Judaism ForumAsk an Orthodox JewHi all! You're welcome! Aineo, you posted: We learn from Numbers 6:7 ("When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to commit a trespass against the Lord, and that soul be guilty; then they shall confess their sin which they have done...") that the confession of one's sins must be verbal. However, while such confession may be in the presence of others (whether in public prayer in synagogue or in the Temple), it is to God & to God alone. When a penitent brought this or that offering in the Temple (and as we will do when the Temple will be rebuilt as we believe it will be, hopefully soon!), while the priest officiated over the offering & witnessed the ceremony, the penitent's confession was not to him but to God. Please let me clarify something. The order of Temple offerings was merely one part of the process whereby a Jew could repent of his/her sins; by itself, isolated, bringing an offering was insufficient. Since the order of offerings is, to our sorrow , temporarily suspended, we must rely, for the time being, on the other steps of the process. What are the other steps of the process? Hosea 14:2-3 (read in synagogue on the Sabbath between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur) says:
Egad, I've got to edit my posts better. While the Sabbatical (7th) year continued to be observed in 2nd Temple times (aspects of it are observed even today), full observance of the Jubilee year was suspended even before the First Temple was destroyed. The Sifra (http://tinyurl.com/bs3l5) cites Leviticus 25:10's reference to, "unto all the inhabitants thereof," and says that, "from the time that the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh were exiled the Jubilee was discontinued." The precepts of the Jubilee, however, inspired our Sages to legislate various provisions regarding landholdings in the Second Temple period. As the Encyclopedia Judaica says, this rabbinical legislation, "exercised a decisive influence, which accounts for the fact that in the last generations of the Temple period and for a considerable period afterward, most of the land in the country was not in the hands of large landowners but remained in the possession of smallholders." See http://www.ou.org/chagim/shmitah.htm, http://tinyurl.com/79tqd & http://members.aol.com/lazera/AmEchad/shmita.html. Howzat? Be well! ssv |
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