Day of Atonement

My hunger was manageable today.  That's really saying something considering that I worked out this morning and the rest of my family "oohed" and "ahhed" over homemade fajitas tonight for supper. (It probably helped that I was in meeting while they ate.)

I've been doing some research on the festivals, feasts, and celebrations in the bible. Today I was reading about The Day of Atonement...more commonly known here as Yom Kippur.

This day is the holiest of day of the Jewish year. But is also very solemn because it is about atoning for the sin of the people. The ritual is elaborate and you can read about it in detail in Leviticus 16.

However, it's been on my mind because it got me thinking about the fact that Israel was concerned not only with personal sin but also with the sin of the nation. They obviously took responsibility for the sin that was committed corporately by the people.

Wow. We are so not like that. The western world is all about independence and personal choice.

We are lucky to find people in our culture who will take responsibility for themselves much less the choices of our government and the "people" as a whole.

What makes this particularly ironic is that we live in a democracy where our government represents our choices. This would not have been the case back in those ancient days.

What would a Day of Atonement look like for us? If Americans rose up together to accept responsibility for the wrongs that we have done as a nation (internally and externally), what would that look like?

Yes, I know we've also done great things! And I believe that we have taken the time to pat ourselves on the back many, many times for those things. I am a grateful American and so glad that I live in this country, but we fall way short of being perfect.

Do we have too much national pride to admit that we have even done any wrong?  Do you see the excesses here and the poverty and suffering that pervade many areas of the rest of the world? Or is this not your problem...not our problem?

In fact, how many Americans don't even realize that our pride is sinful? Instead we celebrate our pride like it's a good thing...a great thing.

Once upon a time were the people of Babylon or Greece so full of pride? What about those who were part of the Roman Empire?

We've been warned.