The strangest and most dramatic element of the service on Yom Kippur, set out in Acharei Mot (Lev. 16:7-22), was the ritual of the two goats, one offered as a sacrifice, the other sent away into the desert “to Azazel.” They were, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from one another. They were brought before the High Priest and lots were drawn, one bearing the words “to the L-rd,” the other, “to Azazel.” The one on which the lot “To the L-rd” fell was offered as a sacrifice. Over the other, the High Priest confessed the sins of the nation, and it was then taken away into the desert hills outside Jerusalem where it plunged to its death. Tradition tells us that a red thread would be attached to its horns, half of which was removed before the animal was sent away. If the rite had been effective, the red thread would turn to white.
What was the ritual actually about? Sin and guilt offerings were a normal part of the service of the Temple. The service of Yom Kippur was different in that in every other case, the sin was confessed over the animal that was sacrificed. On Yom Kippur, the High Priest confessed the sins of the people over the animal that was not sacrificed, the scapegoat that was sent away, “carrying on it all their iniquities” (Lev. 16:21-22).
Among several interpretations of the meaning of this puzzling rite, the simplest and most compelling answer was given by Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed:
“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 symbolic 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.”
Expiation demands a ritual. Yet Maimonides does not explain why Yom Kippur demanded a rite not used on other days when sin or guilt offerings were brought. Why one goat (“To the L-rd), which was offered as a sin offering (Lev. 16:9), not sufficient?
The answer lies in the dual character of the day. The Torah states: “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 G-d you will be cleansed of all your sins (Lev. 16:29-30).
Two distinct processes were involved on Yom Kippur. First, atonement (kapparah). This is the normal function of a sin offering. Second, purification (taharah), something normally done in a different context – the removal of ritual defilement (tumah). This could arise from various causes, including 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[2] two separate worlds. On Yom Kippur they were brought together. Why?
Anthropologists discuss the distinction between shame cultures and guilt cultures. Shame is a social phenomenon. It 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 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.
Shame attaches to the person. Guilt attaches to the act. It is almost impossible to remove shame once you have been publicly disgraced. In shame cultures, wrongdoers tend either to go into hiding or into exile, where no one knows their past, or to commit suicide. Playwrights in these cultures have such characters die, for there is no possible redemption.
Guilt makes a clear distinction between the act and the person who does wrong. The act was wrong, but the agent remains, in principle, intact. That is why guilt can be removed, “atoned for,” by confession, remorse, and restitution. “Hate not the sinner but the sin,” is the basic axiom of a guilt culture.
Normally, sin and guilt offerings, as their names imply, are about guilt. They atone. But Yom Kippur deals not only with our sins as individuals. It also confronts our sins as a community bound by mutual responsibility – with social as well as personal wrongdoing. Yom Kippur is about shame as well as guilt. Hence there has to be purification as well as atonement.
The psychology of shame is quite different from that of guilt. We can discharge guilt by achieving forgiveness, and forgiveness can only be granted by the object of our wrongdoing, which is why Yom Kippur only atones for sins against G-d.
Shame cannot be removed by forgiveness. The victim of our crime may have forgiven us, but we still feel defiled by the knowledge that our name has been disgraced, our reputation harmed, our standing damaged. We still feel the stigma. That is why an immensely powerful and dramatic ceremony had to take place during which people could feel and symbolically see their sins carried away to the desert, to no-man’s-land. A similar ceremony took place when a leper was cleansed. The Priest took two birds, killed one, and released the other to fly away across the open fields (Lev. 14:4-7). Again, the act was one of cleansing, not atoning, and had to do with shame, not guilt.
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.
