The Scapegoat Mystery​​​​​​​

Jews around the world traditionally read Leviticus 16 on Yom Kippur. This port contains a mysterious ritual that involves two goats. One is offered as a sacrifice in the Tent of Meeting, much in the same way that all other sacrifices were made in ancient Israel. The other is kept alive and abandoned in the wilderness. This ritual of the scapegoat is unique to this part of the Torah. Nothing similar occurs elsewhere. What was this strange ritual all about?

There is no doubt that sins cannot be carried like a burden, and taken off the shoulder of one being to be laid on that of another being. But these ceremonies are of a symbolic character, and serve to impress people with a certain idea, and to induce them to repent – as if to say, we have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, have cast them behind our backs, and removed them from us as far as possible. - Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed, 3:46

1. Maimonides says that the scapegoat ritual is, "of a symbolic character." What do you think he means by this?

2. Why is it sometimes important to create rituals that hold nothing more than symbolic power?

Once we reject a literalist understanding of revelation, we can no longer view God as the active, initiating source of ritual practice. The alternative is to view ritual as emerging, in some way, out of the religious life of the community...Ritual is "symbolic" behavior in the sense, first, that it has no substantive effect on the world out there, except on the feelings of one who performs the ritual; and second, because it shares the characteristics of all symbols, namely that of standing for, pointing to, or participating in a reality that lies beyond itself. -Neil Gillman, Sacred Fragments, 224.

3. If you were to create a ritual to purify yourself of sins in a communal manner, what might this ritual look like?

In a guilt culture you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes you. In a guilt culture people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad. -David Brooks, "The Shame Culture"

Judaism is a religion of hope, and its great rituals of repentance and atonement are part of that hope. We are not condemned to live endlessly with the mistakes and errors of our past. That is the great difference between a guilt culture and a shame culture.

But Judaism also acknowledges the existence of shame. Hence the elaborate ritual of the scapegoat that seemed to carry away the tumah, the defilement that is the mark of shame. It could only be done on Yom Kippur because that was the one day of the year in which everyone shared at least vicariously in the process of confession, repentance, atonement and purification. When a whole society confesses its guilt, individuals can be redeemed from shame. -Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

4. What is the difference between shame and guilt?

5. We each have our own private ways of making up for our "missed marks." At any point in the year, we may apologize to people and resolve to act better as we move forward. Setting goals for improvement should not be limited to Yom Kippur. That being said, why is it important that we have a single communal day in the Jewish tradition in which we all come together to atone for our missed marks?

From reading tens of thousands of postcards, I believe that all of us carry at least one secret that would break your heart if you knew it. And if we could just remember that, there would be more understanding, compassion and peace in the world. -Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret