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279 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

279

Yoma 8?//, -where Rab of Babylonia and R. Johanan of Palestine refer to some portions of it), contains such sentences as the following " Thou offerest thy hand to transgressors, and Thy right hand stretched out to receive the repentant " (Pes. 119a). " Not in reliance upon our merits do we lay our supplications before Thee, O Lord of all the world, hut trusting in Thy great mercy. Thou dost not And delight in the perdition of the world, but Thou hast pleasure in the return of the wicked that they may

Is

live."

The saying of the Rabbis, " Higher is the station of the sinner who repenteth than that of him who has never sinned " (Ber. 346; see Pes. 119a; Luke x v. 10), emanates from the same principle of God's redeeming grace "God and

eye.

'Open for me a gate no wider than a needle's will open for you a gate through which camps and

says, I

" When the angels can pass " (Pesik. xxv. 163b) windows of heaven against the prayer of Menasseh, saying, Can a man who set an idol in the Temple repent ? God said, If I receive him not in his repentance, I and He bored a hole under His shut the door upon all penitents throne of Glory to hear his supplication " (Pesik. ib. 1626) '

fortifications

wanted

.

to shut the '

'

'

'



(6) On the part of man Atonement is obtained in the first place by repentance, which consists of an

outward Confession op Sins ("widdui," Lev. xvi. 21) prescribed for the

Repentance.

v. 5;

high priest

on the Day of Atonement (Yoma 36b), and for the criminal before his execution, to expiate his sins (Sanh. vi. 2)

penitential and fast days and by proselytes at the time of their admission into the Jewish fold (see "Prayers of Asenath, " xiii.-xiv.) also by the dying (" Ebel Zuttarti, " in Brull's " Jahrb. " i. 11).

and recited on

This

is

to be the expression of self-reproach, shame,

" They must feel shame throughout and change their ways; reproaching themselves for their errors and openly confessing all their sins with purified souls and minds, so as to exhibit sincerity of conscience, and having also their tongttes purified so as to produce improvement in their

and

contrition.

their whole soul

" (Philo, " De Execratione, " viii.). The verse, He who sacrifices thank-offerings [A. V. " praise "] glorifies me " (Ps. 23), is taken by the Rabbis as signifying, " He who sacrifices his evil desire while offer-

hearers "

,

1.

ing his confession of sin ["zobeah todah"] honors God more than if he were praising Him in the world

now is and in the world to come " (Sanh. 436). " He who feels bitter shame and compunction over his

that

Hag. 5a). is sure of obtaining pardon " (Ber. 12* But the main stress is laid upon the undoing of the wrong done. "No sin that still cleaves to the hand

sins



of the sinner can be atoned for it is as if a man would cleanse himself in the water while holding the contaminating of Wrong object in his hand therefore it is said, 'He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but

Reparation 1

,



whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy" (Prov. xxviii. 13; Ta'anit 16a). If a man steal a beam and use it in building, he must tear

down

the building in order to return the stolen thing

owner: thus of the men of Nineveh it is said, them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in [cleaves to] their hands" (Jonah iii. 8; Yer. Ta'anit ii. 65*; Bab. B.K. 666). Further, repentance consists in abandoning the for it is said old ways, and in a change of heart "Rend your heart and not your garments, and turn to its " Let



Atonement

unto the Lord your God " (Joel ii. 13) that is to say, " If you tear your heart, you need not tear your garments over a loss of sons and daughters " (Pesik. xxv. 1616; Yer. Ta'anit, I.e.). "They poured out their hearts like water before God" (Yer. Ta'anit ii. 65d). "He who says, 'I will sin and repent; I will sin again and repent again, will never be allowed time to repent " (Yoma viii. 9). Repentance rests on selfhumiliation. "Adam was too proud to humiliate himself, and was therefore driven from Paradise " (Num. R. xiii. 3). "Cain who humbled himself was pardoned " (Pesik. xxv. 160a6; Gen. R. xi., xxii.). "Great is the power of repentance; for it reaches up to the throne of God it brings healing (Hosea xiv. 5 [A. V. 4]); it turns sins resulting from ill-will into

'



mere

errors (according to Hosea xiv. 2 [A. V. 1]); nay, into incentives to meritorious conduct " (Yoma " He who sincerely repents is doing as much 86a6). as he who builds temple and altar and brings all the sacrifices " (Lev. R. vii. Sanh. 436). Hand in hand with repentance goes prayer. " It takes the place of sacrifice" (Pesik. xxv. 1656, according to Hosea xiv. 3 [A. V. 2]). When

Prayer,

God appeared

to

Moses

of the Golden Calf,

Fastings,

after the sin

He taught him how

and

to offer prayer on behalf of the sinladen community (R. H. 176). That prayer is the true service ('Abodah) is learned from Dan. iv. 24, there having been no other service in Babylonia (Pirke R. El. xvi. Ab.R. N. iv.). "As the gates of repentance are always open like the sea, so are [holds R. 'Anan] the gates of prayer" (Pesik. xxv. 1576). But repentance and prayer are as a rule combined with fasting as a token of contrition, as is learned from the action of King Ahab recounted in I Kings xxi. 27, of the men of Nineveh referred to in Jonah iii. 7, and of Adam in Vita Adas et Evoe, 6 Pirke 'Ei'. 186. Fasting was regarded like R. El. xx " offering up the blood and fat of the animal life upon the altar of God" (Ber. 17a; compare Pesik., With these is, as a rule, ed. Buber, p. 1656, note). connected charity, which is " more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice " (Prov. xxi. 3). On every fastday charity was given to the poor (Sanh. 35a Ber. " Prayer, charity, and repentance, these three 66). together, avert the impending doom " (Yer. Ta'anit "Repentance and works of benevolence 656). ii. are together the paracletes [pleaders] for man before God's throne (Shab. 32a), and a shield against punishment" (Abot iv. 11). Another thing considered b}r the Rabbis as a means of Atonement is suffering. Suffering is more apt than sacrifice to win God's favor and to Suffering atone for man (Mek.,Yitro, 10; Sifre, as Means of Deut. 32; Ber. 5a). Poverty also, in Atoneso far as it reduces man's physical strength, has atoning power (Pesik. ment. xxv. 165a). Similar power was ascribed to exile (Sanh. 376) also to the destruction of the Temple, which was held as a security— a play on the word pB*D— for Israel's life (Gen. R. xlii. Ex. R.

Charity,









1





Above

death atones for sin " Let my death make (Sifre, Num. 112; Mek.,Yitro,7). atonement for all my sins," say men when dying or in peril (Ber. 60a Sanh. vi. 2). Particularly the death xxxi.



Lev. R.

xi.).



all,