Israel Prayer Journal #15

Friends,

Rosh Hashanah came and passed last week.  The holiday marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year, as I shared last time.  It is now year 5772 in the Jewish calendar.  It usually lasts just a couple days, but every five years or so it falls near the Sabbath, which made it last from Wednesday night until Saturday night this past week.  That was quite inconvenient since many Jewish things were closed, including public transportation, grocery stores, and restaurants.  It was a nice holiday, though.  It is usually commemorated by the blowing of shofars (rams’ horns turned into “trumpets”), and thus it is called the Feast of Trumpets.

 

According to Judaism, it is during this New Year festival that God inscribes the destiny of each person during the next year in the Book of Life.  This begins the period of the “High Holy Days” of Judaism.  Following God’s recording of your destiny, there is a period of ten days in which you can “influence” God to change your destiny.  This is done by prayer and repentance.  These ten days are called the “Days of Awe.” 

The period ends with Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement.  Yom Kippur takes place this coming Friday evening through Saturday evening.  This is the most holy day in Judaism.  Even the vast majority of secular Jews (by the way, most Israelis are secular) will be in synagogue on this day.  (It’s sort of like Christmas or Easter for secular Christians.)  Yom Kippur is characterized by fasting, attending synagogue services all day, and making prayers of repentance to God.  Everything Jewish shuts down for this holiday.  From what I’ve read, there will be no cars on the roads in the Jewish sections of town for this holiday.  It is on Yom Kippur that, according to Judaism, God “seals” the person’s fate in His Book of Life.  Thus, Jewish people must do everything they can before Yom Kippur to “influence” God to make their fate good for the year. 

In Biblical times when the Temple was standing, Yom Kippur was centrally important.  It was on this one day of the year that the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place of the Temple—where God’s Presence dwelt over the Ark of the Covenant—and offer the blood of a sacrifice to cover the people of Israel’s sins.  It was the ONE day of the year where ONE man could have direct access to God.  This day is also the foundation from which the concept of “atonement”—restoration of relationship between holy God and sinful man—is derived.  This feast was foundational to show in advance what Jesus the Messiah would do to repair the broken relationship between God and man. 

The doctrine of substitution—one person/thing bearing the penalty of another person’s sin—was also vital to this feast, as well as to the concept of sacrifices in general.  I have heard, though I have yet to see it for myself, that a small sect of Orthodox Jews practice a ritual called kapparot on Yom Kippur.  They take a chicken (or, now, sometimes just coins) and wave it over their heads, reciting the following prayer: “This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This rooster will go to its death, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.”  This rooster is then killed and given to charity.  It has the idea of substitution built into it.  The person’s sins are transferred to the rooster, which is then killed.  It comes from the Biblical idea of sacrificing a lamb, because the offerer would place his hand on the lamb’s head, confess his sins over the lamb, then kill the lamb.  The lamb would die IN PLACE OF the person.  Similarly in this practice, the rooster dies in place of the person.  This is because the Hebrew word for “rooster” and “man” has the same three root letters (g-v-r).  Thus, a “gaver” dies in place of a “gever.”

Certainly all of this is fascinating, but it does make me sad as I read more about it.  Yes, we should live in fear of God, but to think that we must spend ten days “manipulating” (maybe that’s too strong of a word) God into giving us a good fate this year by our repentance during these ten days seems like a sad thing.  In the Christian faith, those of us who believe in Jesus the Messiah already have a permanent good standing with God because Jesus died IN OUR PLACE as the substitute sacrifice for us, making atonement between holy God and sinful me.  It makes me sad that the Jewish people don’t see what Jesus has already done for them.  Instead, they try to “establish their own righteousness,” as Paul says.  If you think of it, pray for the Jewish people to believe in their Messiah during these holidays.  May they come to know true peace with God…

October 12-20 marks the third major holiday in Israel this month.  It is the Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot.  This holiday commemorates the Jewish people’s wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.  During this holiday, Jewish people will build temporary structures (tents, small buildings)—sukkahs—and spend time in them (eating, talking, sometimes sleeping).  I was delighted to discover yesterday that they had put up a sukkah in our student village!  I’ll write more as the holiday draws closer.

In personal news, late last week I went on a day trip with my American, photographer, church family friends to the Shephelah (the area between Israel’s Mediterranean Coast and the Judean Hills).  We had a great time exploring some of Israel’s less-touristy places.  The first stop was somewhere I have never been before: the Stalactite Cave National Park.  It is located high on top of a hill outside of Beit Shemesh.  When they were doing some quarrying work in the late 60’s there, they discovered a fairly large cavern densely filled with impressive stalactites and stalagmites.  We took a semi-guided tour through this cavern for about 40 minutes.  It was certainly impressive.  I felt like I was on another planet.  Caverns are not my favorite thing in the world, but it was interesting.  Our tour was with Israelis on vacation, and the tour was conducted in Hebrew.  I was able to pull out a few pieces of information, though I missed the vast majority of it.  So, it was both encouraging and discouraging in terms of my Hebrew studies.  

After that park, we visited Beit Guvrin National Park.  There are some impressive remains from the Greek period there, though we only visited the caverns.  We visited the impressive Bell Caverns (quarry sites from the Byzantine and early Muslim period) and the burial caves (from 3rd-2nd century BCE).  We also passed by the Elah Valley where David fought Goliath, and by the caves where Bar Kochva hid out from the Romans during the Second Jewish Revolt of the 2nd century CE.  I was most impressed by the views we had, though, of the surrounding regions.  One could look out towards the Mediterranean sea to the west, and to Hebron on the Judean Hills to the east.  It was spectacular to see how close things are.

On Sunday, the sister of one of my former roommates from my first stay in Israel came to Jerusalem, and I showed her all the most important sites in Jerusalem in one day.  It was a little sad how quickly we moved through so many sites and how many sites we had to skip due to time, but we had a really nice time.  One of my friends accompanied us as we visited the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Via Dolorosa, Golden Gate, Kidron Valley, Gethsemane, and Mount of Olives.  I think both she and her under-one-year-old daughter enjoyed it.  By the way, all my former tour groups should thank me again that my former professor in Israel advised me to walk DOWN the Mount of Olives road, not UP it with you all.  We walked up it this time, and I had forgotten how incredibly steep it is!  

On the Mount of Olives we stopped somewhere I hadn’t been before: the Tombs of the Prophets.  I was shocked at how large this place was.  The family who had discovered this enormous underground complex of caves still lives at the site, guarding it.  There are some 50 tombs in one giant cave, and it is possible that some of these tombs belonged to the prophets Malachi, Haggai, and Zechariah (according to tradition and some archaeological evidence).  It was a really fascinating visit that I’ll have to share with any of you who come to Israel in the future.

It’s been quite encouraging that lately as I walk through the Old City, I am able to pick up pieces of Hebrew conversations going on around me.  I also have done reasonably well in my interactions with restaurant- and store-workers lately.  I still make many mistakes, miss questions, and can’t get the big picture from long conversations that I stumble into, but I am definitely noticing an improvement in my hearing of spoken Hebrew.  I still have a LONG way to go, but it is nice to see improvement from only two months’ time.

 

Lastly, I just want to share with you how God has taken care of me in one major way lately.  When I came to Israel in August, I unintentionally brought a lot of cash with me.  This turned out to be life-saving, because I had a “cash-flow” problem.  Literally.  I ordered new ATM cards for my checking account sent to me before I left for Israel, but they didn’t ship until about 2 or 3 weeks after I left for Israel.  My mom then forwarded them to me in the safest, fastest way I knew of: via the University’s courier system.  To make a long story short, after 3 more weeks, no one knew where my cards were.  Thinking they had gotten lost somewhere, I ordered a new ATM card, and was simultaneously forced to cancel the old, lost card.  A few days later, the old, now obsolete card showed up.  Someone had been on vacation, and it got misplaced for a while.  Bummer…  My mom finally got the new cards, and she mailed them to me—this time through the regular mail.  Then the Jewish holidays hit, and everything was shut down.  So it took an extra week to get them to me.  But, finally, they arrived, and after a frustrating half hour of international calling through my computer, I had the card activated.  This seems like a small issue, but it’s a little scary not having access to any new money for two months.  Looking back, I am so thankful and amazed at how God took care of my financial needs during that time.  I had plenty of money in the bank, I just had no way of accessing that money.  I was so thankful that God caused me unintentionally—accidentally, in fact— to bring so much cash with me initially.  I was also thankful for a friend in Washington who sent a few small checks to me here in Israel during the last couple of months, and for my mom who three times sent me small cash gifts through the mail (which you’re not supposed to do, lol).  Those small infusions of cash helped me survive when my initial cash stash began to dwindle.  Anyway, I thank God for bringing me my ATM card finally, and for His provision of cash along the way by sweet people.  It’s amazing how God watches over His people.  But, may I just say, it is rather convenient for your bank balances when you are unable to access your money or use your credit card for two entire months.  I feel like I saved a lot of money the past two months. J

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, prayers, support, and encouragement.  God has been so good to me, giving me amazing experiences, letting me begin to learn Hebrew, watching over me, granting protection, meeting my needs, and giving me friends.  Thank you for your part in this journey.  I’ve run out of time again to share my experiences about the UN speeches, but I’ll do that really soon after I finish processing that experience in my mind.  Don’t forget to pray for the Jewish people during Yom Kippur this Friday/Saturday.  

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Shalom from Jerusalem!