Acharei Mot 5774

By Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik

The ritual of atonement described at the beginning of Parashat Acharei Mot is well known for those who attend services at the synagogue on Yom Kippur morning.  Chapter 16 of Va-yikra (Leviticus) minutely describes the proceedings carried out by the Cohen Gadol in order to atone for his offences, those of his family and those of the entire people.

One of the particulars of this ritual was that two animals exactly alike were chosen, to then perform the raffle.  One was selected for God and was sacrificed by the priest, and the other, destined “for Azazel”, became the scapegoat, in whom all the sins of the people were symbolically deposited.

The Talmud devotes a large section of the Yoma Tractate to explain and analyze this ritual in detail.

The term Azazel appears 4 times in our parashah, and never again appears in the entire Tanach (Hebrew Bible).  Its meaning is not clear, hence the emergence of so many different explanations:

• Azazel eis a conjunction of 2 words: EZ (goat) and AZAL (that leaves), that is, it’s a reference to the “aniaml that was sent” and abandoned in the wilderness, bearing the people’s transgressions.  Abraham Ibn Ezra (Spain, 12th century) defends this interpretation.
• Others maintain that Azazel was the name of the place where the goat was abandoned.  It was an inaccessible area, full of cliffs and ravines, as explains Rashi (France, 11th century) quoting from the Talmud.  This interpretation seems to harmonize with the practice performed during the age of the Second Temple, when the scapegoat was thrown from a cliff.
• A third argument affirms that Azazel is the name of a demon, a pagan reminiscence of an antithetical figure of the God of Israel, who dwelt in the desert.  Rabbinical literature abounds in this direction.  The prohibition to offer sacrifices to demons appears as well in our parashah (Lev. 17:7) and, in fact, the animal was not offered to Azazel in the atonement ritual.

In my opinion, what is most striking is the raffle held to determine which animal was to be offered as sacrifice and which one was to be destined for Azazel:  “and he shall place lots upon the two goats, one marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8).

The Talmud describes the system used to define the mission for each animal and what could happen, even in the event that one of the animals died before the  ritual was completed.

What is most surprising is that both animals were identical, under the same conditions, and their immediate future – so different – was established absolutely at random.  One would be offered for God and the other become a depositary of all sins, for Azazel (in any of the above interpretations).

Seeing the role played by luck in the ritual, we can appreciate how the force of the act lies in its symbolism.  There’s no difference in category between both animals; no distance of any kind between them.  The animals constitute just means to perform an act charged with meaning.  It didn’t matter which animal was used in each case; that was established by a simple toss.

From here, we can learn that rituals are not magic.  The scapegoat does not atone for the sins of the people, nor does the sacrifice achieve God’s favor.  Act and liturgy become valuable when they manage to channel the most profound feelings of human beings, when they evoke and refer us to a much more abstract reality

“One marked for the Lord and the other marked for Azazel.” The identity of each animal is completely irrelevant; only the symbolism of the ritual will imbue with transcendence each one of the rituals.

Shabbat Shalom,

Gustavo