Rabbi Howard Morrison

The first Yom Kippur service is recounted in today's Torah reading. It did not have a Cantor. It did not have a Rabbi. It did not have a large prayerbook called a Machzor. It did not have services running almost twenty-four hours. Rather, on the holiest day of the year, the Kohen Gadol, High Priest, gathered two goats. One was called "Seir L'Chatat - the goat for the sin offering." It was offered right away as a sin offering to atone for the sins of the people. The other was called "Seir La'Azazel," whatever that means.

The word Azazel appears only once in Scripture, and in this context. There are various explanations. One interpretation suggests that the second goat was sent away to a faraway place where the goat met its death. Symbolically, the sins of the Jewish people were sent away to a faraway place and died there, never to come back. Thus, our people began a new year on a clean slate, as is the case for us thousands of years later, but in a different form.

Another explanation takes the word Azazel and breaks it into two parts: Azaz, rugged, and El, strong. This referred to the rugged and rough mountain cliff from which the goat was cast down. The usage of two goats teaches two contrasting paths one can take in life - one leading to separation and destruction from the Azazel; and one leading to atonement and reconciliation, the sin offering. The choice is ours. 

A third explanation takes the word Azazel and breaks it into two parts but differently: Ez, meaning goat, and Azal, means sent away - literally meaning, the goat that was sent away. This interpretation led to a new word introduced to the English language in 1530 by William Tyndale, who produced the first English translation of the Hebrew Bible, an act then illegal, and for which he paid with his life. He called the Azazel in English, "the escape goat," meaning the goat that was sent away and released. In the course of time, the first letter was dropped, and the word "scapegoat" was born.

The original ritual of the escape goat, or scapegoat, was symbolic. At the end of the day, no one or no thing can take our sins and mistakes away from us. We are responsible to our behaviors, making the proper amends, repenting, asking for forgiveness, and achieving reconciliation, with God and with our fellow human beings. However, over time, the English word scapegoat took on its own meaning - "A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency."

How often are innocent children scapegoated by bullies or others so that the truly guilty ones can blame others for their problems and get off the hook?

Over the course of Jewish history, no people have been scapegoated like the Jewish people. Pharaoh scapegoated the Hebrews for the challenges in Biblical Egypt. Haman scapegoated the Jews for the challenges in Persia during the time of Esther and Mordecai. The list goes on - the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, early Christians, and others scapegoated the Jews in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

In the twentieth century, Hitler and the Nazis, Yimach Shmam, scapegoated the Jews for the ills facing European society, resulting in the largest single loss of our people in a short time, six million Jews.

Were we naive to think that we would never be scapegoated again?

Notwithstanding acts of anti-Semitism in post-World War II in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere, were we naive to think that we would never again be scapegoated in large numbers?

After October 7 two years ago, were we naive in thinking that the world would sympathize with us after the horrors which took place on that day?

I believe that we are being scapegoated these days in the worst ways since the end of the Shoah.

Two years after October 7, with minor exception, the world is scapegoating the Jews instead of assigning blame and responsibility to those who attacked us.

Two years after October 7, the hoax of the blood libel is being used again. In the Middle Ages, Christians falsely charged Jews for killing non-Jewish infants and using their blood to bake Matza. At various times, Muslims have levelled the blood libel against Jews as well. Now, it is almost universal in that entire societies and countries are falsely accusing and scapegoating Jews for a false genocide; falsely accusing that Jews are starving children in Gaza; falsely accusing that Jews are blocking the influx of food. Nothing can be further from the truth.

It is our hostages who are either already dead or dying a slow death from starvation and emaciation. It is individual Jews and groups of Jews who are being attacked on campuses and on city blocks throughout the world. Who is batting an eye against evils being perpetrated against Jews?

I hear calls for Palestinian Statehood in Gaza. So, what did Gazans do after all Israeli military forces pulled out in 2005 and which also meant that 8000 civilian Jews had to move out at that time?  Did the Gazans choose for a democratic society to make a Garden of Eden? Or did they elect Hamas, which built tunnels and wanted only to destroy Israel and all Jews?

Isn't Jordan a country filled with more than half of its population considering itself Palestinian? Why is the world not pressuring Jordan to open its doors?

When Yasser Arafat established the PLO in 1964, was there an outcry to establish statehood in Gaza, then controlled by Egypt? Or in the West Bank, then controlled by Jordan? There was no outcry at all.

How many times has Israel offered sweet deals which have been rejected over and over again, from such administrations as Ariel Sharon, Ehud Barak, and others? 

But who is batting an eye against the real genocide which took place on October 7? The mutilation of babies on October 7? the rapes committed on October 7? -  The Red Cross? the U.N.? our own government of Canada, local and federal?

Why was "Gaava," a Jewish Queer organization, INITIALLY barred from participating in a Pride march in Montreal?

 Who has grieved the death of Karen Diamond, the 82-year-old Holocaust survivor, who was burned alive this past Spring in Boulder Colorado and who died of her wounds on June 30?

We the Jewish people have been the target of scapegoating throughout our history, and which seems to be getting worse and worse in current times. The symbolic ritual of an ancient Biblical practice has become a genuine horrific tragedy over the ages for the Jewish people.

For the last thousands of years, however, the symbolic ritual of the escape goat has been replaced by Fasting, prayer, and reflection. Fasting on this one day shows our sensitivity to those who tragically lack food and drink during the course of the year. 

May scapegoating in all its forms come to an end now. May sensitivity to each other and the word around us become the way of the world and which is highlighted on Yom Kippur.

Gmar Tov,

Rabbi Howard Morrison