THE HE GOAT SHALL THUS CARRY UPON ITSELF ALL THEIR SINS TO A PRECIPITOUS

LAND, AND HE SHALL SEND OFF THE HE GOAT INTO THE DESERT.

(Vayikra

16:22)

The Scape Goat

Since the scapegoat, was an

atonement for all Israel, the High Priest made confession over it in the name

of all Israel… The scapegoat atoned for all transgressions mentioned in the

Torah, both light and grave, whether committed presumptuously or in error,

whether the offender became aware of his transgression, or did not become aware

of it; for all sins the scapegoat atoned, provided that the offender repented. But

if he did not repent, then the scapegoat only secures forgiveness for the light

transgression. Which are the light and which are the grave transgressions? The grave

transgressions are those that make the offender liable to a judicial sentence

of death or to excision [karet]. Likewise, oaths taken in vain or to

support a falsehood, though not involving the penalty of excision, are classed

among the grave transgressions. Violations of other prohibitions and of

affirmative precepts, the neglect of which is not punished by excision,

constitute the light transgressions.

(RaMBaM

Hilkhot Teshuva 1:2, Hyamson translation).

Our fathers taught us in

their teachings how awesome the Lord's deed is, and that is the matter

of Azazel that is written above, for that word contains a matter that is

found in our teachings, that the word aza [strong] describes a wind, as

in ruah kadim aza [a strong east wind] (Shemot 14:21).

Since the letter hey

cannot appear in the middle of a word, it is replaced with an alef, and

the word zel also describes a sudden and very powerful wind that can

demolish human buildings in a moment. This wind is found in Arabia, and of it

it is said a scorching wind is their lot (Psalms 11:6).

It flies and kills in a moment. If this is what happens naturally, all the more

so when it occurs wondrously. If this is so, then Azazel is composed of aza

and zel, that is to say, a strong zel wind. It [the goat] is

pushed away from before the Lord by a powerful wind which breaks the goat's

bones apart, leaving no two bones connected. This is a wondrous sign of the

obliteration of the sins of the House of Israel. And so

Yonatan ben Uziel translated: A powerful wind pushes it from before the Lord

and it dies.

(Rabbi

Yitzhak Shemuel Reggio on Vayikra 16:22)

And you shall remember that you were a slave

Menachem Klein

And

you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt. Like all other Jewish holidays, Passover is

a holiday of remembrance. As a community of memory on Passover we recall the

enslavement in Egypt and the liberation from it: "We were slaves to

Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord our God took us out from there." Slavery

seems to us a kind of existence belonging to the very distant past, an

institution of no relevance to our lives. In fact, it continues to exist today

in parts of the third world. It was gradually eradicated in the West only about

two hundred years ago. The end of slavery in the enlightened world was

accompanied by normative changes and by changes in attitudes towards the

institution of slavery. Slavery and its remnants are despised phenomena. The

story of the Exodus from Egypt took a crucial role in the shaping of those new

norms. The normative shift preceded the change in practice. The American

Declaration of Independence opens with the proclamation that all men are

created equal, but the realization of that sentiment came only decades later

and was accompanied by the Civil War. The Universal Declaration of the Rights

of Man is a document signed by all the countries of the world, but many of

them, including western countries, still violate it on a regular basis. Nonetheless,

without a change of norms there is no hope for a change of behavior.

In

order to change the norm set for us by the Exodus story into reality, we must

go back and consider what slavery actually is. Slavery is not a private matter

between the slave and his master but rather an established social and political

system that encompasses the realms of law, society, economics, and security. These

areas establish the statuses of master and slave while opening a great gap

between them. The work and services supplied by the slave to the master are not

willingly given. The slave lacks his own will; the master's will has replaced

his own. The slave is just another of the master's belongings. He may be sold,

used as collateral, given as a gift, or lent out. Even the slave's body belongs

to his master. The master may physically brand his skin or beat him. The slave

has no rights or family ties of his own. His family ties derive from the

master's authority. The slave lacks all rights. He only bears obligations

towards his master.

Throughout

history, the institution of slavery has been associated with the founding of

empires and their territorial expansion. Slavery did not only occur in

agricultural societies in need of extensive labor power; it appears in

mercantile societies as well. For the latter, the slaves were not human beings

but rather a commodity to be traded. Pirates were not the only ones hunting

slaves; imperialist mechanisms were also involved. They needed slaves in order

to preserve the empire.

What

is Judaism's attitude towards slavery? Halakhically speaking, the Hebrew slave

personality, he had rights, and the differences between him and his master were

temporary. In contrast, the difference between the Canaanite slave and his

master were fundamental. The Torah's leading motif involving slavery is the

distinction between Israel's enslavement in Egypt and its service to God; that

is to say, the difference between servitude to humans and servitude to God. The

laws of slavery are not as developed in Judaism as are, for instances, the laws

of torts. This is so because we spent most of our history in exile, and when we

were independent we lacked an empire. However, that does not mean that the

Jewish People never kept slaves or that it remained uninfluenced by cultures

that allowed slavery.

In

his interesting book, HaYahafokh Kushi Oro? [Can the Kushite Change

His Skin?], Avraham Melamed discusses Jewish attitudes towards people of

color. He points out the transformation regarding Canaan and Kush that occurred

from the period of the Sages and into the Middle Ages. In Scripture, Kush and

Canaan are brothers. Canaan is punished with eternal enslavement as punishment

for his father. Ham's sin against his

grandfather Noah. Canaan and Kush are also places. Scripture identifies

Canaan with the land that the Israelites had to inherit. Kush, however, was a

faraway place in what is now known as Africa; it had no association with

slavery. In contrast to the biblical view, the Sages and the medieval

commentators thought that people of color – the descendants of Kush – were

naturally disposed to enslavement. The Canaanite slave was identified as a

Kushite. Avraham Melamed believes that this change reflects the world in which

the Sages and medievals lived, a world in which slaves were dark-skinned. Apparently,

Jews were also served by such slaves.

This

brings us to the justifications offered for the institution of slavery. In the

Torah we find the Egyptians justifying the enslavement of the Israelites in

terms of security and demographics. Lest they increase, and a war befall us,

and they join our enemies. An economic motive was certainly added to this

foundation – the desire to exploit the enslaved labor force in building

projects and the expansion of the kingdom.

However,

other justifications for slavery have been offered in the course of history. The

identification of slaves with the dark-skinned peoples is an extreme expression

of another justification of slavery: that the slaves are naturally inferior. The

racist apology for slavery is the extreme form of the notion that it is natural

for the slave to be under his master's control. A slave regime is built upon

the essential distinction between master and slave, which views the slave's

inferiority and the master's mastery as natural and necessary. It should be

emphasized that this is not only a matter of relations between the individual

slave and his individual master, but rather also a mater of collective

relationships. A slave nation was seen as essentially inferior to a nation of

masters. The distinction between slaves and masters usually goes beyond the

merely cultural; it is a matter of ethnicity and race.

The

Torah forbids Israelites to enslave their brothers; at most they can be used as

servants [=eved ivri]. The Exodus from Egypt, which, as a living memory,

serves as the foundation for religious and communal life and for the Jewish

conception of time, prohibits the enslavement of Jews. Does this mean that Jews

are allowed to enslave members of other nations and become a nation of masters

vis-à-vis a nation of slaves?

Because of this, the Lord did

the Lord took us out of Egypt. RaMBaN and Ibn Ezra explain that the word this

taken out of Egypt. We are free to offer an additional interpretation of the

verse, making use of the word zeh's present meaning: the word zeh

refers to something that is present in the here and now. Today, when slavery is

prohibited by accepted norms and remaining practices that bear similarity to it

(such as forced prostitution) is widely condemned, we can remove the ethnic and

essentialist label that distinguishes between the Canaanite and the Hebrew

slave, and leave only the functional difference [a servant still possessing his

own rights and personality as against a slave]. Since the enlightened world

recognizes the injustice of slavery there is no place left for the institution

of the "Canaanite slave" with all of its ramifications. The Hebrew

slave is also different from what he was in the past; today we speak of a kind

of laborer bearing rights. The term "Hebrew slave" can only refer to

a functional category, i.e., a kind of servant who sells his labor and supplies

services but who does not sell his body or self. Obviously we do not have the

right to set ourselves up as expropriators vis-à-vis others, taking away

from them their personalities or their bodies.

Dr. Menachem

Klein teaches in the department of political science of the Bar Ilan University

When you reap the harvest

gather the gleanings of your harvest.

And

stranger. I am the Lord, your God.

(Vayikra

19:9-10)

Whoever gives, gleanings,

forgotten sheaves, and the corners to the poor in the appropriate

manner, is deemed as if he had built the Holy Temple and offered up his

sacrifices within it.

(Rashi on Vayikra 23:22, Judaica Press translation)

Do

World?

For God wants his Chosen People to be bedecked with every good and

precious virtue, and that they possess blessed souls and magnanimous spirit. I

have already written that deeds influence the soul, making it good and allowing

God's blessing to rest upon it. There is no doubt that when someone leaves part

of his produce out in the field so that the needy may take it freely, his soul

shall be satisfied and his spirit blessed and proper, and that God will satisfy

him with His bounty and his soul shall dwell in goodness.

(Sefer Ha-Hinukh Mitzvah

#213)

You shall leave them for the poor and the

stranger – It is evident

that these laws are not made for the direct purpose of the actual maintenance

of the poor. Even the poor man himself has to leave his gleanings, the forgotten

sheaf, and the edge of the field from his own field for other poor

people! It is clear that, at once at the harvest, at the moment when a person

takes home that which Nature and his own hard-work has yielded to him, and puts

the proud and far-reaching words "my own" in his mouth, these laws

are to remind every member of the Nation, and to demand an act of recognition

from him, of the fact that this "my own" includes for everybody the

duty of caring for others who are needy… that in God's holy state the care

for the poor and the stranger without property is not a matter which is

left to the greater or lesser soft-hearted feelings of sympathy… but is

raised to a God-given right to the poor, and a God-ordained duty to the owners

of property from God.

(Rabbi S.R. Hirsch on Vayikra 19:10, Isaac Levy

translation)

Pesach – Our Time of Freedom?

This goal ["Our Time of Freedom"] of the Exodus from Egypt

was not achieved; the mission of "Our Time of Freedom" received a

semblance of freedom, something which may perhaps be a primary condition for

freedom, but is not yet true freedom. The people who left Egypt did not accept

upon themselves the Kingdom of God, and therefore we do not recite the complete

Hallel on a festival on which the attempt to realize our freedom fell

short. True, we read how, after the crossing of the Reed Sea, the people: …trusted

in God and in His servant Moses, but immediately afterwards the Torah

relates how that trust was only temporary – spontaneous faith born out of being

powerfully impressed by what had happened – but not faith which derives from awareness of God's divinity. Therefore it did not

last even three days; the people call out to Moses, "Is the Lord

present among us or not?"

Even though this

appointed time is a holiday for Israel who was delivered from the hands of its

torturers and freed from the yoke of its oppressors, there is still no justification

for recitation of the "Complete Hallel." We have yet to be

redeemed from our enslavement to human nature. This fact teaches us that

primary thanks for redemption is not related to what happens to the Jewish

people in history, but to what the Jewish people do in history. After

all, everything that happens is indifferent because it is an act of God in His

world, whether we – from our perspective – call certain events

"redemptions" and "deliverances" and other events

"misfortunes" "pogroms" or "holocaust."

(Y. Leibowitz: Sihot al Haggei Yisrael U'Moadav,

p. 74)

"The avenging of a

small child…" as against "My creations are drowning": Emotions and Values.

Now go work and straw will

not be supplied to you: The

Israelites would gather the straw in the wilderness and trample it together

with mortar, and the straw would puncture their heels and blood would mix into

the mortar. Rachel, the daughter of Tushalah's son, was pregnant. She trampled

the mortar together with her husband and the infant came out and was mixed into

the brick. Then Michael came down and brought up the child before the Throne of

Glory. On that very night He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, as it is said, And

it happened at midnight.

(Yalkut

Shimoni Shemot 4, 176)

And we recite, Thank the Lord, for his goodness endures forever. Rabbi

Yohanan said, Why is for He is good not included in this praise? Because

the Holy One, Blessed Be He, does not rejoice in the fall of the wicked, as

Shemuel bar Nachman said in the name of Rabbi Yohanan: What is the meaning of, And

they did not approach each other all through the night? The ministering

angels desired to chant songs of praise. Said The Holy One, Blessed Be He: My

creations are drowning in the sea, and you recite song before me?! Yossi bar

Hanina said: He does not rejoice, but He causes others to rejoice, and this is

deduced from the fact that it is written, so he causes (others) to rejoice and

not "he rejoices".

(Yalkut Shimoni, II

Chronicles 2:20)

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