What's It About?
יוֹם כִּפּוּר Yom Kippur |
This feast is held ten days after Yom Ter'uah - Feast of Trumpets. The ten days leading to the day of atonement are customarily focused on self examination and repentance.
We are instructed to have a holy convocation - which is a gathering amongst our brethren.
This day is also considered a high Shabbat as you will keep this day very similar to the Shabbat with the exception of feasting/eating.
Key Information
Background Insight:
Vayiqra (Leviticus) 23: 26-32, Bemidbar (Numbers) 29: 7-11, Yesha’Yahu (Isaiah) 58, Mattithyahu (Matthew) 6:16-18
כִּפֻּר kippur, kip-poor'
A day that the Most High requires the Israelites to fast or afflict their souls, this is done once a year to make atonement for the sins they had committed the whole year
How to Observe
How do we observe?
We observe by completing a self examination of ourselves, thinking over our sins, and focusing on repentance and turning away. Focusing on the grace and mercy of the Most High. We are not to put our focus on fasting. This should not be the aim...to be successful in completing a one day fast without eating. Instead, it should be an inward focus leading to humility (state of dependency on Yah).
CRY aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a shofar, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Ya`aqov their sins. Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their Elohiym: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to Elohiym. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and you see not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and you take no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labors. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to Yahuah? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? when you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh? YESHA'YAHU (ISAIAH) 58:1-7 את CEPHER
Yesha'Yahu (Isaiah) Chapter 58 calls fasting into scrutiny, exposing the errors of fasting and the quality of fasting acceptable to the Most High YHWH.
Fasting with the intent to go without eating is not why we fast. This fast typically produces pride, strife and debate, making our voices heard on high.
Yesha'Yahu (Isaiah) tells us that fasting acceptable to the Most High does 8 specific things:
To loose the bands of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens, and
To let the oppressed go free, and
That ye break every yoke? Is it not
To deal your bread to the hungry, and
That you bring the poor that are cast out to your house
When you see the naked, you cover them
Hide not thyself from thine own flesh
How do we celebrate?
By having a Holy Convocation Sabbath fast. We do no servile work and are to afflict our souls. With fasting and prayer. We are to deny ourselves from sunset to sunset.
Are these Feasts of him done away with?
NO.
Qolasiym (Colossians) 2:16-17: Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath day: things which ARE a shadow of things to come; but the body of Messiah.Feast Days - Should we observe them?
Should we still observe these feasts?
YES.
In Vayiqra (Leviticus) chapter 23 we're told four different times that these feast days are to be a "statute forever, throughout your generations" (Lev 23:14, 21, 31, 41).
Sources: Cepher Bible with Apocrypha | Hebrew Israelites, Biblical Feast Days by Unknown Hebrew | Hebrew Lexicon | Blue Letter Bible
** There is no direct affiliation with any of the aforementioned sources. We do not own the rights to the material referenced