Parshas Aḥarei Mot: Enter the Void

For the third time in a row, the Jewish community reads Parshas Aḥarei Mot, Leviticus 16–18. This parsha describes how YHWH (ʾAdonai) explains to Moshe a ritual for Rosh Hashanah. Every year, the priest was to take two goats. The text describes one goat as designated for YHWH and the other goat as designated for ʿAzazel. The priest would cast lots for which designation the goat would receive. The lucky goat would then be sacrificed to YHWH as a sin offering, whereas the unlucky goat would be led into the wilderness and pushed off a cliff onto the jagged rocks below. This second goat shall be set alive before the LORD, to make atonement over him, to send him away for Azazel into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:10, Jewish Publication Society Tanakh, 1917).

No one really knows what ʿAzazel means. Traditional English translations translate it as scapegoat following William Tyndale's idea. The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew (a translation called the Septuagint) translated it as one carrying away evil (Greek apopompaios). However, the Hebrew has a clear parallelism between the lot designated for YHWH and the other for ʿAzazel, indicating that ʿAzazel is a personal entity.

In fact, ancient literature bears out the idea that it was a personal entity. In the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which was written before the time of Jesus, ʿAzazel appears as the name of one of the fallen angels. Apparently, the writer of the Hebrew text understood ʿAzazel to be some sort of demonic entity.

For that reason, most modern English translations no longer translate it as scapegoat, but as Azazel, the name the Hebrew text uses. Apparently, the Hebrews believed that one goat was dedicated to God while the other was given over to a demonic presence that abided in the wilderness.

The ritual consisted of the priest offering a bull as a sin offering and a ram as a burnt offering for himself; the priest offered the two goats on behalf of the Israelite community. The priest is to let the Azazel-goat left standing before the LORD, to make expiation with it and to send it off to the wilderness for Azazel (Leviticus 16:10, Jewish Publication Society Tanakh, 1999). The Hebrew reads: yaʿamad-ḥai lifnei ʾAdonai kaper alaiv. Leshalaḥ ʾoto laʿAzazel hamidbarah, literally, standing before YHWH to cover upon it. To send it to Azazel in the wilderness. The Hebrew word kaper, literally translated by English cover, indicates that the goat atoned for the sins of the Israelite people. That same word can be translated into English as atonement and, more fancily, as expiation. Basically, the idea is that the sin is removed so that God no longer sees sin, but purity, so the relationship between God and humanity is repaired and made at-one. Through a symbolic, ritual action, the goat bore their sins into the wilderness, outside the camp, so they no longer had to deal with them and could commune with God.

Later in the passage, we read that the priest was to take the Azazel-goat (after slaughtering the bull offering on his own behalf) and recite all of Israel's sins onto the goat. The text describes the ritual like this: 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 man. Thus shall the goat carry on it all their iniquities to an inaccessible region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness (Leviticus 16:21–22, Jewish Publication Society Tanakh, 1999). This goat becomes the sin-goat, bearing all the sins of the people into the wilderness, where Azazel dwells. By symbolically removing the sin and ritual impurity from the camp, the goat allows the camp to be a place of holiness, where God can then dwell. Now that their sins had been taken away, the next parsha of Leviticus expands on the idea of being God's holy people.

Since this reading falls on Pesach as well as Good Friday and Easter, I find an interesting parallel with this goat and Jesus. Just as the goat was led out of the camp into the wilderness, so Jesus was sacrificed outside the camp. In fact, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews makes this same point. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate, the writer wrote, in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured (Hebrews 13:13–14, English Standard Version). Just as the Azazel-goat carried the sins of the Israelite people outside the camp, so Jesus as the lamb of God took away all the sins of the people outside the walls of Jerusalem.

Since the camp, for the Israelites, had to be a place of holiness, where no ritual impurity resided (this parsha is followed by Kedoshim, Holy People), and also the reasons menstruants and people with other flows had to leave the camp, so also the goat of sacrifice had to be outside the camp. Jesus was sacrificed outside the city walls of Jerusalem, thus not giving the city ritual impurity through blood-letting. Just as the goat effected expiation for the inhabitants of the camp, so Jesus's sacrifice to YHWH effected expiation for the inhabitants of Jerusalem and his followers. May the story of the Azazel-goat inspire us to continue our process of at-one-ment with God.

On Jewish Identity

The single greatest threat to Jewish identity is intermarriage. I do not hope to sound like a fear-monger, but this assertion is true. If a Jewish person intermarries, the likelihood that the children will be raised Jewish reduces considerably.

In Jewish law, a Jew is someone with a Jewish mother. If your mom is not a Jewess, then you are not a Jew. Jewish identity does not depend upon the father, only the mother. So if a Jewess marries a goy male, their children will be Jewish. If that male Jewish child, in turn, marries a goy female, then their children are no longer Jewish. In order for the next generation to be Jewish, the man must marry a Jewess.

The reason for this legislation is obvious. Children spend more of the time with their mothers and so the religion of the mother will more likely pass down to the next generation, even with a goyishe father. I know a Jewish man who married a goyishe woman, and the children were not raised Jewish. Sadly, these individuals have, through intermarriage, cut themselves off from the Jewish community, whether they intended to or not. If they wish to return to Judaism, they may and are encouraged to do so, but it is sad that they have lost their Jewish heritage so easily.

There is a precedent for matrilineal descent in the Torah. After the Jews were re-allowed entry into the land of Israel by King Cyrus in 538 BCE, the high priest Ezra found that the Israelite males had intermarried with foreign women. He and the governors of the land understood that marrying non-Jewish women was a problem because the children would not be raised Jewish and to fear the Lord. The governors told Ezra, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass (Ezra 9:1-2). Ezra discovered that the Israelite men had sinned by marrying foreign wives.

Accordingly, Ezra told the men to divorce their non-Jewish wives. Ezra 10:10-11, KJV, reads, And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. Ezra then instituted court proceedings so that they could divorce their non-Jewish wives in an orderly fashion. It took them two months to process all of the divorce claims (10:16-17). Even the priests had intermarried, and they too had to divorce their non-Jewish women. All these had taken strange women, and they put them away with their children (English Standard Version marginal note, Ezra 10:44). Accordingly, they divorced them.

In 445 BCE, the reformer Nehemiah faced the same problem a century later. While walking around Israel, he discovered that the Jewish men had married goyishe girls.

In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people. And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives? (Nehemiah 13:23-27 KJV

Nehemiah clearly thought that intermarriage with goyishe women was a big deal, enough that he exerted physical violence over those men. Whether such violence was warranted, Nehemiah believed that marrying Jewish, godly women was of utmost importance. Additionally, Nehemiah saw that the children were not being educated as Jews and were taught goyishe practices, such as idolatry, from their non-Jewish mothers.

A critical observer may point out that King David was descended from a goyishe girl, Ruth the Moabitess. However, it must be pointed that Ruth the Moabitess joined herself to Israel and therefore converted to Judaism (before converstion to Judaism became standardized). She was no longer a goyishe girl, but an Israelite maiden. Naomi told Ruth to return to her Moabite homeland. However, Ruth refused and joined herself to Israel. And [Naomi] said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her (Ruth 1:15-18 KJV). Ruth joined herself to Israel and then became a naturalized Jewish citizen.

Someone might say that Torah forbids Moabites and Ammonites from joining Israel. Indeed, it does. Deuteronomy 23:3-6, KJV, says, An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. Nevertheless the LORD thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the LORD thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the LORD thy God loved thee. Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever. However, the Hebrew word (a masculine singular) indicates that male Moabites and Ammonites are in view. The word used for Ruth the Moabitess is the feminine singular. Therefore, Ruth was not prohibited from joining Israel and converting to Judaism. Hopefully, one can see that from the Torah, it is true that the women are the ones who confer Jewish identity and it is not an extrabiblical invention that the rabbis made up. Rather, it is a faithful practice to God's commands.