Catholic Reflection of the Jewish עֲשֶׂרֶת יְמֵי תְּשׁוּבָה (Aseret Yemei Teshuvah) from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur

The seventh Jewish month, Tishrei (תִּשְׁרֵי), has a very significant meaning as the High Holidays, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur are in this month.

From the first day of this month to its tenth day are the high holidays in Judaism, known as עֲשֶׂרֶת יְמֵי תְּשׁוּבָה (Aseret Yemei Teshuvah), translated as “the ten days of penitence”. The first two days are celebrated as Rosh Hashanah and the last day is solemnly observed as Yom Kippur (Leviticus 23:23-32; Numbers 29:1-11). Rosh Hashanah (רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה) means “new year”. But it is described as the feast of trumpet in the Bible, while Yom Kippur (יוֹם כִּפּוּר) is described as “day of atonement”, as it is meant.

The Jewish tradition holds that God opens the Book of Life (ספר החיים/ Sefer Ḥayyim or HaChaim) during the two-day period of Rosh Hashanah, to inscribe the names of those who are righteous in His eyes. Those whose names are not written in this book will be doomed, and God closes and seals the book on Yom Kippur. For those whose names are not put in the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah are given a “grace period” until Yom Kippur to practice teshuvah (repentance and return to God) through spiritual purification, in the hope to be included in the Book of Life before it is closed by God on Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah is the first two days of the Jewish new year, from the sundown of the first day of the month of Tishrei (the seventh mouth from the month of Nisan) until the sunset of the second day of Tishrei. These todays of Rosh Hashanah are also the first two days of Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, the ten days of the repentance (תשובה/teshvah), to return to God, casting away sins,  as the Hebrew word, “תשובה”(teshuvah), literally means “return”.  And this Hebrew word contains “שֻׁ֥בוּ”(shub), which means “turn”(to God)(Joel 2:12).

During these ten holy days, Jews practice Tashlich ( תשליך) ritual, standing by a large body of water, symbolically casting away their sins to the water, as to cast all sins into the depth of the sea, citing Tashlich Prayer, as “tashlich” means “cast off”:

The prophet Micah proclaimed (Micah 7:18–20):

"Who is a God like You, forgiving mistakes and erasing our wrong-doing ... You have not maintained anger forever ... You will take us back in love .... You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea."

The author of the Psalms comforts us (Psalm 118, 130):

"In stress I called on Adonai; and Adonai answered me and brought me relief. Adonai is on my side, I have no fear; what can others do to me ? ... It is better to seek shelter in Adonai than to trust in the great."

We remember Abraham and Isaac, walking together toward Moriah and toward their destiny, when Satan the Adversary became before them a great and raging river blocking their path. Girding themselves with faith, the two leapt into the rapids, praying to God for courage and rescue. God heard their call, dried the river, and their journey continued.

We remember our exiled people, sitting beside the rivers of Babylon, weeping to a God who had forsaken them, longing for a life and a land for which they had become unworthy. Through the power and the force of teshuvah--the entire community pleading for forgiveness and vowing to change--God turned exile into return, desperation into hope.

We imagine the life that teems beneath the water's surface :fish who swim and eat, breath and bear young in the cool depths. But we also remember the captured fish--struggling in a net, their fate unknown. We, too, are struggling today, in a net of our own making. Give us the strength to break free--to cast aside the weaknesses and limitations which bind us and prevent us from becoming our best selves.

They also cite Taḥanun (תחנון) Prayer (“Tahanun” means “supplication”).

My God! My soul is Yours. My body is Your servant, take pity on what You have created; my soul is Yours and my body is Yours, God help us for Your sake.

We come to You because we want to honor Your reputation.

Help us in our moral struggle for the sake of Your reputation; because You are kind and compassionate.

Forgive us, for there is so much we need to be forgiven for.

Pardon us our Father, our errors are so great; forgive us our Royal Master many are our mistakes Our God and our parents’ God, pardon our sins, erase our rebellions.

Let our failures not appear before You.

Mold our drives to serve Your purposes; let our stubbornness be in Your service.

Refresh our conscience to guard Your instructions.

Sensitize our hearts to love You and to respect Your reputation as Your Torah prescribes:

“and YaH Your God will sensitize, Your heart and the hearts of Your children so that your love for your God will be wholehearted, inspired, to make Your life meaningful”.

Dear God. I approach You from the desire to serve You and yet there is no Tzaddik who can do only good and not fail in it.

Please help me with my moral Life so that in every way my attitude will be balanced and right.

To begin with, help me to forgive anyone who has frustrated and upset me, irregardless if they have sinned against me, my body, my possessions, my reputation, anything of mine, unintentionally, intentionally whether they schemed, or were unaware, whether it was in word or action whether is was a thought or the imagination. Whether it was in this incarnation or in any other.

I completely forgive any God-wrestler; let no one be punished on my account.

My God and my parents’ God may our prayer come before You. Do not turn Your attention from our pleading. We don’t want to be impudent. We don’t want to be stubborn and claim that we are righteous and have not sinned.

Indeed our parents have sinned and we have sinned.

Help us. With God’s help, not to fail You again and what I hereby confess to You

(insert the particular sin)

I beg You, that in Your great mercy You erase my sins but not by means of suffering and illness.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable for You, Yah, my rock and my Redeemer.

I place my faith in You.

I place my trust in You.

I place my hope in You.

(Translated by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and other unknown authors)

Though the Jewish New Year begins with a joyful tone, wishing for a sweet year with God’s abundant blessings, dipping apple in honey, and with greetings, “Shana tovah u'metukah”( שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה‎/have a good and sweet year), Rosh Hashanah is also to start intense spiritual renewal in anticipation of Yom Kippur through repentance and conversion to be in good standing with God.  In fact, Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of penitential preparation for Yom Kippur, with contrition and humility, realizing the unfathomable depth of God’s חֶסֶד/chesed (covenant loving kindness) and רַחַם/racham (mercy, compassin).

On Yom Kippur, fasting is required and the scripture readings are: Leviticus 16:1-34; Numbers 29:7-11, with Haftarah/ הפטרה (concluding): Isaiah 57:14-58:14. And for Yom Kippur Mincha/ מִנחַה (afternoon prayer), the scripture readings are: Leviticus 18:1-30, with Haftarah: Jonah 1:1-4:11; Micah 7:18-20.

Perhaps, the Catholic tradition that can be comparable to the Jewish high holidays (Aseret Yemei Teshuvah), from Rosh Hashanah (1^st day of the month of Tishrei) to Yom Kippur (10^th day of the month of Tishrei), is Lent (Quadragesima), 40 days of penance, spanning from Ash Wednesday until the sunset of Maundy Thursday, followed by Paschal Triduum. The Jewish high holidays are a period of spiritual renewal through repentance for atonement. The Catholic Lenten period is also about renewal of faith through penance, conversion, and reconciliation, punctuated with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

The First Reading of Ash Wednesday (Joel 2:12-18) certainly evokes the spirit of Rosh Hashanah to begin the preparation for Yom Kippur:

Yet even now—oracle of the Lord— return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.

Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.

For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting in punishment.

Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind a blessing.

Grain offering and libation for the Lord, your God.

Blow the horn in Zion! Proclaim a fast, call an assembly!

Gather the people, sanctify the congregation; Assemble the elderly; gather the children, even infants nursing at the breast.

Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her bridal tent.

Between the porch and the altar, let the priests weep, let the ministers of the Lord weep and say: “Spare your people, Lord! Do not let your heritage become a disgrace, a byword among the nations!

Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

The Lord Relents.

Then the Lord was stirred to concern for His land and took pity on his people.

And Rosh Hashanah trumpet to call Jews’ attention (Leviticus 23:24) is echoed not only by Joel 2:15 (blow the horn to Zion) but also this call for repentance that John the Baptist announced, in preparation for the coming of Christ:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! (Matthew 3:2)

Followed by these words:

Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.

And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.

Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:8-12).

John the Baptist’s call for repentance and to produce good fruit of penance is actually not only to prepare for the public appearance of Christ but for the judgement by him, with the Book of Life (Revelation 20:11-15).

In juxtaposition to the Catholic tradition of Lent, Yom Kippur can be compared to Good Friday, because the sacrifice of the incarnated Christ, Jesus, on the Cross, as not only the Paschal Lamb to deliver us from the bonds of sin but also as the sacrifice for our atonement.

On Yom Kippur, only the high priest could enter the holy of holies to offer sacrifices for atonement (Leviticus 16:1-19). But the incarnated Christ is the greatest high priest who offered himself as the Yom Kippur atonement sacrifice once for all for the new covenant, perfecting the Yom Kippur under the old covenant. So it is written:

But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he entered once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

For this reason he is mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.

Now where there is a will, the death of the testator must be established. For a will takes effect only at death; it has no force while the testator is alive. Thus not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.

When every commandment had been proclaimed by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, together with water and crimson wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is ‘the blood of the covenant which God has enjoined upon you.’”

In the same way, he sprinkled also the tabernacle and all the vessels of worship with blood.

According to the law almost everything is purified by blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified by these rites, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these.

For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf.

Not that he might offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; if that were so, he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world. But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.

Just as it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment, so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him (Hebrews 9:11-28; cf. Leviticus 16:1-34).

It is the Christ, who has consummated Yom Kippur for the New Covenant. And by his precious blood, we can atone with God, upon repenting, casting off our sins, converting our hearts for purity, and returning to God. Let us thank and praise God for giving us the Great High Priest, by whose love and mercy we can return to God and approach the throne of Christ in his Kingdom, through repentance, conversion, and atonement.

Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.

So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help (Hebrews 4:14-16).