Every year on Yom Kippur, our holiest of days, we read about a ritual that was done on this day in the Mishkan and Beit Mikdash: the seir leAzazel, the goat for “Azazel.” This practice, which involves a goat sent to the wilderness in addition to one that is sacrificed, is utterly distant from our modern world. While the whole system of sacrifices might seem foreign to our modern sensibilities, this one involves something extra dark and mysterious—sending an animal off to oblivion without even sacrificing it. The text also uses a strange phrase, “to Azazel,” whose meaning is unknown.

I have found one piece of this ritual particularly puzzling, which is highlighted in the following verses:

Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the Israelites, whatever their sins, putting them on the head of the goat; and it shall be sent off to the wilderness through a designated agent. Thus the goat shall carry on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness (Vayikra 16:21-22).

As we see here, the verse suggests that the goat is carrying our sins off with it. Could it really be that easy? Do we just need to name our sins and place them on a goat, and all is forgiven? Is it like confession?

To understand this idea, Ramban offers a long explanation of this ritual, filled with mystical meaning and extrapolations of what he calls “secrets.” Ramban explains that the word Azazel means essentially a power of evil. He writes:

Now this is the secret of the matter. They used to worship “other gods,” namely, the angels, bringing offerings of a sweet savor to them…Now the Torah has absolutely forbidden to accept them as deities, or to worship them in any manner. However, the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us that on the Day of Atonement we should let loose a goat in the wilderness, to that “prince” [power] which rules over wastelands, and this [goat] is fitting for it because he is its master, and destruction and waste emanate from that power, which in turn is the cause of the stars of the sword, wars, quarrels, wounds, plagues, division and destruction (Ramban on Vayikra 16:8).

Ramban claims that the angels would worship “other gods” even though the Torah forbids this. But on Yom Kippur, God commanded us to let loose a goat and give it over to the power that resides over destruction in the world, which seems to suggest that we too are acknowledging other powers. It is as if we are giving a sacrifice (the goat) to what we believe is the power behind destruction. 

This commentary by Ramban is hard to understand at face value. It seems to indicate that there is some power of evil in the world and that we are “feeding” it on this day. Are we giving some validity to this power—a power that seems to be outside of the Divine—on our holiest of days?

Ramban then goes on to clarify:

Now the intention in our sending away the goat to the desert was not that it should be an offering from us to it (the power of Evil)—Heaven forbid! Rather, our intention should be to fulfill the wish of our Creator, Who commanded us to do so.

He offers a parable to help us understand this idea: 

This may be compared to the case of someone who makes a feast for his master, and the master commands the person making the feast, “Give one portion to that servant of mine,” in which case the host gives nothing [of his own] to that servant, and it is not to show him honor that he acts in that way to him, but everything is given to the master and it is the master that gives a gift to his servant; the host only observes his command and does in honor of the master whatever he commanded him to do. The master, however, out of his own compassion for the host, wanted all his servants to derive some enjoyment from it [the feast], in order that they may all speak of his [the host’s] praise and not of his shortcomings

The parable is explaining that the power of evil is also a servant of God and on this day out of his compassion God gives it some gifts and commands us to do so. This implies that there is some power of evil, that God is, of course, master of, but is its own separate entity.

This idea is one that is hard to relate to with a rationalist’s mind, as mystical powers are not usually part of our vernacular. Ramban is saying that there is something beyond human understanding behind this ritual. We are sending a message that validates the evil powers in the world but also seeks to appease or quiet them. Which begs the question: why are we doing this on Yom Kippur when we are supposed to be distancing ourselves from sin?

To try to answer this question, I turned to the Rambam for a more rationalist approach. In his Guide for the Perplexed he writes about this practice and addresses the question, how can we just give our sins away to a goat? He 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 (Guide for the Perplexed, Part 3, 46:20).

Rambam explains these actions that we take on Yom Kippur are symbolic, meant to evoke something in us. When we put our sins on the back of this goat and watch it walk away, we can feel moved to leave our evil ways and free ourselves to become another self. We are not feeding an external power, but instead, releasing the sins within ourselves. Essentially, this helps us let go of our evil ways in the most powerfully evocative way.

The Rambam’s explanation evokes the modern custom of tashlich, where we literally throw our sins away into the water. It is obvious to the Rambam, who wrote a comprehensive explanation of Hilchot Teshuva in the Mishneh Torah, that this can not come in place of the real hard work of teshuva. Instead, the ritual is the inspiration for that work.

Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch also sees the goat as a symbol meant to evoke something, but he places an emphasis on each of the two goats mentioned in the text as each representing a different side of us humans, and a choice we have. He writes in his commentary on the Torah:

Each one of us is one of the goats. Each one of us has the power to resist, the ability to firmly oppose any demands made on our will. The moral worth of our life depends on the way in which we use this power. We can use it in service of God, we can become a seir l’Hashem, a goat for God…Or we can become a se’ir l’Azazel, a goat for an alien power. We can use this power of resistance in obstinate refusal to obey the voice of God…We can surrender ourselves, without a fight, to sensuality and its allurements—even though the whole reason God gave us the power of resistance is to combat sensual temptations (Hirsch on Vayikra 16:10).

Rav Hirsch is saying that the two goats represent a choice between two ways of living. One is a path of hedonism that leads to nothingness and the other is a choice to be Godly and overcome all the impulses that pull us away from God. As he puts it, “We are faced with the decision between God and ‘Azazel.’ We stand at the Sanctuary entrance, to choose between God and the power of our senses. Inside the Holy of Holies rests the Torah as the holiest of holies. With our eyes on the Torah, we make our decision.”

Many rationalists may connect with both the Rambam’s and Rav Hirsch’s explanation of the goat for Azazel as a symbol. However, I think the mystical approach brought by the Ramban lends itself to a deep and poignant aspect of Yom Kippur. On Yom Kippur we atone for our sins and pray for life; we wear white and we act like angels. Yet the inclusion of this ritual gives a nod to another side of humanity, the destructive side, that which wages war, that which gives into base temptations. This ritual, according to this explanation of the Ramban, “feeds” that dark side of humanity or appeases it in some way. This offers an insight into how we as humans need to reckon with ourselves and our world. In order to truly do teshuva, we need to acknowledge the darker sides in us and the darkest sides of humanity; we can’t ignore these nor look away. On this day we acknowledge them, we even pay some homage to them, but we choose another path; we choose to let those sides of us wander away so we can turn again to God and the Godliness within.