During the Ten Days of Awe (which is between 1-10 Tisheri), we are to examine ourselves and then confess any sins that the Lord God has revealed to us. We are to draw close to God and ask Him to reveal His plans for you in the next year. It is a time to focus on the Lord as the Creator, the Judge, and the Redeemer. 10 Tisheri is Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement.
Leviticus 23.26 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying: 27 Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. 28 And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. 29 For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people. 30 And any person who does any work on the same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. 31 You shall do no matter of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 32 It shall be to you a sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, you shall celebrate your sabbath.
Yom Kippur is the Most Holy Day of the Year; a Sabbath of Sabbath; the Highest Holy Day. This is the ONLY Day that the High Priest can go into the Most Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle or the Temple to cleanse it with the blood of bulls and goats. It begins at nightfall on 9 Tisheri and lasts for 25 hours. It is a Sabbath day of rest no matter what day of the week it falls on.
It is a day to afflict your soul with fasting. It is a day of humbling yourself before God and seek Him. Turning your heart to Him and confessing any sin to Him. A true fast is to remove yourself from the bonds of wickedness and its burdens, breaking the evil yoke. A day to ignore personal physical needs and love on others by providing for their needs. A day to concentrate on God and His way. A day to turn back to God through teshuvah (repentance). It is day that everyone’s fate is sealed for the year; the books are closed for a year.
This is the day that Moses returned from Mount Sinai on 10 Tishrei with a second set of Tablets of Commandments; thus signifying that the Lord God had forgiven Israel for the sin of the Golden Calf.
It is a Day of “at-one-ment”. Thus implying a limitation. It is only available to those who repent. It is the turning of the heart toward God and away from sin. Jesus fulfilled the blood sacrifices and the ritual of atonement thus He is our High Priest of our confession. We still need to repent for any sins we have committed and have not repented of as of yet.
Isaiah 58:1 Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; They take delight in approaching God. 3 Why have we fasted; they say, and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice? In fact in the day of your fast you find pleasure and exploit all your laborers. 4 Indeed you fast for strife and debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day, To make your voice heard on high. 5 Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? 6 Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, Here I am. If you take away the yoke form your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, 10 If you extend your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness shall be as the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Leviticus 16:29 This shall be a statue forever for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a stranger who dwells among you. 30 For on that day, the priest shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. 31 It is a sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever. 32 And the priest, who is anointed and consecrated to minister as priest in his father’s place, shall make atonement, and put on the linen clothes, the holy garments; 33 then he shall make atonement for the Holy Sanctuary; and he shall make atonement for the Tabernacle of meeting and for the Altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. 34 This shall be an everlasting statue for you, to make atonement for the children of Israel, for all their sins, once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded Moses.
Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, 2 who was faithful to Him who appointed Him as Moses also was faithful in all His house.
Hebrews 9:11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanses your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 9: 24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another — 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.