This year we read on this Shabbat a double portion, Acharei Mot/K’doshim. There is enough in these portions for a semester of issues. There are many texts that are used as proof texts for a wide variety of issues. Leviticus 18 focuses on sexual practices and Leviticus 19 on what is called the “Holiness Code” and contains proof texts for medicine, (19:16), respect for elders (19:32), the “golden rule” (19:18) and care for the stranger in our midst (19:33). SO many issues to discuss. Once again Torah speaks to our world.
There is a fascinating ritual that begins the reading that I hope you can focus on in your Shabbat studies. At the very beginning of the reading (Leviticus 16) we have this curious ritual of expiation involving two goats, one to be sacrificed to God and the other to be sent to “Azazel”. How it is decided which of the two goats is to be sacrificed to God and which to be sent away? Aaron is to draw lots (16:6ff). This is an elaborate ritual for expiation of sins, first for Aaron, his household, the Shrine and the whole congregation of Isarel. The second goat has an additional role. “Aaron shall lay both hands on the head of the goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off into the wilderness with a designated man. Thus, shall the goat carry with on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region, and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.” (Lev. 16, 21,22) This is the sacrifice to Azazel!
There are many interpretations of this ritual. It should remind you of the liturgy of Yom Kippur, as we stand and speak the Confessional, and indeed, some of the Yom Kippur liturgy is from this chapter. Later interpretations have this goat not set free, but sent over a cliff to perish. That second goat, the goat that is sent off for Azazel, becomes in our language and idiom, the scapegoat!
Azazel is shrouded in mystery. Many feel it is a reference to a god and a reference again to the commandment not to worship other gods. Nachmanides sees this as symbolic of evil. This is a ritual where we seek to create a means by which the sins of the people are forgiven, and the people are cleansed. The scapegoat is how a community can be forgiven and transfer or lay off their sins to some other object. We rid ourselves of the evil and transfer it to something or someone else!
Let me suggest that this is more than just a mysterious ancient ritual edited and refined into a Day of Atonement which carries with it similar theological meaning. Let me suggest that this ritual has significant meaning for us as we live in a world where scapegoating is an ever-present reality. How often do we see attempts by people to see in others faults, behaviors, fears and thus attempts to rid these fears by removing those people? It is sometimes easier to pass off responsibility by deflecting it on others. Who are the scapegoats of today’s world? Who and what is being sacrificed, and for what?
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Richard F Address
Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.
Be the first to comment