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excerpt
threads are subject to continual revision and updating as
opportunity and priority permits Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain: "The 'Holy Sinner' -- he who sins, who lives beyond conventional morality, yet carries in himself the grace of God for others to receive -- is he on whom there rests the 'Mark of Cain' -- the Holy Spirit -- bestowed on him by God for reasons only He alone can know. This 'Mark of Cain,' this indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is neither punishment nor rebuke, as commonly (and mistakenly) believed, but a protection of the Holy Sinner placed there by God 'to prevent whoever might come across him from striking him down.' ... Thus, the Holy Sinner sins on behalf of others, is punished for his sins on behalf of others, is crushed for his sins on behalf of others -- and by his sinning, they are healed. But the Mark of Cain protects him from their condemnation, from their ignorance by which they see him only as 'someone struck by God, and brought low' for his having done in public what they covet in secret. His public humiliation, therefore, is a substitute for theirs; it is no longer necessary for them to sin in order to repent -- he has done it for them... | ...it's not the saints, the pious and the righteous whom God chooses as the vessels for His continuing incarnation in this trashy world, but the ordinary ones, the common ones, who, like the world itself, themselves are trash. It is the Holy Sinners whom He chooses, we who have been bruised and soiled by life -- who have dirtied ourselves in the dust to which the Holy Bride has fallen, and from where she must be lifted up -- we who have sinned and will probably sin again because it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting -- we who belch and fart and scratch our asses -- who bounce the rent check, get divorced, cheat and sometimes (if we must) even steal -- but who, nonetheless, in the secret caves we keep for God, nurse the wounds inflicted on us by His love as if they were stigmata, not from thorny crowns or nails, but from the insults of each day that eat away at life. And even then, not all of those who sin are Holy Sinners, but only those who, at the very moment of our sin, like Samuel, cry out: 'Hinayni, Lord! Here I am!' Thereby proving to the Father that although we may be cast down and beaten, we are never cracked or broken. By surviving and transmuting a just punishment for our unjust sins we prove ourselves to Him to be strong enough to contain the wine of His Holy Spirit without bursting or becoming, like those for whom we pour it out, drunk..." Professions of a Holy Sinner "In summary, then, and contrary to popular belief, according to the Gospels themselves thousands of religious Jews flocked to Jesus during his life-time ... and even before Paul brought His message to the gentiles. This strongly suggests that there was no contradiction in their minds between 'Orthodox' Judaism and Christ's teachings. In fact, we're told the early Church 'went as a body to the Temple every day' (Acts 2:46). Moreover, the Jews who cried 'Crucify him!' and 'Let his blood be on us!' may have done so because they believed, as their Oral Scriptures had told them, that His sacrificial death would free them from sin and initiate the Messianic Era - a belief that would later become the cornerstone of Gentile Pauline Christology... why is there an almost irreconcilable breach between Judaism and Christianity today? It's to this question that we now turn for answers..." To Die for the People |