On Yom Kippur 2025... where is there hope from the Dark Side?

                  A Yom Kippur Sermon

Given 1 October 2025

10 Tishrei 5786

By Bob Mendelsohn

Introduction

Shalom friends. As we pause for the sermon tonight, let me ask you a question. Do you honestly believe there is real hope for the Jewish people, and for our world? In a world of strident bipolar hostility, and where people cannot speak with civility any longer—on what do you fix your hope? Is the answer to the woes in Israel and Gaza the same as the answer to the troubles in Ukraine? What about rising antisemitism here in Australia… is the government poised and capable to settle the conflicts? I will share my answers in a moment, but first let’s review some situations.

Situations of pain

Last year, the Harbour Bridge was shut, at a standstill. A southbound driver had slid into the northbound lanes, and a head-on crash ensued, killing 2 and injuring many others and stopping traffic for hours. The culprit broke the rules and as a result broke more than his share of trouble. People died. Their end came. 

Another moment: Our Jews for Jesus IT department had a major issue one morning a few weeks ago. The lights bubbled and throbbed relentlessly and as a result, all those 0s and 1s caused hundreds of emails to be sent, globally, to each recipient in an exercise. Our email servers were overloaded; the fix took hours. What an annoyance! Those of us who saw the emails barraging our inboxes almost immediately knew there was a problem, but what the answer was, that was way above our paygrade, as they say.

Another one. Last month, while my wife Patty and I were in Athens, whilst riding on a crowded metro train from the City Centre, on exit, I noticed that my wallet had been stolen; I’d been pickpocketed. Later in conversation, we replayed the scene repeatedly. Suspicion was high, and we think we know when and even how it happened, but that didn’t get my financial and health cards and driver’s license back. It was evil, and bothersome and wrong on so many levels, but how do we fix that, or can we?

Each of these scenes showcases what might be called in movie terms, “The dark side.”  In fact, movies and books and stories of all kinds almost require the eternal battle of light and dark. Otherwise why would we continue to read or watch the rest of the episode or the series? Who will win in the battles to come? Who will eventually bring justice and peace to a world or a neighbourhood or an individual at the end of their proverbial road? 

Can we know peace?

With all that as introduction, and with October 7 as the most recent dark side of our people, with antisemitism rising in Melbourne and here in Sydney, and with Yom Kippur as our setting, we are at a time in the modern days where the longing for justice and peace in our neighbourhoods and our world and even in us as individuals is a major concern. Is that true of you? Is that true of the news channel you watch? Is that true of your family? 

With these questions—where is justice? Where is peace? Or how do we fix the dark side … we turn our attention to the Scripture and to our Jewish tradition for answers. If indeed there even are answers. What do you think?

What’s your solution?

Migrate to Israel

One Christian recently wrote on his Facebook account,

“God is clearly doing something in Israel and perhaps the rise in antisemitism is God’s call to Jews to return to their land.  I believe that Israel is the safest place for them to be.”

Safe? You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. 

Politics

Many want to call on the US government to shake things up in Israel and call his good friend and Prime Minister Bibi or the Arab league leadership to force some handshakes and treaties, some hostage handovers, some bombing or no bombing, some peace deals or some takeovers… everyone seems to have an idea, but let me tell you, government won’t solve this one. The land of Israel was a hotbed of controversy since forever, and a handshake or a music festival or a weekend away won’t solve this ugliness. 

Governments will come and go, as will good will between nations. So where can we turn?

Religion

Religion is always on offer in our world. In fact, tens, hundreds, thousands of religions are broadcasting just now on the internet or live somewhere-- advancing their philosophies and ideas so that you would have peace or retribution or revenge or information enough to stand against the tides of evil in our world today. 

There is always more you can do, more money to send, more fasting or prayers, more service projects, religion never tires of asking its recruits and its generals to do more. Listen, I grew up an Orthodox Jewish boy and as an adult became more religious, by passing the religion of my parents and the modern Orthodox synagogue where I had my Bar Mitzvah. I became a ba’al teshuva and learned with rabbis and recruited other Jewish man to join me in laying tefillin and practicing our religion more fervently. But when push came to shove, I was able to perform ritually, but still didn’t have peace; I still didn’t have what might be called ‘the answer’ to the dark side. 

The problem wasn’t all external. I had plenty of dark side in myself. That was a shock to me; or as Pogo would say, “we have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Atonement via psychology

Queensland psychologist Anne-Marie Elias wrote in the Melbourne Jewish Report in September “atonement can play a vital role in societal healing…can foster a sense of closure and facilitate healing among affected communities.”  She lists some caveats like the “sincerity of the remorse expressed” and “if the wrongdoer is perceived as insincere or self-serving, the process is likely to fail.”

Where is there peace and reconciliation then, if not in government, if not in religion, if not in psychology? 

Was Germany safe in 1925?

Think back 100 years ago with me. Imagine the safety of Jewish people living in Germany in 1920. We had significant power and status, good neighbourhoods and some fine positions in society, but not every rabbi was comfortable with who we were then. 

For instance, Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman (1874–1941), a Pre‑Holocaust Lithuanian Rosh Yeshiva, warned that Europe’s Jews were in trouble and therefore, divine retaliation was unavoidable. He wrote, “The Jews in Europe declared war on Hashem. And now He has declared war on them. And that’s why He’s sending His armies against them.” (cited by Rabbi Avigdor Miller quoting Wasserman on the cause of Europe’s downfall https://www.torasavigdor.org )

Rabbi Avigdor Miller, an influential American haredi rabbi, said this was neither isolated nor random (1908-2001) and said something shockingly similar after World War II, “This colossal tragedy of history ... was God’s open demonstration against assimilation whether physical or mental, ... only the most blind could ignore it.” (The Holocaust (bauk.org)    He maintained the Shoah was a divine wake-up call against secularism.

Before Messianic Jewish author Art Katz passed away 18 years ago, he had a significant impact in my life, and his books still speak to me. We had first met in 1973 in Pennsylvania, and we last spoke in person in the US in 2003 or so. His notion of the Holocaust as judgment on the Jewish people never sat comfortably with many messianic leaders and people, but, and I say this with deep sadness, his thesis sits very well with me. Basically he argued that if God did not judge the Jewish people for the manner in which we had disobeyed and disregarded the Lord, he would have to apologize to the Jewish people of Jeremiah’s day. 

Now I don’t pretend to imagine that this is a popular thesis. Some of you may have just stopped listening to me, live or on YouTube as a result of this comment. Fair enough. 

Judaism’s non-answer

Contemporary Jewish leadership—especially in mainstream and denominational circles—focuses on collective responsibility, external threats, and psychological resilience, rather than framing national trauma through a theological lens of divine discipline.

This reflects a shift toward modern, pragmatic responses to crisis, differing from older paradigms that interpreted calamity as Heaven’s correction—a motif more often found in certain traditional or Messianic schools, not in present-day mainstream discourse.

But if you can, please listen to these words from different Jewish prophets who wrote just before the destruction of the First Temple and the exile by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

 

The prophets spoke long ago

“For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, 

With the punishment of a cruel one, because your iniquity is great, And your sins are numerous. ‘Why do you cry out over your injury? Your pain is incurable. Because your iniquity is great,  And your sins are numerous, I have done these things to you.”    (Jeremiah 30.14-15)

 

“In vain I have struck your sons; They accepted no chastening. Your sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” (Jer. 2.30)

 

“ O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? 

You have smitten them, But they did not weaken; 

You have consumed them, But they refused to take correction. 

They have made their faces harder than rock; They have refused to repent.” (Jer. 5.3)

“Alas, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel, which will fall by sword, famine and plague! He who is far off will die by the plague, and he who is near will fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus will I spend My wrath on them.” (Ezek. 6.3-5,11)

“Judah did not keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the customs which Israel had introduced. The LORD rejected all the descendants of Israel and afflicted them and gave them into the hand of plunderers, until He had cast them out of His sight.” (2 Kings 17.19-20)

Judgment by God on his people, on us, on our people, is ever warranted. The rabbis teach that we lost the First Temple due to adultery, idolatry, and murder. Sin has consequences.

The purpose of the judgments

You might think I would leave us here, with judgment deserved and without hope to conquer the dark side at all, but I won’t do that. 

Art Katz said, “Judgment is not an end in itself. It is God’s last, severe mercy to turn a people back to Himself.”

Never forget that the purpose of these judgments (again, not punishments, not permanent disregards) was for one purpose, “that we might know that He is the Lord.” (Ezekiel 6.7-13, 1 Kings 20.28) The purpose was not academic or to win a trivia contest. The purpose was to forge and shape a relationship between us and the Lord. No pretence; no gamery. God wants and wanted and will want our attention. And our devotion, and our love. And he wants us to receive his love and devotion and attention. That’s what a relationship is all about. 

That means you, oh Bondi. That means you Eastern suburbs. That means all of us Sydney, and all of us Jews in Australia, and all of us Jews worldwide. 15 million or so of us, 7 million living in the land of Israel. 100,000 or so of us here in Australia. 

The purpose of the Holocaust was not to make a nice shiny new nation and government in between Lebanon and Egypt. It was to make us repent and cry out for forgiveness and to know God. 

The purpose of 7 October was not to gain world sympathy, as if it did come, it didn’t last very long at all. God’s judgment on the Jewish people is designed to make us turn to face him and to repent and to ‘go and sin no more.’

Won’t reform work?

Patty and I met many Jewish people while on leave, and two Jews in Athens stand out in my memory. One was from Colombia, the other from New Jersey. Each wondered aloud as we discussed global problems, “What did we do wrong?” when pondering global antisemitism. Each of them averred that we as Jewish people took care of others and were kind. We didn’t deserve this tragedy. But I challenged them both. And Yom Kippur challenges us boldly tonight. We have sinned. Is it not obvious? 

A Jewish woman and God’s finger pointing

Do you remember the story of Yeshua and his finger? A woman who had been caught in adultery was grabbed and forcefully dragged to be brought before him. (John chapter 8) When they literally threw her in front of Yeshua in the makeshift courtroom, he stooped down and wrote on the ground with his finger. (8.6) 

I imagine the prosecution was hoping he would point his finger at the woman and like them, label her as a sinner, and worthy of execution. (Leviticus 20.10) That’s in fact what John tells us in the biography here, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” (8.4-5)

Obviously, this was a trap, and the men accusers didn’t really care about this woman at all. It was designed to catch Yeshua out and have grounds to disregard or even arrest and rid them of him.

God in Exodus wrote on stones; Jesus here writes on dirt; what did he write?

Many aver opinions, but I’m convinced that Yeshua was writing the sins of the people who accused the woman by writing commandments they broke. He might have been writing “Thou shalt not murder” or “Thou shalt not bear false witness” or “Thou shalt love thy neighbour” or any number of commandments that he found the men breaking that day.

Listen to another passage from Jeremiah, “All who forsake Thee will be put to shame. Those who turn away will be written down on the earth” (Jeremiah 17.13) 

I believe Yeshua was writing the men’s sins and they were seeing their own error.

John brings part of this story to a close by saying that “one by one beginning with the older ones, they began to go out.” (v. 9) I like that. The older ones knew their sins and admitted them faster than the hot-headed younger ones. 

God’s finger wrote justice for the men and at the same time it wrote forgiveness for the woman that day.

The story ends with Yeshua declaring forensic freedom for her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” (John 8.11)

God’s finger still writes God’s laws, in our days. He writes them on hearts of flesh. He writes them in the consciences of people who have hearts and ears to hear what His message is to humanity. I hope you are a person who wants to know God’s ordinances. I hope you want to know God personally. If so, then the commandment and the choice and the freedom of forgiveness and the love and the God of it all is available to you. And for you. And ultimately for Him and His glory.

And it’s summed up in the person and work of Messiah Yeshua. He is the great atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world.

The most quoted characteristics of God are first said in Exodus, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” (34.6-7)

This is the first of 8 times this sentence is spoken in the Tenach. Three of them in the Psalms (86:15; 103:8; 145:8) and one each in Num 14:18; Joel 2:13; Nah 1:3; Neh 9:17; Jonah 4:2)

This was said to Moses. And he told us. And we are still learning about God. So that we can call him Father. So that we can call him friend. So that our lives will be with him and in him. 

Tonight. 

Tomorrow.

From now on. 

Amen?

Pickpocketing will still happen. Thieves are gonna steal. IT departments will still need to repair glitches the computers create. Car accidents will still happen, and wars and rumours of wars will continue until Yeshua puts his foot down on the Mt of Olives in Jerusalem. 

But until that time, each of us has a chance to be forgiven by the sacrifice of Yeshua, and to know God personally through the kindness of God our Saviour. If you repent, just now, and receive Yeshua as your Lord, you will know eternal life and his forgiveness of your sins. The dark side will be quashed; your new life will begin. Neither does God condemn you; go and sin no more. 

Have an easy fast. 

Shalom.

 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/794488249615663  Elon Gold on repentance. 

A benefits inventory with instruments!

A sermon given at Windwood Presbyterian Church

Houston, Texas

Sunday 4 August 2024

 

Shalom! For 25 years I’ve been privileged to spend time about every three years with the folks here at Windwood Church ever since Kevin Rudolph and I began a relationship first in email and then in person, sometimes at church or at GleannLoch or at the restaurants, even at his and Robyn’s home. It is a privilege and I don’t take that lightly. Now that Tres is the senior pastor and we have begun our relationship in email and this morning over breakfast, we continue that tradition. 

As I pondered the sermon’s assigned Bible reading this morning, Psalm 103, it made sense to make a list of our shared history and then to smile in gratitude. I trust, as I share this morning from this 3000-year-old text, that you will have a gratitude list as well, and that you will be singing from it long after the parking lot empties and long after the Olympics or the Astros finish this season. 

There are varied reactions to hearing Bible readings, aren’t there? For instance, I wonder if familiarity bred contempt for you this morning. The words of the Psalms are often known to some of us who hear them with regularity. As a result, we could be unsettled or listening for a ‘new thing’ instead. Then again, the hearing of the ancient text could be like finding an old sweater that you haven’t worn in a while and you really like wearing. It fits; it’s the right colour. It’s you, after all. Some Bible verses seem to do that for me, and maybe for you as well. Is Psalm 103 one of those?

No matter how you took the actual reading of the psalm, let’s unpack it as I think King David intended, as an inventory and job description and see how this works in our lives in 2024 and beyond. Is that fair enough?

The inventory of benefits are listed right off the bat. Five things are itemized, and each is in itself expandable. For each one, I imagine a flurry of trumpets and drums with crashing cymbals. It’s at least 8 bars if not 32 bars of triumphant exaltation. Did you miss the sound of the orchestra when we read the passage? Let’s try it again.

God pardons all our iniquities. Cue the trumpet. Roll the drums. Forgiveness for every one of my sins. And yours. And King David’s sins. Pardon. Release. Empty the jail. Unchain the prisoner. Trumpets. Violins. French horns. Cymbals. PARDON! ALL! There’s nothing left to pay. 

Pondering that orchestral sound as the philharmonic raises the volume triumphs over every remembrance of my iniquities. My sins. My bad attitudes. My sloth. My entitled whining and declarations of life being unfair. All my bad actions. My murdering tongue, my lies, my lusts, my demands. All my iniquities. Summed up, rolled into a list, delivered by Special Delivery to the Scorekeeper, and in one fell swoop, one heartbeat, there is not a single penalty listed. No errors. No mistakes. No sins. The anticipated judgment against me is gone. Pardon is declared. Are your hands lifted high to the heavens yet? My gratitude list begins like King David’s with the erasure of my sins. 

Remember, David would well have had a significant list of sins about which he was aware. We know of a couple of major ones of his, but he would have known much more. Even as each of you knows your own sin more than your neighbour or the fellow in the pew near you. And yet--which by the way is one of my favourite phrases when I ponder God and how he treats humanity, even my humanity--And yet, in spite of our many sins against him and others, he pardons all our iniquities. What an awesome God we have, amen?

The second benefit in our inventory list this morning is the healing of all our diseases. And your first thought is probably like mine… excuse me, David, you lost a child to disease. You are aware of sicknesses in Jerusalem, among your fighting men, and in your own family. How can you possibly declare healings like that? 

Obviously, the psalmist is echoing his own thoughts in a psalm you didn’t study this summer, as we read

“When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.” (Psalm 32.3-4)

 

The linkage of healing and unforgiveness is clear and certainly later biblical authors pick that up. For instance, when Yeshua encounters a paralytic man, recorded for us in Mark chapter 2, we read

“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — He said to the paralytic,  “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” (2.10-11)

Please hear me well. I’m not saying that all sicknesses are directly caused by or even related to sins. The psalmist could be accused of that for instance in Psalm 107 we read

Fools, because of their rebellious way, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. (Psa. 107.17)

 

But not all sickness is a result of sins individuals made happen. COVID levelled the planet in so many ways, and I’m not sure that every person who contracted it four years ago, or even in this summer’s season, is because of his or her iniquity. If that were so we should have insisted on soul washing instead of hand washing. No, the psalmist in 103 is saying that with the pardon of all our sins, our lives are now characterised by a healing of all apparent misfortune. 

Think of Nick Vujicic who has tetra-amelia syndrome, a disorder characterised by the absence of arms and legs. He has understood his plight his entire life, certainly since becoming a Christian, and has often said he would not trade his spiritual life for arms and legs. 

Think of Joni Eareckson Tada who serves as CEO of Joni and Friends, which provides for thousands of special-needs families around the world. She began Joni and Friends after a 1967 diving accident left her a quadriplegic. 

Both Nick and Joni and countless others who are not yet healed in body would shout along with the psalmist that God has healed all their diseases. If they can do so, and King David can do so, surely we can do the same. 

Third, he redeems your life from the pit. Now we are hearing some biblical parallelism, that is, repetition for amplification. I love this poetic device of the Bible. The pit is a symbol of the lowest point in our lives. Some call it rock-bottom. That’s the empty place, the Solomonic “time to mourn.” That could be by example when your wife left you, or your boss gave you a pink slip, when the government sent you a tax bill beyond your house’s value, and your insurance on that house did not include flood insurance. Your world caved in, and there was apparently no hope. God uses the term here ‘redeem’ which must include rescue and deliverance. It reminds me of the 400-year wait for the Jewish people in Egypt before God finally sent Moses to rescue us from slavery. It’s the 70 years of captivity in Babylon when all hope was lost. Everything could be titled, “the pit.” And yet, there’s that phrase again, and yet, God redeems us from that pit. He takes all the ingredients labelled ‘trouble’ in your pantry, and although the devil would like to keep you permanently fixed in that and those situations, God reaches his hands in and lets you escape. Redemption from the pit is awesome. 

Do you use loyalty points at the gas station or the grocery store, at the hotel chain or airline? Those accrue for a significant time, and then one day you turn them in, at the redemption centre and receive a reward. That redemption, that buy back, that didn’t really cost you much. But biblically the redemption of a slave costs much more. God sent his only son to the world to redeem us from an eternal pit, and I’m so grateful. Are you singing along with David yet?

Inventory of Benefits item four is crowning. Some weeks ago you read Psalm 100 and I hear echoes of it in today’s psalm. Crowns are symbols of God’s royalty and God crowning us is letting him identify us as his children. The Scripture says,

“For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” (2 Peter 1.4)

God lets us be partakers of his royalty, by crowning us. You may call me Prince Bob. And you may call each other by that appellation as well! We are children of the king and at the end of days we will lay those crowns at his feet. All glory is HIS, amen?

Finally the 5^th benefit we receive, and which David records is satisfaction. We read, “Who satisfies your years with good things.” 

Although I appreciate the addition of the word ‘things’ in our text, the word in the psalm is simply ‘good.’ God satisfies us with good. I like that. Remember the Garden of Eden and the offer Satan as the serpent gave Eve? He told her that if she ate from the tree which was forbidden that she would know good and evil. Listen God is good; she already knew God; she already knew good. All Satan really offered her was evil. Don’t you wish she would have pondered that one a bit longer?

A word about satisfaction. And the difference between it and contentment. There are shades of meanings I want to highlight. Contentment according to the apostle is great gain. (1 Tim. 6.6) Accept your lot with or without much funding. With or without great banquets. But satisfaction, that’s another matter. The psalmist again informs us, “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied in Your likeness when I awake.” (Psalm 17.15)

When I wake up, when He returns, in that moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall wake up and are in his likeness. John said, “when he appears, we shall be like him.” (1 John 3.3) That day will be glorious. We will be like him. And my satisfaction will be complete. When I wake up, looking like Jesus, what a day of rejoicing that will be, amen?

There is much more to highlight from the text, for instance, verse 7 tells me that God showed his acts to the Jewish people, which is fantastic. He brought justice on the Egyptians. He brought relief to the Jewish people. He created the heavens and the earth. He allowed Elijah to perform miracles. And the Jewish people were aware of those acts. But don’t miss it; the difference here is that God made known his ways to Moses. It’s one thing to watch a performance; it’s quite another to see the purposes and to know the meaning of those actions. Moses saw the plans; he knew the purposes. He knew God’s ways. He had a relationship with the Almighty. That’s God’s plan for each of us. 

Verse 8 is an echo of Exodus, which is repeated so many times in the Older Testament. Jonah said it with disdain for God. Here David repeats the ancient declaration of who God is. Slow to anger. Abundant in rachamim and chesed. Mercies and covenant love. What is God like? Ask the Jewish people and they will repeat what God did. That’s good. But ask Moses or David or me and you will hear rachamim and chesed. Ask Dane Ortlund and you will hear “gentle and lowly.” 

Rachamim is a plural word, and means ‘mercies.’ Remember, they are new every morning. It’s translated in the old KJV as ‘bowels of mercy” because the feeling comes from the guts, not from the mind. 

Chesed is the mercy or the covenant love of God. Mercy is not getting what we deserve; Grace is getting what we don’t deserve. Mercy keeps us from hell; grace gives us heaven. 

The merisms of verses 11 and 12 demonstrate the far-reaching nature of God’s love. High as heaven and earth, as far as east from west…even in verse 17, from eternity to eternity, chesed is far and wide, and there is no limit to his grace and love, amen?

 

Earlier I mentioned this is an inventory as well as a job description. Listen to this from verses 20-22

“Bless the LORD, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word, obeying the voice of His word!

Bless the LORD, all you His hosts, you who serve Him, doing His will.

Bless the LORD, all you works of His, in all places of His dominion; 

Bless the LORD, O my soul!”

The job description? Calling on heavenly beings…God is telling us that we are to call on heavenly beings to join us in that praise to the Lord. Perhaps you are confused about the word, “Bless.” That is, saying we are to bless God. Aren’t we usually asking God to bless things? That’s certainly true. But in this case, asking angels to bless God, has to do with the word ‘bless’ which carries the meaning of the word ‘knee.’ That is, the bending of the knee is the posture of blessing.  Basically we are calling the angels to be humble and to lift up the name of the Lord. 

Finally, we are to tell our own soul to bless God. We are not schizophrenic; rather our spirit man is commanding our flesh to bow to the living God and to acknowledge his lordship over us. In light of all he has done and all he will do, and in light of his nature and his character, what manner of person ought we to be? What should be our verbiage? 

We have a ministry, to call on angels and all y’all to bless God. Let us live to his praise; let us live calling on our neighbours and friends and relatives… bless the Lord oh my soul, oh my friends, oh Windwood!

Pick up your trumpet and tambourine… the choir is singing; let’s join King David and everyone—amen?