Yom Kippur: The Goat at the End

I want to start off by saying how impressed I was with so many of the divrei Torahs this year. Due to time constraints, I put them into word docs each week and printed them off to read on Shabbas, so I apologize for not having the wherewithal after to go back and send regards/thoughts/compliments.

It’s hard to think of what to write for Yom Kippur. There is so much to say and yet so much has already been said. Also, many of us don’t have time to sit down and read a long Dvar Torah right now. Erev Yom Kippur, at least in my household, has always ended up being a bizarrely busy day. (So what are you all cooking for the seuda, anyway?!?) And here I go, already making excuses for why my preparation was, perhaps, a little shoddy…here I go using my household as my scapegoat.

Ok, that’s, perhaps, a flexible definition of the idea of a scapegoat, but what better time than Yom Kippur to discuss this puzzling and mysterious ritual. To the 21^st century ear, it sounds highly...archaic, especially when one looks at the mepharshim that explain Azazel as a demon…

The fact of the matter is that the entire ritual is one that commentators in almost every generation have had to strive to understand. Not only is there debate over what the term Azazel means, but the actual fate of the goat is argued. Some sources describe the goat being thrown from a cliff in such a way that it was torn apart by the time it was halfway down the mountain (described by Rabbi Eliyahu Munk* as having a stone tied to its horn so that it was walloped after it was shoved off the cliff). On the other hand, there are sources that describe the goat being released into a bleak wilderness where it would slowly die from lack of food and water.  Whether you are disturbed by the idea of sending a sacrifice to a demon (or a representative of the satan) or by the seemingly blatant tzar baalei chaim, the fact of the matter remains that the ceremony of the two goats is an integral aspect of Yom Kippur.

 To briefly address the idea of Azazel as a who rather than a place, the following idea is from ravkooktorah.org: The abstract knowledge that evil also has a purpose in the world must be acknowledged in some fashion in our service of God. This acknowledgment occurs in the elevated service of Yom Kippur. In practical ethics, however, there is no place for this knowledge. Heaven forbid that evil should be considered good, or that the wicked should be considered righteous. Therefore, the goat for Azazel was sent to a desolate, barren place — a place uninhabited by people. Human society must be based on a just way of life, led by aspirations of holiness and purity. (Gold from the Land of Israel, pp. 200-201. Adapted from Olat Re’iyah vol. II p. 357; Shemonah Kevatzim IV:91, V:193)

 Our aspirations are toward holiness and purity, so it is important for us to wrap our 21^st century brains around this significant ritual. What were we doing with these goats?

 Let’s review the basics. Two goats, as alike in appearance as possible, were brought before the Kohen Gadol. Lots were drawn to determine which fate belonged to which goat. One goat was taken and offered as a korban. The other goat was then burdened, so to speak, with the sins of klal Yisrael and sent off to Azazel. Here’s another strange bit. What does it mean that the sins of Klal Yisrael were placed on the goat?

 Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks notes that Sin and guilt offerings are familiar features of the Torah and a normal part of the service of the Temple. The service of Yom Kippur was different in one salient respect: in every other case, the sin was confessed over the animal that was sacrificed. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest confessed the sins of the people over the animal that was not sacrificed, the scapegoat that was sent away, “carrying on it all their iniquities” (Lev. 16:21-22).

 Here is another question… this part of the avodah of Yom Kippur occurred around midday, when already the people were already afflicting themselves as commanded by the Torah to bring kapara, so wasn’t the personal acts of devotion enough?

 There are, perhaps, two ways of looking at these questions. Rabbi Sacks presents an interesting idea: Yom Kippur deals not only with our sins as individuals. It also confronts our sins as a community bound by mutual responsibility. It deals, in other words, with the social as well as the personal dimension of wrongdoing. Yom Kippur is about shame as well as guilt. Hence there has to be purification (the removal of the stain) as well as atonement…Shame cannot be removed by forgiveness. The victim of our crime may have forgiven us, but we still feel defiled by the knowledge that our name has been disgraced, our reputation harmed, our standing damaged. We still feel the stigma, the dishonour, the degradation. That is why an immensely powerful and dramatic ceremony had to take place during which people could feel and symbolically see their sins carried away to the desert…”

 But perhaps there are also the personal sins involved. Let’s be honest, as Yom Kippur approaches we all try our hardest to do honest teshuva but are aware that it is probable that the aveiros we need to ask mechila for are ones that we don’t actually remember. To that end, we casually walk around and approach people we know and ask for blanket mechila – you know, for anything I might have done to hurt you. Here we are on Yom Kippur seeking out mechila and kapara and we aren’t even sure for what. Perhaps, and this is my own humble thought and not sourced, perhaps these were the types of sins “collected” by the Kohen Gadol and placed upon the goat.

 This little goat has a lot to bear but let us look at one more facet of the scapegoat. In his essay “On the Phenomenon of the Scapegoat for Azazel” in The Just Still Live by His Faith, Rabbi Eliyahu Munk notes that “All those Israelites who repent their sins out of love of G-d do not need the scapegoat to carry their sins at all.” This was a fascinating point to read as it echoed the ideas spoken of by Rabbi Aryeh Kerzener (Agudah Yisrael of Montreal) in his Shabbas Shuva Shiur. The gemara in Yuma 86 states that repentance from love of Hashem converts sins into merit – this is a high madrega! What other repentance is there? Repentance from fear. These sins, according to Rabbi Munk “are only being squashed…therefore the impurity created by such sins returns to its origin, but does not vanish from the universe.”

 The sins we atone for out of fear go from deliberate to b’shogag, by accident, and thus can be placed on the goat because their burden of guilt has been lessoned. There is, however, still guilt, still a sense of something that Hashem will want to punish us for, and thus creating only more Yiras Hashem. Yiras Hashem is good. It’s important. But Hashem wants our true Ahava. Hashem does not want us to repent because we want to be forgiven so we will not be punished. Hashem wants us to come to the point where our teshuva is truly for the purpose of coming closer to Him, because we love Him so much that we do not want to have anything that distances us from Him. Hashem is taking them away from us, ritually, with great finality so that, perhaps – ideally, we can see the path forward to pure Ahavas Hasham.

 I would love to go further into the thoughts shared by Rabbi Kerzner on the significant interchange of mitzvos and aveiros (he discussed how sometimes we don’t even realize that our mitzvos can also be aveiros), but this is now running long and we all have much to accomplish today.

 To conclude, let me ask all who know me for mechila for anything I might have done 😊.

In all seriousness, however, let us hope that we are soon in the time when we have true clarity on this ritual, but when the ritual is no longer needed or our understanding of Hashem is so clear and present that all of our actions are based on our ahavas Hashem. Until that time, let us look upon all of the mysteries of Yom Kippur, and Jewish life in general, with a recognition that there is always far more depth in Hashem’s perception then in ours.

 

Gmar Chasima Tova to all of you.

 

Parshas Haazinu- Reflections on the Moment In-Between

This Shabbas is Parshas Haazinu. It is also Shabbas Shuva. It is the closest Shabbas can be to Yom Kippur, which could cause some people a bit of stress but shouldn’t. After all, how wonderful is it that between the Day of Rest when we, ideally (cough cough), focus on our spirituality and the Day of Atonement -  we are not challenged by mundane days of work, when we might be distracted from what is most important right now.

This Shabbas Shuva, we read the parsha of Haazinu, which is a very unique parsha in that it is understood to be one long song. That song is both of the past, relaying the dynamic history of Bnei Yisrael, and for the future, full of prediction and foretelling. That duality of past and future is particularly significant for the days of teshuva. When we don’t own our past, we lose hold of our unique identity, we lose hold of the treasures that we have – our Torah, our land, our nationhood. We must never forget our past – because when we even start to ignore our past, our future starts to slip away.

The fact that we read this parsha here in the midst of the days of Awe (although sometimes just after) is significant because of what stands between the dual nature of the song of Haazinu. Between the past and the future, there is the present, the here and now…the today.

One doesn’t necessarily think about Yom Kippur as being about “today.” After all, it’s the day on which we stand before Hashem and ask Him to grant us atonement for that which we have done in the past. And, although we should be doing so just so we have done right in the ways of Hashem, most of us are hoping that our atonement will “pad” our future year to come, that we will be granted bracha and hatzlacha. However, the most important element of Yom Kippur is the Yom, the day, the specific annual time when we have the necessary spiritual alignment. 

So what does that have to do with Haazinu. The word is most often translated as “Listen.” This, however, isn't the usual listen, which generally comes from Shema (to hear). Haazinu is better translated with the archaic sounding “Give Ear.” It has a far greater immediacy to it than lishmoa, to listen. Lishmoa is an internal process, a slower process, a sinking in. Haazinu is a moment to be seized, to be acted upon, to burst forth… like song. At the same time, it is almost deliberate - “Give ear” implies turning one’s focus and paying particular attention. 

Over the next three days we must “Give Ear” to where we are. We must focus in on our actions here, on our teshuva now - and in so doing, we tie together the past and the future. This is the essence of the singularity of the day of Yom Kippur. Yesterday you were, perhaps, besmirched by your actions. Tomorrow you may be bowled over by forces beyond your control. On Yom Kippur, you will be between past and future, and this is something we can remind ourselves through the unique attribute of Haazinu, a song of the past predicting the future. 

May it be Hashem’s will that the very near future redeems us and brings about complete revelation. May your tefilos on Yom Kippur bring you a kapara you can truly feel, and may this Shabbas be a Shabbas of blessing for all of the Shabbasim to come. 

Parshas Nitzavim-Vayelech: Here

Why are we here? This is not the philosophical, existential question…This is the question of galus. Jews have been asking themselves this question in one form or another throughout this exceedingly long galus. Sometimes we ask this question with the intonation of why have we been made to live in a place of suffering and oppression. Sometimes it’s the question of why we haven’t taken the necessary steps of returning to our promised home. Whichever the question, the answer is never simple, and that fact reflects the fact that being part of the Jewish people has never been simple.  

This question, however, is as essential to Jewish identity as our understanding of what it means to be part of Bnei Yisrael. It is alluded to the renaming of Yaakov to Yisrael and the interpretation of that name as “He who wrestles with Gd.” Our destiny was never a straight line.

In this week’s parsha, Parshas Nitzavim-Vayelech, there is the famous declaration of “Lo b’shamayim hee,” the statement that the Torah is not in Heaven, and Bnei Yisrael, who have yet again here accepted the yoke of Torah, cannot make an excuse that the Torah is inaccessible to them. Our forefathers earned the privilege of Torah, earned the essence of the mamleches kohanim (kingdom of priests) that we are to become, and, by this very fact, they, and we, are the keepers of Torah. It is up to us to make Torah alive in this world. Torah is ours to possess here and now.

What is interesting is that the next pasukim, Devarim 30:13-14, continue: “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?’ Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.”

For a nation in the desert about to enter the Promised Land, this statement must have seemed odd. What sea were they being warned of looking across? Perhaps if it had been said “Nor is it across the Midbar, the desert” there would be a clear allusion to Har Sinai. After all, they did just travel for years from that place; they know how grueling that journey can be. If one thinks of it as a reference to the Sea of Reeds, then this also does not really make sense. Bnei Yisrael was forced to cross the Yam Suf because they were trapped by the Mitzrim. One does not need to cross the Yam Suf to get from Israel to Egypt.

“Across the Sea”, which some commentators understand as an allusion to the Atlantic Ocean while others think it is the Mediterranean, could, in its own way, be understood as an important vastness to the greatness of the exile to come.

There are, of course, multiple places in the Torah where Hashem warns the people that they will not hold on to the land, just as they will not hold on to their dedication to Hashem’s ways. It must have been difficult for the people on the precipice of entering Eretz Yisrael to understand - after all, with the Shechina dwelling in the Promised Land among the people, why would they even consider the question of worrying about the law being that far away?

Predictions - which is, of course, the wrong word for the utterances of Hashem – can be comforting. Knowing that the behavior is not unexpected is not an excuse, but it can be a comfort. We all watch others make strong resolutions about what they will or won’t do and then predictably miss their targets. The same is true for Bnei Yisrael.

Our history is recorded in our past as that which will inevitably come to be. Indeed, Hashem even tells Moshe, in this week’s parsha, “For I know what plans they are devising even now, before I bring them into the land that I promised on oath” (Devarim 31:21). Bnei Yisrael’s path to the promised land has never been easy – not in the days of the avos or Moshe and not in the days of the shoftim and naviim, when we struggled against Canaanites and Pilishtim and more, and not in the modern era.

Why are we here? Some people will turn this question into an accusation – why are you there? – for those who still dwell in chutz l’aretz. The answer, however, is throughout the parsha. We have not yet stopped chasing after other deities – not, perhaps, you or you or you – but we as a people have not yet learned to settle ourselves, our whole selves, into our role and our mission. Therefore, we are all in galus, and we are all striving for the great teshuva that will return the Shechina to its dwelling place and our nation to its rightful glory.

NMay it come speedily in our days!