But the oral law endeavours to prove its assertion, by a citation from Ezekiel, “As for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness.” And it might be further urged, that Ezekiel here mentions repentance only, and omits all notice of sacrifice and the Day of Atonement. But the answer is easy. Either Ezekiel meant, in this declaration, to repeal the law of Moses, or he did not. If he meant to repeal the law of Moses, then the law is repealed, and a new way of obtaining forgiveness, not taught by Moses, has been introduced, and then the whole Jewish nation is, on their own showing, palpably in the wrong in adhering to that which is repealed. But if he did not mean to repeal the law of Moses, then he made this assertion with that implied restriction which the law of Moses required; that is, he implied the necessity of sacrifice: and then this passage does not prove what the oral law asserts. But in every case, this first assertion is contrary to the law of Moses.
It is, however, evident, that the rabbies themselves were dissatisfied with their own assertion, for they immediately add to it a second, “That the Day of Atonement itself atones for them that repent, as it is said, ‘For on that day he shall make an atonement for you.’” Notwithstanding the confidence of their assertion about repentance, they did not feel easy without some appearance of an atonement, and as they had no priest and no victim, they say, that the day itself atones, and endeavour to prove this assertion by a citation from Moses. But, unfortunately, this citation entirely overthrows their assertion. Moses does not say:—
היום הזה יכפר עליכם ׃
“This day will atone for you,” but he says:—
ביום הזה יכפר עליכם ׃
“On that day he (the priest) shall atone for you.” Moses ascribes no virtue whatever to the day itself, but only to the rites on that day to be observed, and the person by whom they were performed. Moses prescribes, first, a high-priest; Secondly, a goat, whose blood was brought into the Holy of holies; and thirdly, a goat to be sent away: so that where these three are wanting, nay, where any one of the three is wanting, the conditions prescribed by Moses are not fulfilled, and there is, therefore, no atonement. Without these three things the day itself has no virtue, and is nothing different from the commonest day in the year; and now, therefore, as they are all wanting, Israel has no atonement. The assertion about the day itself, is a mere invention of the rabbies, the only value of which is to show how deeply they felt the insufficiency of repentance, and the necessity of a real atonement, in order to procure remission of sins.
But the rabbies always betray themselves by adding something to make up for the deficiency, of which they are sensible. We have seen this in their assertion about merits, and so we find it here in their assertion about atonement. They assert, that “The Day of Atonement itself atones for the penitent,” but in spite of this, they have felt the need of something more, which would a little better resemble real sacrificial atonement; and hence has arisen the custom of sacrificing a cock on the eve of that solemn day. The following account of this custom is given in the קהלת שלמה, of which we have before us an edition published at Breslau, so late as the year 1830; and it is selected, partly on account of its recent publication, and partly because the directions how to act are given in Jewish-German, which shows that they are intended even for the most illiterate, and that the custom is not confined to a few speculators, but is general amongst the people:—
סדר כפרות ׃
בני אדם יושבי חושך וצלמות אסירי עני וברזל , יוציאם מחושך וצלמות ומוסרותיהם ינתק , אוילים מדרך פשעם ומעונינותיהם יתענו , כל אוכל תתעב נפשם ויגיעו עד שערי מות , ויזעקו אל יי בצר להם ממצוקותיהם יושיעם , ישלח דברו וירפאם וימלט משחיתותם , יודו ליי חסדו ונפלאותיו לבני אדם , אם יש עליו מלאך מליץ אחד מני אלף להגיד לאד ישרו , ויחננו ויאמר פדעהו מרדת שחת מצאתי כופר ׃
זה חליפתי , זה תמורתי , זה כפרתי , זה התרנגול ילך למיתה ואני עכנס ואלך לחיים טובים ארוכים ולשלום ׃