PARSHAT AHAREI MOT      THE SCAPEGOAT  

       It is strange thinking about Yom Kippur a few days before Passover.  The festivals are six months apart and seem to have little in common.  The only thing they share is the words "Next Year in Jerusalem" at the end of the Passover Seder and the Yom Kippur Neilah service.  But this week's portion begins with the rituals of Yom Kippur in the ancient Temple.  Perhaps in reading about this, we can find some common ground.
       The central moment of the Yom Kippur ritual was the choosing of a goat to carry away the sins of the people.  The High Priest would designate the goat, lay his hands on the goat's head and symbolically transfer the sins of the Israelites, and send the goat out to Azazel, often translated "the wilderness" but sometimes referring to hell itself.  The theme was vicarious atonement, carrying away the sins of others.  The English term "scapegoat" comes from this bizarre and ancient ritual.  Today we no longer enact this ritual, but we relive it in our liturgy Yom Kippur afternoon.
       Christianity has embraced the idea behind this ritual.  To Christians, the only way to be cleansed from sin is through the sacrifice of someone pure.  Of course, in the eyes of my Christian friends, Jesus became the scapegoat.  Without his sacrifice on the cross, we cannot find atonement in God's eyes.  On a fairly regular basis a Christian has come by to try to convince me of the error of my ways and bring me to Jesus.  (It happened yesterday.)  They are not doing it out of hatred of me or of Judaism; quite the contrary, they claim they are doing it because they are worried about me.  In their eyes, without such vicarious atonement, I cannot return to God's good graces.
       I recently conducted a workshop for Passover at a home health care agency.  Each year I train these mostly Christian women working with elderly Jewish patients how to handle the Passover holiday.  (I also do a similar workshop before the High Holidays.)  One woman very sweetly asked me, "Why don't you accept Jesus.  After all, Jesus taught `No one comes to the father except through me'(New Testament - John 14:6)."   I answered, "Many of you are parents.  Can you imagine a situation where your child does something so sinful that you would cut yourself off from him or her?   I cannot imagine that.  And I do not believe that God would ever cut Himself off from God's children."  Another woman wearing a huge cross shouted out, "You are right, rabbi."  I felt like I was in a black church.
       With all respect to my Christian friends, Judaism goes in a different direction.   We believe that God always welcomes God's children back when they have strayed.  We believe in teshuva - literally "return", returning to the proper path.  There is a Hasidic story of a king who becomes angry with his son and sends him to live in a village far away.  After some time, he hears that his son is trying to come back home.  The king tells his servants, "Pack up my things.  I need to meet my son halfway."  The meaning of the parable is clear.
       That brings me to Passover.  The mystical interpretation of Passover is that the exodus from Egypt happens at all times.  Egypt (Mitzrayim - "the narrow place") is a place we are stuck, doing the wrong thing.  Going out from Egypt means changing our ways and becoming at one with God once again.  And just as God helped the Israelites in ancient Egypt, so God helps us return to the proper life.
       There was a time in our history when we needed a scapegoat to bring about atonement.  Since ancient times, the ritual of the scapegoat has become simply a memory to be reenacted on Yom Kippur.  Today God waits for our return.  Both Passover and Yom Kippur are Jewish festivals that emphasize such a return to God.