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 21st 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 21st 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.
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