Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, began last night at sundown. It marks the commencement of the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, a ten-day period of study, self-examination and repentance, ending next week with the holiest day in the Jewish Year, Yom Kippur–the Day of Atonement.
In a holiday filled with beautiful rituals, one of the most mysterious and powerful for me is that of the scapegoat.
On Yom Kippur in ancient Israel, the high priest put his hands on the head of a young goat and confessed over it the sins of all of the people. The goat, burdened by the communal wrongdoings, was led away to wander in the wilderness, never to return to the tribe. The carrier of sins was an “escape goat”, shortened in English to scapegoat.
The scapegoat, along with other rituals for repentance during the Days of Awe, allowed everyone to be cleansed of impurity, to start fresh in the new year. But the holiday teaches that we cannot be cleansed of our misdeeds through mere substitution of the goat for ourselves. Only after self-examination, a sincere desire to be forgiven, and the resolve to change our ways, can we atone for our failures and shortcomings.
Scapegoats seem to serve a deep human need, for we see them all over the world in every era. In our modern, literal world, the scapegoat signifies an unfair cruelty, and no longer offers a sense of relief and forgiveness. Nevertheless, we continue to find people, nations, and cultures to blame for our own failings. (more…)
Bainbridge Notebook 