The “[e]Scape” Goat

Yom Kip­pur ⁵⁷⁵⁵⁄₁₉₉₄

The young man stood watching the event with both anticipation and dread.

The past year had not been unusu­al. He had done what he could and he knew he had done well in many of his tasks, yet he also knew he had failed at oth­ers. The knowl­edge of his fail­ures weighed on him. He lugged them around with him con­tin­u­ous­ly as though they were piles of garbage on his shoul­ders; bag­gage that he car­ried with him from day to day. His friends and neigh­bors also felt their own weight. The feel­ing came not just from the heav­i­ness of the late sum­mer’s heat; but the increas­ing slug­gish­ness and slow­ness that it brought on. In fact, the city, too, seemed to have accu­mu­lat­ed its share of refuse. More road kill was vis­i­ble at this time of year; as though the tiny ani­mals were crushed under the weight of their own bur­dens. The busy activ­i­ties of the long sum­mer days seemed not to have left time for straight­en­ing up and putting away. Too much lay around and there was no col­lec­tion com­pa­ny to come cart the stuff away. To where would they take it? To the edge of the city, out­side the walls? Dump it in the ravine of the Hin­nom val­ley? Or cart it off far into the wilder­ness? Any­where they took it, it would still exist. There it would be. It would­n’t just disappear.

Now, in the cool of the morn­ing, braced by the crisp clear air of the moun­tain, the priest stood in the holy tem­ple ready to remove the emo­tion­al refuse that bur­dened his peo­ple. As all the peo­ple gath­ered watch­ing, the Levites brought for­ward a bull and two young goats. There stood the priest in his spe­cial clothes almost glow­ing like the sky that sur­round­ed him as he drew from a box two pieces of pot­tery and placed one beside each goat. One was marked: for Adon­ai. The oth­er: for Azazel.

The priest lay his hands on the bull and loudly proclaimed a list of errors that he and his family had made.

All knew that even a priest is a man and all have their weak­ness­es and flaws. As he stat­ed his mis­takes for all to know, his grandeur grew in the sight of the peo­ple, as though the weight lift­ed from his shoul­ders allowed him to stand taller among the peo­ple. The poor bull stood bound, unknow­ing, receiv­ing the sounds of the priest’s voice and the sweat of the priest’s hands. The sound and atten­tion, the ropes and sweat bur­dened and cowed him into a new sub­mis­sion so that when the priest slaugh­tered him there was lit­tle response. It was almost as though the bull was already dead from the weight of the wrongs laid upon him and the knife final­ly offered release. The priest then took sweet incense and poured it into a gold pan with glow­ing coals behind the cur­tain of the Holy of Holies. A dense col­umn of smoke filled the area and rose above the space fill­ing the entire tem­ple court­yard with a pun­gent aro­ma as he sprin­kled some of the bul­l’s blood behind the curtain. 

The priest then took the goat des­ig­nat­ed for Adon­ai and repeat­ed the process, only this time he pro­claimed all that had occurred among the peo­ple that year. As the gath­er­ing heard each event they shud­dered a gasp of recog­ni­tion and release that the deed they had so long tried to hide was now brought into the open. The priest knew the insults suf­fered by the peo­ple who lived near the wall and the scan­dals caused by their lead­ers. He knew the lit­tle annoy­ances and the major pains. At the announce­ment of each one, the peo­ple felt a moment of embar­rass­ment at the aware­ness of anoth­er’s per­son­al gaffe or loss. But then, as they rec­og­nized the basic human sim­i­lar­i­ty of each one’s acts, a grow­ing sense of relief and ease per­vad­ed the court­yard of the tem­ple. Only the lit­tle goat got heav­ier. Final­ly, with the litany com­plete, the priest slaugh­tered the goat and took also from its blood to sprin­kle around the holy objects in the Tem­ple precinct.

A sigh of relief joined the ris­ing cloud of incense smoke as the peo­ple’s wor­ries and con­cerns over the past years’ wrongs rose with it.

Only the young man’s burden grew greater.

For he had been des­ig­nat­ed to car­ry the sec­ond goat out to the wilder­ness. Each year a young man had the respon­si­bil­i­ty. The task required emo­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty and phys­i­cal strength.

The priest once again laid his hands on the goat and again he repeat­ed all the hurts and pains felt and caused by him­self and his peo­ple. This time, the goat was not bound but was held in the arms of one of the Levites as the des­ig­nat­ed young man stood near­by humbly aware of the respon­si­bil­i­ty entrust­ed to him.

The peo­ple had come from the wilder­ness with goats. The goats also orig­i­nal­ly came from the wilder­ness and the peo­ple’s ances­tors had learned to tame them and gain from them a liveli­hood. The peo­ple owed much to the small ani­mal: cloth­ing from its wool, milk, and cheese, and even (on spe­cial occa­sions) meat to eat. The ani­mal had giv­en them much and the peo­ple were aware of how much they had tak­en from the ani­mal. Once each year, in appre­ci­a­tion and recog­ni­tion for all the gifts, aware of all the wrongs they had done to each oth­er and the earth upon which they lived, they released one of the small ani­mals that gave them their liveli­hood back to the world from which it came.

The young man had the task of ensuring the success of the venture.

By the time the priest had fin­ished with his sec­ond recita­tion of all the wrongs of the pre­ced­ing year, the heat of the day had begun. The young man, bare­foot and hun­gry received the goat and start­ed on his way to the north­east of the city that rest­ed on the moun­tain. Wilder­ness lay all over the east, but the south­ern area was sig­nif­i­cant­ly dri­er, espe­cial­ly at the end of sum­mer. He had at oth­er times borne his own goats, small year­lings such as this, that had strayed from the flock. At those times the small body around his shoul­ders would rest exhaust­ed from the adven­ture of being lost then now found. Now, this ani­mal almost strug­gled in agi­ta­tion from the events of the morn­ing and added an addi­tion­al strain to the heat­ed rocks that made lit­tle path along the young man’s way.

The peo­ple had no guar­an­tee that, once returned to the wild a domes­ti­cat­ed ani­mal would find a flock with which to live. The best they could do was take this goat that, by chance, rep­re­sent­ed all the sor­rows of the wrongs they had done and give it the best chance they could. The young man walked toward one of the canyons that cut into the moun­tain’s east slope. Some of these held hid­den springs that served as year-round water­ing spots for the ani­mals that called the wilder­ness home.

Though he had start­ed out in the heat of the day, the fact that he walked down the east­ern slope of the moun­tain made his task a bit eas­i­er as he soon walked in shad­ow. The sea­son had begun to change and large gray clouds that promised rain and a new begin­ning for the life of the area start­ed to col­lect behind his back. He descend­ed into an open­ing that would become a canyon. The longest days had passed the shad­ows would soon turn to dark­ness. The squirm­ing goat on his back, his hunger, and the cut­ting of the rocks on the soles of his feet kept the pains he had expe­ri­enced and caused dur­ing the past year fresh in his mind. At one point a scor­pi­on scam­pered near­by and drew his atten­tion away from the task of his hike, he lost his bal­ance and near­ly fell.

As dusk approached he heard the sounds of the other animals who shared this canyon.

The jack­als howled in the dis­tance, but he could also hear near­by the move­ment of oth­er ani­mals, per­haps a large cat. The moon’s face had begun to fill out as though ready to reveal more to the young man than it had when the year had begun only ten days before. He searched for a cave in which to rest safe­ly for the night before releas­ing his charge the fol­low­ing morn­ing. Exhaust­ed by the hike, the hunger, and the strange­ness of the day, the two of them fell asleep almost imme­di­ate­ly. It was still ear­ly in the evening and a spi­der quick­ly sealed off the open­ing with her web. The new strange odors in the area brought a lion to explore in addi­tion to oth­er res­i­dents of the canyon, but the web kept them out and the young man lay unaware through the night.

While the clouds of the pre­vi­ous night brought no rain, their blan­ket did ease the chill of the night. When he awoke, the young man was star­tled to see a new door to his cave. The morn­ing dew­drops glis­tened as the sun shone through the web while the spi­der broke its fast on a large fly that had tried to get into the com­fort of the cave. As he squeezed him­self and the goat out of the cave under­neath the web he got stuck in a few strands and won­dered: Only the mak­er of this web does not stick to it. How dif­fer­ent we are. The webs we weave most often trap only ourselves.

The goat, by now accus­tomed to the young man’s pres­ence in the even more strange envi­ron­ment, hov­ered near him as he let it go. The young man was hun­gry and filthy from the pre­vi­ous day’s sweat and the sleep in the cave, yet, as the goat explored its new sur­round­ings he felt cleansed. An ease of heart and a light­ness of mind did not derive only from the lack of food. His fast had for­mal­ly end­ed the pre­vi­ous evening, but he had no food with him and would not eat till he returned home.

The young man start­ed his climb with the sun, once again, at his back. But unlike the day before, this time, the moun­tain did not shade him. Nonethe­less, the release of the goat had lift­ed the weight from him and his ascent seemed almost a float on the updrafts that rose from the desert far below.

The cycle of a new day had begun, as had that of the new year.

The peo­ple had recy­cled the gift of their boun­ty and at the same time found a way to send their accu­mu­lat­ed bur­dens of guilt off to a fill in the wilderness.

All was ready to begin anew.