Wednesday, September 23,1987 — THE BULLETIN — 5
By STEPHEN ROSENBERG^
The Ybm Kippur service includes a most curious ritual, that of the Azazel, or scapegoat.
The High Priest was cpnimanded to take<\yo identical goats and cast lots on them to determine which was "for G-d" and which "for Azazel." The firstone was then offered in the Temple as an atonement for sin. '
Meanwhile, the "scapegoat" — which escaped slaughter — was symbolically loaded with the sins of the Children of Israel and sent off into the wilderness (Z^v/7/cm5 16:10 and 21). It was led a way by a specially appointed official to ensure that it never returned.■ , , ■
is that it is the name of ia place, a high cliff. They take the wordas a combination oi azaz and el, bpth of which when used as adjectives, can mean strong or, by analogy, "steep and precipitous!"
The sense would then be to take the goat and throw it from a high peak to ensure that it could never return, and we krtOw this is how it was done in Second Temple times.
But it is ingenuous to suggest— as the early authorities quoted by Abraham IbniEzra( 1092-1 r67) did — that name firs^ referred to a mountain near Sinai and then tO another one near Jerusalem. What about those times when the ritual had to be conducted in bther areas of the wilderness, and, later,-When the taberriaclp stood at Shiloh?
Ibn Ezra concludes that Azazel must refer to something else which he is unwilling to divulge, saying only that the clue to the i^ame will be revealed to a son of 33!
' This leaves us in suspense until we read the commentary of the Ramban (Nachnianides, 1194-1270), who explains that we must look 33 verses further on to Leviticus 17:7, Nvhere we are adjured 1 not to "sacrifice any more to the goat-like figures." In other i words, Azazel is the name of a demon or spirit of nature, ibn Ezra may have hesitated to say this plainly, but the Ramban does not hold back, as the Talmud itself had told us, some 800 years earlier in the name of Rabbi Ishmael, that the name Azazel hints at the mideeds of the spirits Uza and Azael, who "saw the daughters of men that they were fair and took them as wives" (Genesis 6:2).
To avoid such an inappropriate conclusion, the Talmud (Yoma 67b) comes up with a third notion — that the name can be divided into two words, ez and azah or "Goat, go away!" In fact, that would be very close to the word "scapegoat"
blasts on the Ram's Horn. The blowers are
1 One of the goats to a demon?
The Ramban says that it is to appease Sammael (the arch-accuser, like Satan), who, on the Day of Atonement, might otherwise take the opportunity to point out all our faults at the time when we are most vulnerable to his accusations.
And, he adds, it is because of this negative aspect that the goats are chosen by lot, that is, by G-d and not by us, so that it is
But the,idea can be considered only as a convenient play oh words, for it does not explain why the goat is sent "to Azazel."
We remain, therefore, with the rather sinister suggestion that Azazel is an evil spirit. But how can it be possible that the Torah
the appeasement.
We know that the ritual was carried out faithfully in Second Temple times. The A/w/i/ia (tractate Yoma) describes it in detail and even comments that the common people sped the goat on its way by shouting to it — as it went through the streets on its way to the bare mountain — tul've ze,- or "Take (our sins)„and go away;" in other words, a vulgarization of Azazel.
The goat was the^n taken to the top of a high cliff and pushed off, so that i^s neck was broken even before it reached the
ground. As soon as this happened, the scarlet thread tied by the Temple door would by miraculous means turn white and the people would see that their sins had been forgiven.
How should we today react to this ancient ritual-which we recite on Yom Kippur? Excellent guidance was offered by Samson Raphael Hirsch in his Biblical commentary over 100 years ago.
Addressing himself to three problems, he asks: "What for us is the meaning of Azazel?" It is composed of the word az, meaning. "strerigth," or bodily nature, and the word azal. meaning "going," or the senses that make the body go this way and that. So Azazel represents the human being, with all his failings, r And why are two identical goats selected for this ritual? Because they represent, in each one of us, the twin tendencies for good and evil within the one personality.
And lastly, why were the two goats drawn by lots? Because on Yom Kippur it is up to each'of us to choose -^whether to go to G-d or to Azazel. jcns
ByMORDECHAI BECK
The choicest of all birds, according to the talmudic tractate Baba Metzia, is the hen. Its mate, the rooster, also serves as an exemplar of moral qualities and good behavior such that, had the Torah not been given on Mount Sinai, man could have learned his good qualities from the poultry.
Among the chicken's most endearing traits is that of the affection displayed towards it mate. For some rabbinic tastes, this display was too affectionate and could set an immodest precedent for Jewish couples.
On the other hand, the hen's ability to give birth more or less daily is considered the harbinger of a similar capability among women in the time of the Messiah.
The rooster's diurnal shriek is commemorated in our daily blessing, ". . . Who gives understanding to the cockerel to distinguish day and night."
Unlike the bat, which yearns for the night, the rooster startles us with its triumphant call for the coming dawn. The last chapter of tractate Sanhedrin compares the bat and the rooster.to those in this world who lust after evil and darkness as opposed to those seeking only goodness and light.
Yet, on the dawn of Yom
ir eve, this self-same chicken, source for so many and proverbial good qualities, is taken to be slaughtered to atone for our own misdeeds.
Swung above the head, the rooster Or hen (for men or women, respectively) is turned ; into a surrogate for the individual's sins. The words accompanying these actions declare: "This fowl will go to death and I shall enter upon a
good and long life and peace."
The chicken is then slaughtered, according to the prescribed ritual, and either handed to the poor or transferred into money, which is given as tzedaka.
This kappara rite is practiced by many Orthodox Jews, although it is far from universal. It came under severe censure from no less halachic authorities than
Nachmanides and the author of the Shulchan Aruch, Joseph Karo.
To modern sensibilities, too, the juxtaposition of ritual and death is too replete with unfortunate associations to be accep t a b 1 e. Th at erudite Anglo-Jewish scholar, Joshua Trachtenberg, called it "the most blatantly superstitious practice to have entered Jewish religious usage."
Despite the censures, the practice of kappara has persisted to this day. Throughout Israel, Chassidin|and Sephar-dim crowd the markets and butcher shops in the week leiading up to Yom Kippur in order to chOOse their substitute sacrifice.
No doubt the hint of Temple sacrifice which it suggests has something to do with it. It has allowed thei practice of
A YEMENITE BUTCHER in Israel wields a "Kapparot" fowl in readinessf or the Day of Atonement which talces place this ¥08^011 Saturday, Oct. 3. Koi NIdre night is Friday, Oct. 2. r , '
ritual slaughter, in its pristine meaning, to sneak through the back door of Orthodoxy almost in defiance of Halacha.
Yet, if the ritual itself raises uncomfortable associations, the symbols it expresses have become in our day perversely more relevant. In the drawings and paintings of Marc Chagall, for example, the chicken often appears as a symbol both of universal stature and of the Jewish people in particular.
The high level of the hen's procreativity is offset by the warning shriek of the rooster. These very talents combine to make the chicken the most : vulnerable of creatures. ' The succour it provides, along with its warning voice, serves paradoxically to draw attention to it. To be creative and to warn others, it would seem, is to offer one's neck for the slaughter.
-Yet stubbornly we^ persist — chicken and Jew alike — creating and warning simultaneously. Refusing to cjiange, we offer our'^utstretched necks to our enemies.
As the hero of Isaac Bashe-vis Singer's Cockadoodledoo might sayv truth is sharper than the slaughterer's knife. To kill the chicken is merely to sustain it; to silence its scream is merely to amplify it. jcns
Both artkks this page are by past amnge-ments with London Jewish Ckroniele.