting the blood on the Ark of the Covenant in the heavenlies. But we have not got to that time yet. We're still within time. So until all time is done, then it's not, and that's why I believe Yeshua said, I didn't come to do away with the law, but to bring it to fullness. That his completion of that commandment happened outside of time, and we still haven't got there yet. Uh so we're on the way to that. And the fourth reason is that, you know, I observe it not because it makes me holy. I don't think that because messianic Jews and Messianic Gentiles celebrate these feasts or observe these feasts, that it makes us more righteous than other people, and that's not our goal. Our goal is to be righteous, but it's not that there's like this hierarchy scale that we're trying to outdo somebody else with our righteousness. Uh, but it's a demonstration of our love for the Lord. Um, you know, I talk often when we open the thing with we're married 44 years now, every year we celebrate our anniversary, and it's a demonstration of my love for my wife and her love for me, but it doesn't make us more married just because we celebrate the anniversary. It's not like suddenly we get more married than we were previously, uh, or even that we love each other more. It's just a demonstration of that love. And it's the same thing. God gave us these feasts. He gave us the Shabbat, he gave us uh Passover, unleavened bread, he gave us uh shavuot, he gave us uh Rosh Hashanah or Yom Tura, he gave us Yom Kippur and Sukkot all these feast days. And Yeshua said, if you love me, keep my commandments. It's not keep my commandments to show that you love me, but because you love me, keep my commandments. And likewise in my relationship with my wife, I love her, and because I love her, I do things that can bless her and be a blessing to her and participate in things and do things purposefully because of a relationship. That's the same way with keeping these feasts and festivals. It's not the way I prove my love or earn my love. Like if I don't do something for my wife, it doesn't lessen what I earn in love from her, uh, but it demonstrates my love for her. And those are different things. And I think that we can get caught up in a legalistic mindset that I have to do these things in order to earn God's love or to be valued by God. When the reality is he valued us enough to give his life while we were still sinners. And uh that value was already there, that love was already there. This is a way that we reciprocate our love by demonstration, not to earn anything, uh, but because we do. And so that's part of this. So when we do Rosh Hashanah, it's part of that. When we do Yom Kippur, which Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, and it's this fasting day, it's a day when two goats were sacrificed. One was sacrificed by killing it, one was sacrificed by letting it loose. Because it's a sacrifice to let something free, also. If you own an animal and you turn it free, you've given up that animal. It's no longer yours. So that both were sacrificed just in a different way. But that happened in the temple, and Yeshua became the fullness of that offering when he applied it once and for all in the heavenlies. So we don't need those sacrifices in order to achieve what Yeshua is doing. But the apostles and the disciples continued to do these feast days in the temple until the destruction of the temple. They didn't stop. They didn't say, okay, Yeshua did this, so I don't have to do this anymore. Following their example, we continue to do these things even though we know Yeshua did it, because we know Yeshua did it. It doesn't lessen what Yeshua did by continuing to do the things God said to do forever. And so we just as the sacrifice of bulls and goats and lambs and turtle doves were symbolic in taking care of our sin and covered our sin. It wasn't until Yeshua came that our sin was removed, which is different than being covered. When we were kids, mom would say clean up and we'd sweep dirt under the rug. Uh so the dirt was under the rug where you couldn't see it. That didn't do away with the dirt. It just covered it. And all the sacrifices up until Yeshua just covered our sin, up until he came to release us of that sin, or remove that sin, or remit that sin, pay the price for that sin. So everything before Yeshua pointed to the moment that Yeshua died and rose again. And all of the sacrifices that the apostles and the disciples made after Yeshua's death didn't do away with Yeshua's death or make light of Yeshua's death or take any of the power of Yeshua's death or ignore Yeshua's death. It pointed to his death from the other side of the cross. So both sides of the cross point to the cross. Neither one diminishes the value of what's happening there. Uh and the disciples didn't see it as an issue. They continued to do it for years and years and years. As a matter of fact, Paul makes sacrifices, and we read about in Acts 21, uh, where James tells him to go make a sacrifice in the temple, and this is almost twenty something years after the death of Messiah. And the leaders of the believing community didn't think it was an atrocity to participate in the sacrificial system, even though Yeshua had given his life as the ultimate sacrifice. And so I don't think we should either. So we fulfill and keep and do these days in faith, in love, not out of an obligation, but as of a joy and a participation in the perfection of God's plan, uh so that uh not only can we participate, but other people see the fullness of God's plan. And when God says eternal, he means that way. And if eternal ended when it came to these days, like he said, these are everlasting days, uh, then we've really no hope that our redemption is eternal. Uh because if he says you'll be redeemed forever, you'll live with me forever, but forever has an end. And the forever that they're talking about is only from when Moses gets the commandments until Yeshua dies. So that's not a real long time in the scope of what we consider forever. So if forever only lasts that long, then does our living with God forever only last that long? I don't think so. So I think that these things are forever, and I think that not only will they be done in this world, uh, but in some way they'll be done in the world to come, in the temple that exists that's made without hands. Now I don't know how that looks and what that looks like, but uh the scripture says that in the end times there will be priests from all nations and uh how cool will that be when it's not just Levitical priesthood, but we become a nation of kings and priests, uh, which we read about both in Leviticus or Deuteronomy rather and uh Peter. Uh so I think there's this fullness of understanding that we lose if we leave these feasts as, oh, those were the old things, we have new things now. Uh I think that was never God's intention. And I think that when we observe Rosh Hashanah and we practice hearing that shofar sound and understand that someday we will hear that, and we we look at the Day of Atonement and we understand that there was an atoning sacrifice made in Yeshua that gave us deliverance. So we have the sacrifice that dies, and then the set-free sacrifice, that both of those are part of our faith, that there was an atonement that came, and that like the ram, Yeshua was resurrected, like the goat, rather, that Yeshua was resurrected, and likewise we will be participating in that because the scripture says we are his body, and he overcame the world, and we overcome the world by being his body.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Now, Rabbi, I I know we say a lot of prayers of repentance on Yom Kippur, um but it it is important for us to still ask for forgiveness, not just one day a year.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Oh, absolutely. We have to remember that Yom Kippur was atonement for. The nation. It was a national sacrifice. That didn't do away with the sacrifice people had to make all year long. There was continual sacrifices being made at the temple all year long as people would come and bring offerings for their sins all year long. The Day of Atonement sacrifice was a communal sacrifice for all Israel, not for individuals. You had to come to that sacrifice having of atonement, having made sacrifices for yourself, so you were in right standing before the Lord, and then the nation stood together to be in right standing with the Lord. So the Day of Atonement sacrifice is for the nation. Yeshua died once and for all, not once and for each individual individually. We have to repent of our sins. We have to be born again individually. It's not that because he died, everybody is saved. It's because he died everybody who is born again, everybody who becomes part of Israel. That's why the scripture says not all Israel is Israel. It doesn't mean that not all Jewish people are Jewish people. It means that in order to be part of Israel, your name has to not be blotted out. And those who are not found in the book of life, that atoning sacrifice isn't for you. It's just for those whose names are in the book of life. And so that's the important thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Well, thank you. And I know that traditionally, my understanding, Rabbi, is that we read the book, Book of Jonah.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

And I think it's interesting because in Jonah he's in the well, in the fish, for three days. Does that have any connection to Yeshua?

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, actually, Yeshua says, as it was in the days of Jonah, as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah. And so we see two things in this that are really fascinating to me. One is Abraham was a Hebrew. Sodom and Gomorrah were not. These were people who were outside of covenant with God, and yet God was concerned with them enough to send the angels to try to save them. And Lot had to leave Sodom and Gomorrah. And so things were really bad in Sodom and Gomorrah. And then in the times of Jonah, he sent Jonah to a Gentile nation to preach repentance. Now it's interesting because he said preach repentance. You can't repent if you haven't pented before. In other words, you can't turn back to righteousness if righteousness wasn't available to you. We tend to think, because we read the Bible and it's about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Israel, that God wasn't concerned with the rest of the world. Like he was like, okay, all the rest of you from all these other nations, you're just lost until I get ready to send Yeshua 2,000 years from now, and then you'll have opportunity to be saved. In the same way it's been reversed now to where people say, well, now it's the Gentile church and whatever Jews happen to stumble in, but in the tribulation, God will give a chance for the Jews to be saved. That's not how God works in either side of the cross. And so God sends Jonah to a people that Jonah doesn't want to go to to preach repentance to these people that were wicked, and historically they were a horribly wicked group of people. Jonah decides he doesn't want to go, runs the other way. And how many of us have done that, honestly? That God said, I want you to go share with that person, and we're like, no, I don't want to share with that person. They don't like me, they aren't my friend, they won't like me if I do. I think they might like me now, but they won't if I do. They're not one of me, they're not rich enough, they're not poor enough, they don't understand me, they're not my culture, they're not my race, they're not my whatever. Uh just like Jonah, we head the other way. Uh God prepares this fish for him, this whatever animal it is. Uh in New Testament, it calls it a whale in English translations, but it just says God prepared a fish. He gets swallowed by the fish three days and then gets spit out or resurrected from the fish. Likewise, Yeshua's in the ground three days, three nights. And Jonah says three days, three nights. It's important that the language is the same in both books. And then Jonah goes and begrudgingly still preaches to uh Nineveh. And he tells God, you know, you're you know, saying these are awful people, they need to be destroyed, and if I go preach them, they're just gonna get saved. And I don't really want that. And if I do this, you're just gonna do it, so why don't you just save them without me? I don't you don't need me. Just do it on your own. I don't like these people anyhow. And so that goes on. Ultimately, Jonah learns his lesson, hears from God, his heart changes, he preaches repentance, and the people turn. And for a hundred years uh Nineveh uh exists again. They would have been a hundred days they were were gonna be destroyed, and it was a hundred years before Nineveh falls uh again, but that's because they turned back away from God at that point in time. Uh so we read the story because we're all the characters. We are the Ninevehites who are not living for God the way we should be. We're also the Jonas that were given the the rights and the job to preach the word, uh to carry the oracles of God, to preserve God's word. We're also the ones that refuse to do what we're supposed to do. Uh we're also the ones that at times look at people and say, I don't want God to save them. They don't deserve to be in heaven with me or the world to come or wherever we're going. We're all the characters in the story of Jonah all at once. And it's such a story of God's forgiveness, of repent true repentance, because from the king down uh the nation repents, sackcloth and ashes uh before the Lord. And and God, it says, repents or turns from his uh his desire to destroy them. Now, interestingly enough, we we say God changed his mind. He didn't really change his mind. From the very beginning of the story, he said he wanted to save them. Uh so he just doesn't, but he says, look, if if they don't get straight, I'm going to destroy them in six days. Kind of like if you tell your kid, if you don't clean your room, no ice cream. Uh your plan is that if they clean the room, they get ice cream. That's the plan at the beginning. It's not that you change their mind, it's that your child changes his behavior and therefore is able to receive what you really want to give them, which is the ice cream. Same thing with Nineveh. God wanted them to be saved, wanted them to have that time, wanted them to repent. So God didn't change his mind. Nineveh changed, and therefore the result was different for them. If they hadn't changed their mind, they would have been destroyed. So God didn't change. People changed, and therefore the outcome was different. And it's the same thing with us. We're all on our way to destruction. Uh and God doesn't want us to go to destruction, but that's the outcome of our path without him. But he wants us to repent. And if we repent, God didn't change. We changed, and therefore our outcome is different. So Jonah's this amazing book that uh, you know, we teach our kids and we tell the story, and it's great for making little videos out of and all that. But the truth is, in the story of Jonah, we're every character except for God.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Right. Well, and at the end of the story, I think it's interesting, Jonah kind of goes back to his struggle. It's just like, um, see, they've done you've uh You've saved them. And I didn't want this to happen. He's like having this pity party. And uh so just because you go into it, your heart changes doesn't mean at the end that you're gonna still wind up having to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Right, and and even after that, God uses the example of the fig of the tree and says, You cared about the tree dying, don't you care about this people dying? And the the unsold end of it is that Jonah understands uh that concept that I should have been caring about them. Um and likewise with us, God will at times uh take things away from our life so that we will miss them, so that we'll understand uh just how severe God's judgment is, and we'll desire those that we don't think deserve to have that which God thinks they deserve because he bought them.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Thank you so much, Rabbi. I really appreciate you um talking to me about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as they are at the appointed times and how we treasure them. So I'm gonna end today with again, how do you do you how do you like your coffee? Which you've already said, but I want to add a little bit, how do you like your coffee? Do you ever drink it frozen?

SPEAKER_01 31:12

I have had frozen coffee. I prefer hot. Every now and then I'll drink one of those fruit-fruit coffees like my wife drinks, but I really prefer just the black coffee. But today I want you to know I drank a large black coffee with two ice cubes in a Snoopy cup with Woodstock on the bottom of the cup. So this is an addition to my coffee that actually made it just that much more pleasant.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Wonderful. Well, thank you again, Rabbi and Shalom, everyone. I am so grateful to have Rabbi Eric for another conversation on the mitzvah. It was such a delight as we had this conversation and also as Rebuson Pammy was present listening and giving moral support. So grateful for that. Both of them are a huge encouragement to me in producing this podcast, and just in general, in everyday life, they have been a huge blessing to me. I will also link in the comments Rabbi Eric's contact information. Send him a message, let him know what you learned and appreciated about what he had to say. Thank you for listening to Coffee with Kaylee Marie. Until next time, shallow.