What the broken Tablets teach us about life #yomkippur #jewishwisdom #torah

Why is Yom Kippur the holiest holiday? I suppose we should speak about the origin of Yom Kippur, which literally means the day of atonement. You probably know the story of the Exodus from Egypt, that Moses took the children of Israel out from bondage, and 49 days after their leaving Egypt, they stood at Sinai, and God gave them the Ten Commandments. The very next day, Moses went to the mountaintop for 40 days and 40 nights to receive the tablet upon which the Ten Commandments were written. Moses comes back down at the end of the 40 days, and he sees the people are worshipping an idol, a golden calf. He smashes the tablets and goes back on the mountaintop to beg God for forgiveness on behalf of the people. That takes place over another 40 days. After that 40 days culminates, God agrees to replace the tablets and reissues them, a second set, and the process of that takes another 40 days, a third set of 40 days. If you open up a Jewish calendar, you can count this. From Passover, the anniversary of the Exodus, plus 49 days is the anniversary of the revelation at Sinai, plus another 40 days, plus another and a third set of 40 days, and then you're at the 10th day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, which is the biblical date given for the day of atonement. In other words, Yom Kippur is an anniversary for when the people were fully forgiven for the sin of the golden calf, and that forgiveness was embodied, literally, through the giving of the second set of tablets. Now, later on, those tablets were kept in the ark, but this detail is not so well known and rather fascinating. The broken pieces of the first set of tablets were also kept with the ark, so they had both. They had the second tablets, which were given as a sign of forgiveness, and the first tablets which had been destroyed. And right there you have the image that sums it all up. Each one of us lives a life and in many ways at times we make poor choices which brings destruction upon ourselves. We smash the tablets so to speak and then through a process of divine grace there is atonement, there's forgiveness and God gives us a second chance. But even when we have those second tablets we don't get rid of the remnants of the broken first set of tablets. We preserve them, we hold on to them because they represent something indispensable in our journey. The breakage and the remembrance of brokenness keeps us humble and reminds us that ultimately God's forgiveness is given by him because of unearned grace. We don't deserve it, we didn't earn it, we receive it humbly and when we remember our brokenness then we're able to receive it.