Acharei Mot-Kedoshim

Summary

After the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, God tells Moses to inform Aaron that he can only come into the Holy of Holies once a year, on the tenth day of the seventh month (Yom Kippur) On that day atonement will be made for all the sins of the Israelites. No work is to be done, they must afflict their souls. The High Priest must bring two male goats as offerings: one "for God" is offered in the Temple and its blood used in expiation; the other is "for Azazel" Aaron will confess all the sins of the Israelites over this goat which is sent away to wander in the wilderness. The Israelites are instructed that all meat is to be slaughtered in a ritual way by the Tent of Meeting, that they must not eat the blood nor eat an animal that has died either naturally or torn by wild beasts.
We are warned against copying the practices & cultures of foreign nations. Incest is defined & prohibited. Sexual relations during a woman's monthly cycle, bestiality & child sacrifice are prohibited. God reminds us that the Canaanites defiled themselves by adopting these practices, and anyone who defiles themselves like this will be subject to karet - cut off from their people.
In Kedoshim, the community are instructed in the laws of holiness, and are told to be holy. Among the Mitzvot: Prohibitions of idolatry; theft; false oaths; delaying payment to an employee; hating or cursing a fellow Jew; gossip; perversion of justice; putting a stumbling block before the blind; embarrassing; revenge; bearing a grudge; wearing a garment of wool & linen; harvesting a tree in its first 3 years; gluttony & intoxication; witchcraft; tattooing.
It includes the famous Mitzvah of "V’Ahavta L’Rayacha Kamocha" – Love your fellow as you love yourself.

This parashah describes the ceremonial procedure of the first Yom Kippur in the mishkan . Although we think of Yom Kippur as a yearly day of atonement, in the Torah, Yom Kippur is framed as a reaction to a very specific incident, the sin and death of Nadav and Avihu, Aharon’s eldest sons. The death of Nadav and Avihu is not only tragic, but also mystifying. Why is God so enraged by their offering of a strange fire? Why does the fact that it was not requested make it so loathed? Were they not trying to come close to God? Is this not a gift?! The death of Nadav and Avihu is also deeply personal for us. We want to feel that we can be religiously creative, that we can bring God more than what God asks. When Nadav and Avihu die as a result of this attitude, it is terrifying because we identify with them. Nadav
and Avihu are us. Not only that, but we identify them with the most religious version of ourselves, who we are when we want to meet God with genuine enthusiasm. (Dena Weiss commentary on the parasha for Hadar 5779)

Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba taught that Aaron's sons died on the first of Nisan, but Leviticus 16:1 mentions their death in connection with the Day of Atonement. Rabbi Hiyya explained that this teaches that as the Day of Atonement effects atonement, so the death of the righteous effects atonement. We know that the Day of Atonement effects atonement from 16:30 which says, "For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you." And we learn that the death of the righteous effects atonement from 2 Sam 21:14 which says, "And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son," and then says, "After that God was entreated for the land." (Leviticus Rabbah 20:12. 5th C Israel)

Chapter 16 of Leviticus, the first section of Acharei Mot - describes the avodat Yom Ha-kippurim, the ritual service performed in the Temple on Yom Kippur and forms the basis for what is known as the avoda section of the Yom Kippur prayer service, which we recite to commemorate the sacrificial rituals performed on the Day of
Atonement when the Temple stood.
Numerous different sacrifices were offered on Yom Kippur. In addition to the two daily tamid offerings, which the Torah described earlier, in Parashat Tetzaveh (Shemot 29:38-42; see also Bamidbar 28:1-8), the day of Yom Kippur required the offering of a musaf (literally, "additional") sacrifice, as did all the festivals (see Bamidbar 28:9-29:39, especially 29:7-11). Parashat Acharei- Mot, however, discusses only the special atonement ritual of Yom Kippur, which has no parallel on any other day of the year. This ritual consisted of four sacrifices: two offerings brought by the kohen gadol himself for his personal atonement, and two other animal sacrifices brought on behalf of the entire nation. The nation's offering consisted of two he-goats, one of which was slaughtered in general accordance with standard sacrificial procedures (though with several unique features), whereas the other was sent away into the wilderness, signifying the "banishment" of the nation's sins.

A detailed description of the ritual in the Second Temple is found in the Mishnah in the general description of the *avodah of the Day of Atonement: the high priest cast lots – upon one the word L-YHWH ("For the Lord") was written and upon the other La-ʿAzazel ("For Azazel"). Afterward he drew lots and on the head of the goat chosen for Azazel he bound a thread of crimson wool and stood the animal opposite the gate through which it would ultimately be taken (Yoma 4:1–2). After the high priest had performed several other rituals he returned to the goat, placed his hands on it and confessed: "O God, Thy people, the house of Israel, has sinned and transgressed before Thee…." He then handed the goat over to the person who was going to take it, called Iʾsh ʿItti (Lev. 16:21), i.e., the man who had been prepared for that time (et). Although any Jew was qualified to fulfill this function, the high priests did not allow non-priests to do it (Yoma 6:3). When the Iʾsh ʿItti reached the cliff, he pushed the goat over it backward and it hardly reached the halfway mark in its descent before it was completely dismembered (Yoma 6:2–6).

Another interesting religious connection has been made in the area of purification or elimination rituals. Ida Zatelli argues that two parallel texts found at Ebla, which, as part of a coronation ritual, mention the use of a goat that is sent to the wilderness to purify a mausoleum, connect to the biblical ritual of the goat that was sent to ’Azazel, which was incorporated into the temple ritual on yom hakkipurim. Zatelli argues that the Ebla ritual stands as a precursor in the Syro-Palestinian religious milieu to the biblical one, which may also include Hurro-Hittite aspects of sacrificial blood sprinkling. However, she takes pains to point out that she has “not the slightest intention to establish a preferential link between Ebla and the Bible. [She] think[s] one may simply say that certain cultural factors and certain traditions covered a wider area than many had thought.”[1]

Is the elaborate service described in our chapter designed to enable a man to enter into the awesome Presence of God in the place where this Presence is most palpable and most powerful, or is it rather designed to purge the holiest place on earth from defilement and iniquity (or, rather, defilement resulting from iniquity)? Both possibilities are rooted in the text, and indeed we may suggest that the different understandings suggested by the commentators stem from tension located within the verses. Aharon is told that he may not enter "any time" into the Holy of Holies, but the Torah continues by elaborating, not upon the time he may enter, but rather the procedure by means of which he may enter. Only at the end of a lengthy ritual passage does the Torah return to discuss when he may enter: "And this shall be for you an eternal statute - in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month you shall afflict your souls... For on this day he shall atone for you to purify you..." (16:29-30). But this identification of a special time of year for this procedure is mentioned only in the context of the "eternal statute" - does it apply to Aharon as well (Avraham Walfisch)

This shall be an eternal law for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must fast and not do any work … This is because on this day you shall have all your sins atoned [yechaper], so that you will be cleansed [le-taher]. Before God you will be cleansed of all your sins. (Lev. 16:29-30)

Two quite distinct processes were involved on Yom Kippur. First there was kapparah, atonement. This is the normal function of a sin offering. Second, there was teharah, purification, something normally done in a different context altogether, namely the removal of tumah, ritual defilement, which could arise from a number of different causes, among them contact with a dead body, skin disease, or nocturnal discharge. Atonement has to do with guilt. Purification has to do with contamination or pollution. These are usually[3] two separate worlds. On Yom Kippur they were brought together. Why?

We owe to anthropologists like Ruth Benedict[4] the distinction between shame cultures and guilt cultures.

Shame is a social phenomenon. It is what we feel when our wrongdoing is exposed to others. It may even be something we feel when we merely imagine other people knowing or seeing what we have done. Shame is the feeling of being found out, and our first instinct is to hide. That is what Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. They were ashamed of their nakedness and they hid.

Guilt is a personal phenomenon. It has nothing to do with what others might say if they knew what we have done, and everything to do with what we say to ourselves. Guilt is the voice of conscience, and it is inescapable. You may be able to avoid shame by hiding or not being found out, but you cannot avoid guilt. Guilt is self-knowledge.

There is another difference, which explains why Judaism is overwhelmingly a guilt rather than a shame culture. Shame attaches to the person. Guilt attaches to the act. It is almost impossible to remove shame once you have been publicly disgraced. It is like an indelible stain on your skin. Shakespeare has Lady Macbeth say, after her crime, “Will these hands ne’er be clean?” In shame cultures, wrongdoers tend either to go into exile, where no one knows their past, or to commit suicide. Playwrights have them die. (Jonathan Sacks)

Maimonides advances a symbolic approach to the se'ir ha-mishtalei'ach ritual. Clearly, the goat itself does not transport anybody's transgressions into the desert; the animal itself does not effect atonement, a power vested in only the Almighty. Rather, the image of a goat loaded with the "cargo" of the nation's sins and being driven into a wasteland conveys a critical message relevant to the theme of repentance, which of course lies at the heart of the Yom Kippur
experience. Maimonides writes:
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 men 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.
The goat's exile away from Jerusalem and into the uninhabited desert symbolizes the "banishment" of one's sins from his being.

In order to properly understand the significance of this message, compare this passage with Maimonides' description of teshuva (repentance) in his Code (Hilkhot Teshuva, 2:2): "What is repentance? It is that the sinner abandons his sin and removes it from his thought and resolves in his heart never to commit it again,...."Among the means of repentance is that the penitent constantly cries to God with tears and supplications, performs charity according to his ability, and distances himself greatly from the matter with regard to which he sinned." Teshuva thus entails much more than acknowledgment and verbal confession of guilt. It requires "abandoning" and "distancing" oneself from the act committed...... Herein, according to Maimonides, lies the critical message of the sa'ir ha-mishtalei'ach. This goat is not a "scapegoat" at all; this ceremony must not be mistaken for a mechanical guilt-transfer system. Quite to the contrary, it specifically expresses the grueling demands of the teshuva process and underscores the thorough internal transformation required of the penitent. If anything, the banishment of the goat impresses upon Benei Yisrael the need for comprehensive introspection and firm resolve to undergo a fundamental change of character. Not only must sins be never repeated; they must be driven as far away from one's mind as possible. (David Silverberg)

What is the significance of the simultaneous selection of two goats? This question becomes even more intriguing in light of the Mishnaic dictate (Yoma 6:1) that the goats chosen should be as similar as possible in stature, appearance and in cost.

Why are lots drawn to determine the fate of each goat? Why not simply designate without resorting to a ceremony of chance?

Are the sins of the people truly transferred to the “head of the goat,” as the text seems to indicate? Does the animal really become a scapegoat for our sins? Such an idea seems completely antithetical to Jewish Law and its prohibition of superstitious practice… To suggest that the Teshuva process can somehow be short-circuited through a magical act of transference of sins seems to fly in the face of all we believe. (Shmuel Goldin, Unlocking the Torah Text: Vayikra

AZAZEL (Heb. עֲזָאזֵל), name of the place or the "power" to which one of the goats in the Temple service of the Day of Atonement was sent. There is a great deal of confusion regarding the exact meaning of the word. The name appears in Leviticus (16:8–10): "And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat upon which the lot fell for the Lord, and offer him for a sin-offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell for Azazel, shall be set alive before the Lord, to make atonement over him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness."

The goat which was dispatched to Azazel was not a sacrifice since it was not slaughtered. From the actual verses themselves it is not even certain whether the goat was killed; thus it seems that the two goats can be compared to the two birds used in the purification ritual of the leper. Just as there one of the birds is set free to fly over the field (Lev. 14:4–7), so here too the goat of Azazel was sent into the wilderness. The goat was dispatched in order to carry the sins of Israel into the wilderness, i.e., to cleanse the people of their sins. This is also the reason why the ritual took place on the Day of Atonement. (Jewish Encyclopedia: Shmuel Ahituv contrib.)

In Babylonia, it was customary on the festival of Akītu (the New Year) to give a goat as a substitute for a human being (pūḫ) to Ereshkigal (the goddess of the abyss). In an Akkadian magical inscription from the city of Assur which deals with the cure for a man who is unable to eat and drink, it is prescribed that a goat should be tied to his bed and that thus the sickness will pass to the goat. On the following morning, the goat is to be taken to the desert and decapitated. Its flesh is then cooked and put in a pit together with honey and oil, perhaps as an offering to the demons. During plagues, the Hittites used to send a goat into enemy territory in order that it should carry the plague there. On the head of the goat they would bind a crown made of colored wool, comparable perhaps to the thread of crimson wool which was tied to the head of the goat in the Second Temple period (Yoma 4:2). In the Hellenistic world there were also "scapegoat" rituals, but they had the custom to take a man as "scapegoat" and not an animal. In some places these rituals were performed in times of trouble, in others at fixed appointed times of the year. Shmuel Ahituv Jewish Enc.

Another liturgical element unique to Yom Kippur is the recital of a detailed description of the high priest’’s temple service on that day. The high priest read the prescription for the service from the Torah as part of his service in the temple. However, prior to the amoraic period, we have no evidence that a detailed description of this ceremony, as performed in the Second Temple period, was part of the synagogue service. The evidence that such a custom existed in the times of the amora’’im is a halakhic discussion on the order of Yom Kippur service in the temple, the Bavli reports two cases in which prayer leaders recounted the details of Yom Kippur service as conducted in the temple in a particular order, and amora’’im who were present commented on this order (Yoma 36b; 56b).
This recounting of the temple service probably predated the earliest available evidence for its existence. This recounting may have taken place even when the temple existed among people who were not able to visually observe the day’’s temple service. However, Philo’’s description of the day’’s activities does not include it. Ismar Elbogen reckons that the original account of the temple service used for this purpose was based on tractate Yoma of the Mishnah. The implication of this is that the present custom must have begun some time after the redaction of the Mishnah. However, the description of the temple service in tractate Yoma is considered one of the earliest mishnahs, perhaps dating to before the destruction of the temple....

Nevertheless, we have evidence that already in the Second Temple period there were Jews who spent Yom Kippur in prayer. At the beginning of the 1st century CE, Philo, writing about Yom Kippur, informs us .“that every one is at this time occupied in prayers and supplications . . . . They all devote their entire leisure to nothing else from morning till evening, except to supplicatory prayers by which they endeavour to gain the favour of God, entreating pardon for their sins and hoping for his mercy.” (De specialibus legibus 2:196). Philo explains that this is one of the

reasons that the holiness of Yom Kippur exceeds that of the Sabbath, such that the Torah calls it .“Shabbat Shabbaton.” or .“day of complete rest.” (Lev 23:32; Philo, ibid., 2:194).

Rabbinic sources also characterize Yom Kippur as a day that the Jews spend inside their synagogues. Abba Saul, a mid-second-century tanna, testifed that people would remain awake all night, in commemoration of the practice of the high priest and his entourage in the temple (b. Yoma 19b;

(Joseph Tabory the history of the liturgy of yom kippur)