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"We don't accept that we are born in sin"
One Jewish lady with whom I meet
has often said to us, "You Christians make too much of this matter of
sin. It would be far better just to talk about the good in people".
Another lady cannot accept that she is basically sinful but says that,
for the Jew, Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is the means
through which forgiveness is obtained for the things she does wrong.
In the book, A Guide to
Jewish Knowledge published by the Jewish Chronicle, we read:
Man
is born without sin. His soul is pure and although in life temptation
may be great and he shows an inclination to sin, Judaism repudiates any
idea that he is born with an original sin that is transmitted to him
from the first Adam. Man may have the tendency to sin but this is a
very different thing from suggesting that he has destiny to sin. Further, although man may be sinful by
inclination he has within him the power to rid himself of sin.
In the light of this official
rabbinic teaching, we have to understand our own position on this
matter. Though we have inherited the disease of sin from Adam,
we are also guilty before God because
of our own sin i.e. people are in rebellion against
God. It is in the sight of a holy,
righteous and almighty God that we are sinners, not necessarily in the
sight of our fellow humans. Man judges by human standards and finds
some people to be better and some to be worse. However, in the Torah
(Genesis 8:21) we read: "...the imagination of man’s heart is evil from
his youth", and these are words spoken directly by God.
The prophet Isaiah said: "We all,
like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way".
This righteous prophet was indicating that it is only human to want to
fulfil our own ambitions in life rather than to fulfil the will and
purposes of God. King David said in Psalm 51:5 that his sin was clearly
a condition from birth.
If sin is not universal why is Yom
Kippur observed among the Jewish people as the most solemn of all
festivals? Why is it that Jews who never enter a synagogue at any other
time somehow manage to crowd their way into a congregation, for at
least an hour, on the Day of Atonement? Some are prepared to pay the
membership fee for the whole year just in order to do so. I am sure
there must be some inner longing to deal with this great problem of the
uncircumcised heart. Yet there is a great promise given by Moses in
Deuteronomy 30:6: "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and
the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your
heart and with all your soul, that you may live". May the Jewish people
come to recognise and acknowledge the Anointed One of Daniel 9:24 who
came "… to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make
reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness."
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