Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin:
Hi friends, and welcome back to Talmud Daily, our 40-week tour of the entire Talmud.
And this week, we are discussing Tractate Yoma, and I want to get and focus on the deeper meaning, specifically of the avodah, of the service of the Kohen Gadol. Now, one of the kind of stranger things that happened during the service of the Kohen Gadol is the ritual that surrounds the scapegoat, what is known as the se’ir la’azazel: a goat that, quite literally, what seems to be, sacrifices to like a foreign god, like that we would push it over a cliff, and we wouldn’t give it a normal sacrifice. So let’s take a step back and talk about the role that this specifically plays in the avodah of the Kohen Gadol, the service of the high priest on Yom Kippur.
Now, as I mentioned, in Acharei Mos, right after the death of Aharon’s two children, Aharon is given the ritual of how he can then enter into the Holy of Holies. A part of this ritual that is written in Acharei Mos is that we were going to bring two goats that are nearly identical. We want goats that look exactly alike: same color, same size, same age. They want to be really identical, and we take a lottery, literally a lottery, and we pick one.
One we pick up and say, “la-Hashem, this is going to God, and it’s going to be sacrificed, and its blood is going to be sprinkled in the inner sanctum.” And the other one—and this is really wild. This is a figure that most people don’t even know existed. A figure known as the ish iti, iti spelled ayin, tav, yud, which literally means time. It was like the man of time. This was not a kohen, certainly not a Kohen Gadol. This was a regular person whose their job was to bring the scapegoat, the one that was going to be pushed off a cliff, and bring it through all the way outside of the city of Jerusalem, all the way outside of the Temple, and literally bring it to that cliff and push it off.
And this was a person where the Talmud has jaw-dropping descriptions. It was almost like the parallel, the bizarro-world Kohen Gadol, where the Kohen Gadol is secluded and wears all white and is totally immersed and focused on this service the entire day of Yom Kippur. The ish iti, this person who brings the goat, doesn’t have to be a kohen, is even allowed—and we talk about—to break his fast just to get the goat there. Hopefully he doesn’t have to do it. But this was a person who they set up little stations where like, “If you can’t get to this cliff, here’s a drink of water, like we need you to do this.”And this also is taking place on Yom Kippur.
And this is such a strange idea, which gave birth to the actual word that we have in the English language called a scapegoat. A scapegoat comes from the se’ir la’azazel, the goat that they would push off this cliff for Azazel, which is like this hellish, dark person or place. I don’t want to get into too many details right now, but you can look up all of this in Parshas Acharei Mos.
Now, what is the symbolism of what is happening on this day? So this is really quite amazing. According to Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, the symbolism is really trying to impress upon us how thin the difference is between a good decision and a bad decision. It’s trying to give us a focus on the minutiae. These two goats look exactly alike, but one winds up in the Holy of Holies, and one winds up pushed off a cliff. This is how thin the margin is between a good decision and what ultimately can turn out to be a terrible decision that then requires teshuva and forgiveness and atonement. That is according to Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch.
I actually think it is a very different approach. It is almost the inverse. And this is the approach of Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin, the great Chassidic thinker who lived from 1823 to 1900. And Rav Tzadok writes this in his work Tzidkas HaTzaddik, which was his first work of Chasidus, you know, each paragraph is numbered, in paragraph number 40.
But to really understand Rav Tzadok’s approach not only to the se’ir la’azazel, but to Yom Kippur as a whole, I want to introduce one other factor, and that is the Talmud in Tractate Yoma on page 39b says that the Kohen Gadol during this service would utter the actual name of God ten times but would actually pronounce the name. There’s something very unusual in Judaism that is worth surfacing, and that is the Talmud in Pesachim on page 50a, I believe, says something really, really crucial, specifically for the day of Yom Kippur. And that is, if you ever look and you ever notice in a siddur, the name of God is written with the letters yud, then hei, then vav, and then hei. We never, ever pronounce this name, except on Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol would say this ten times throughout the service.
When we come across the Tetragrammaton, as it’s known, the name of God spelled with the letters yud, then hei, then vav, and then hei, we don’t even spell out the letters. That’s why I’m, I’m, I’m kind of putting in words. I don’t even want to say those letters straight. We are so careful about not saying this name.
This is the ultimate name of God. The Talmud says, instead of pronouncing this name, what we do is we can write that name, but the way that we pronounce it generally is the name Adonai, which means my Master. We don’t actually speak out the Tetragrammaton, except on Yom Kippur, the Kohen Gadol would say this ten times and the Jewish people would all listen and respond, baruch shem kevod malchuso le’olam va’ed, blessed is the name of God and His kingdom forever and ever.
Why is this such a central part of the Yom Kippur service? And this really gets to the heart of what teshuva is all about. The name of God, the Tetragrammaton, is literally a combination of words of hayah, hoveh, veyihyeh: past, present, and future. The day of Yom Kippur is the one day where we really try to embody where past, present, and future are all collapsing. We almost skip to the end of the story, where everything is going to work out in our lives, in the world, in existence itself. We start actually saying the name of God. Not just reading it and seeing itbut speaking it out.
There’s a difference. This is a central distinction in all of the Talmud that we’ve discussed before:the difference between writing and speaking. Writing is prophetic. Writing is what is static, is what remains, is what we don’t change. That’s the way that we think about the words of the Torah, the five books of the Torah, right? That’s what we call Torah Shebichtav, the Written Torah. But what we really experience, what we really understand, that’s what’s spoken. That’s what we’re able to articulate. That’s what we’re able to truly express.
It’s only on Yom Kippur that we can fully express the name of God, both past, present, and future, because this is what teshuvadoes. Teshuva says, look, you’ve made terrible mistakes in your past. You’ve experienced things that are unholy. You’ve experienced things that have been painful and has been suffering. But imagine for one day if we skip to the end of the story. If we carry ourselves as if God has already revealed Himself. This is what we do on Yom Kippur. We skip to the end, where past, present, and future all converge and the Kohen Gadol is able to not just read and see the name of God that we do every day, but actually express it, where the world comes to its final purpose. And this is what we do on Yom Kippur.
And the way that we do this is literally we look at our past and we say, “That’s a part of our story, also.” Anybody who has reckoned with healing in their life knows that part of healing is your relationship with your parents, your relationship with your employer, your relationship with your friends. If you can get to a place of love, if you can get to a place of goodness, then all of the difficulties that got you there are actually worth it. If you could love your present, then all the roads that took you to get there actually make it worth it.
This is the concept of teshuva, where past, present, and future all collapse and we say, “Where I stand right now, for this day, in this moment, I can pretend that it is that future where everything is ultimately resolved.” Where even my mistakes, the transgressions in my life, become a part of that journey that get me to this moment. And that’s the concept of teshuva, where even our transgressions, through a joyous, loving teshuva, are actually able to be transformed into merits, because that’s the collapsing of past, present, and future. This is what teshuva does, and this is why the Kohen Gadol was actually able to articulate the name of God that we normally just look at but never express. Wewere able to fully express it on Yom Kippur in the Temple.
I want to end with one story that I think encapsulates the entirety of what teshuva is about. What Yom Kippur is about nowadays, and this is a story that appears on page 39b, the same page where it says that the Kohen Gadol says the name of God ten times. And it is a haunting story about one of the final Kohanim Gedolim, one of the final High Priests who served in the Temple, and what he experienced. And that is Shimon HaTzaddik, the great Kohen Gadol known as Shimon, who came right before the era of the Tannaim, meaning the writers of the Mishnah.
And this is what the Talmud says. Tanu rabbanan, our rabbis taught: Osa shana shemeis bah Shimon HaTzaddik, the year that Shimon HaTzaddik died, amar lahem, Shimon HaTzaddik gathered around his students and he said, bashana zu hu meis, I’m going to die this year. Amru lo, his students were shocked, Minayin ata yodei’a? How do you know this? How do you know you’re going to die this year? Listen to what he says. It is miraculous. It is marvelous, and incredibly profound.
Amar lahem, bechol Yom HaKippurim, every year on Yom Kippur, haya mizdamein li zakein echad, I would go into the Holy of Holies and I would see something. I would see a vision. What would I see? I would see a man, lavush levanim ve’otof levanim, wearing all white and really cloaked in white. Nichnas imi veyatza imi, this old man, this elderly person would come into the Kodesh HaKodashim, the Holy of Holies with me, and would leave with me.
Vehayom, and today, when I was performing this service, nizdamen li zaken echad, I went and saw this elderly man, but lavush shechorim va’atuf shechorim, [he] was wearing dark mourning shrouds, black mourning shrouds. Nichnas imi, this elderly person came in with me, velo yatza imi, [and he] did not come out with me. Achar hahergel, chala shivah yamim vameis. Achar haregel, after the holidays, Shimon got sick for seven days and he actually died.
And the question is, who is this elderly man that he’s seeing in the Holy of Holies? I mean, was there no security in the Temple? Who is this that he is seeing? There is a beautiful, gorgeous idea from Rabbi Soloveitchik. I’m begging you, stay with me and listen to this. Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote, this is something that he wrote in HaPardes in the 1940s. He wrote an incredible idea. Do you know who this elderly person that Shimon HaTzaddik would see every year on the holiest day of the year, in the holiest place in the world, by the holiest person, the High Priest? Who was this elderly person that he was seeing? It was the vision of saba kadisha, the embodiment of how he viewed the collective body of the Jewish people.
How did Shimon HaTzaddik look at the Jewish people? And he said, “Every year, in the Holy of Holies, I would go into the Kodesh HaKodashim, and you know how I would look at the Jewish people? Cloaked in white, positively, joyously. I would look at the Jewish people with purity, with optimism, with joy. But this year, I’m getting older, and you know how I looked at the Jewish people? They were dressed in all black. The way that Shimon HaTzaddik realized that he was going to die is he no longer was able to see the Jewish people positively, with optimism. Instead, he saw them negatively, cynically, darkly, with mourning, with it’s already the end.
And you know what emerges from this story? Do you know what we’re really trying to do on Yom Kippur? It’s not just our own personal individual service. The purpose of Yom Kippur is really how we view ourselves among the Jewish people, which is ultimately, how do we look at the Jewish people? And Yom Kippur is one day of the year where we try to look at the Jewish people themselves as dressed in all white. It is the ultimate merit on Yom Kippur to bind yourself among the Jewish people.
This is why there is a custom that we ask mechilah, we ask forgiveness before Yom Kippur. Why are we doing this? Because we’re trying to make the entirety, the body, the collective body of the Jewish people whole again. So we have to remove all of the divisiveness, all of the divisions. So we go around and say, “Do you forgive me? I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.” That’s not because if I bump into somebody’s car in November, I don’t wait till the following year on Yom Kippur. You got to pay them back and ask forgiveness right away. There’s a special forgiveness on Yom Kippur, where we’re actually trying to make sure that the collective body of the Jewish people is cloaked in white.hat we’re able to see ourselves within the Jewish people as cloaked and dressed in white, with optimism, with positivity, and with joy.
And this, explains Rav Tzadok, is actually the deeper understanding of this se’ir laHashem and the se’ir la’azazel. Why do we take two goats that look identical? One we bring into and sacrifice, literally sprinkle its blood in the Holy of Holies. And the other goat we literally push off a cliff, that scapegoat? And the idea, Rav Tzadok says, is actually the inverse, or the opposite almost in many ways, of Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch. It’s not about showing how thin the margins are between good decisions and bad decisions. It’s actually saying, even my bad decisions, even my se’ir la’azazel, even the scapegoat, even the disappointments, even the mistakes, even the errors, that’s also a part of this journey and this service.
So to speak, the se’ir la’azazel that we push off the cliff, this scapegoat, that’s actually also a korban, that’s also a sacrifice. And what we’re doing is saying, “Both my failures and my merits are a part of my story on Yom Kippur.” That a true, holistic teshuva is where we take the entirety of ourselves, not just the good parts, even the difficult parts, and we say, “My teshuva, the highest level of teshuva, even the darker parts of my life, that’s also a part of bringing me closer to God in this moment.” And this is at the heart of Yom Kippur. Not just individually, but how we bind ourselves collectively, and how we view the Jewish people. And this is going to be at the heart of Tractate Yoma.
So I’m so excited to share more, and let’s together keep making Torah sweet.