Welcome to the alliteratively and delightfully entitled Qontroversial Questions on the Parashah (it’s still pronounced “Controversial” – I just think I’m being qlever). Subscribe to continue to receive these and please share with those you think would be interested.
I. This Parashah’s Choose-Your-Adventure
One of the more under-appreciated aspects of learning the parashah is the sheer impact a given commentator will have on how we interpret what’s before us. And I can’t think of a clearer example of this than the very beginning of Parashat Aḥarei-Mot – the first half of this week’s double parashah (along with Kedoshim).
It all emerges from one of the stranger parts of the Yom Kippur service. The Torah instructs Aharon to take two identical he-goats, upon which lots must be cast. And while one will be offered as a sacrifice to God, the other must be sent “to Azazel” (Lev. 16:8), having had the sins of the entire people placed upon it (v. 21).
And here, the Torah is vague on what exactly this mysteriously termed “Azazel” is. All we know is that it has something to do with the goat being led into the wilderness (v. 10) where it is set free (v. 22) – though Ḥazal, it must be noted, add a wrinkle to this. Having clearly seen plenty of gangster movies, they realize that the Torah’s instruction to “set free” the goat is a euphemism. What actually happens is that the goat, while still alive, was pushed off a cliff to fall to its death (mYoma 6:6).
Now, any commentary you choose to aid your understanding of this part of the Yom Kippur service is going to highlight its primal, visceral nature. After all, there’s no escaping the intense imagery of a goat bearing the people’s sins and suffering a gruesome death as a result – signifying both the erasure of sin and the horrific punishments that the sinners ostensibly deserved.
But what will radically differ based on your commentator is the meaning of Azazel and the role it plays.
Take Rashi, for example, who simply quotes one understanding in the gemara (Yoma 67b) that “Azazel” is just the name of the cliff from which the goat was flung – and the only significance to its name lies in it being a compound of the words ‘oz and ’el, which, while literally meaning “strong” and “mighty,” capture Azazel being ‘az vĕ-kasheh, “precipitous and flinty.”
And, if you were reading the parashah solely with Rashi’s commentary, you’d have no further questions about Azazel.1 You’d just happily continue with the rest of the parashah.
But if you’d chosen to read the parashah with Ibn Ezra, instead, you’d find yourself grappling with a perplexing, intentionally cryptic riddle – and thus trying to solve one of Judaism’s greatest interpretative mysteries.
II. The Secret of Turning Thirty-Three
Commenting on the first verse that describes Azazel’s role in the Yom Kippur service, Ibn Ezra rejects those who think that Azazel is the name of the cliff from which the goat is flung.
But rather than offer his own answer, he gives us a riddle:
If you are able to understand the secret of the word that follows Azazel then you will know its secret and the secret of its name, for it has fellows in Scripture. And I will reveal a bit of its secret to you in a hint: When you are thirty-three years old, you will understand it.
The secret to understanding both Azazel itself and its name, he tells us, lies in the word that follows it. Yet here all he does is offer a cryptic clue: that it is only upon turning thirty-three that understanding will happen.
To say this is unhelpful is an understatement. Because, while my turning thirty-three did coincide with something somewhat significant – we moved into our house – it doesn’t seem to have much to do with Azazel here. I’ve even checked the whole property for dead goats and I’ve turned up nothing.2
Fortunately, Ibn Ezra’s great rival, Ramban, explains the mystery of Ibn Ezra’s comment.
Brace yourselves.
III. Happy Thirty-Third Birthday!
It turns out that it has nothing to do with age.
Instead, if you take the first clue Ibn Ezra wrote – that it had something to do with the first word after Azazel – and count thirty-three verses, you arrive at the following verse:
And that they may offer their sacrifices no more to the goat-demons after whom they stray. This shall be to them a law for all time, throughout the ages. (Lev. 17:7)
Though part of our parashah, this verse is taken from a section of the Torah we rarely focus on (Lev. 17:1–7), in which God stipulates that the Jewish people are forbidden from sacrificing ox, sheep, or goats outside the Mikdash. But we also get a bizarre and fascinating reason in the verse I just quoted above: that it’s to stop the people from giving in to their temptation to sacrifice to the “goat-demons.”
Which means that Ibn Ezra thinks that the goat sent to Azazel has some connection to the people’s desire to worship goat-demons (!).
And here we’d expect Ramban to excoriate Ibn Ezra for his view – given that Ramban usually seems to attack Ibn Ezra’s views in every other comment.3 But rather than do this, Ramban doubles down on Ibn Ezra’s interpretation – making everything even more confusing.
Because Ramban quotes a midrash (Pirkei de-Rebbi Eliezer §46) that elaborates on why a he-goat must be sent to Azazel on Yom Kippur. And this midrash only raises more and more questions.
It tells us that the accusing angel, Sammael (=Azazel/Saṭan), complained that he lacked power over the Jewish people. God thus responded that Sammael would have the power to accuse the Jewish people for their sins on Yom Kippur alone, with the midrash concluding:
Therefore [the Jewish people] gave [Sammael] a gift on the Day of Atonement, in order that they he not annul their sin offering, as it is said, “One lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8).
Now, look, I know there’s a lot to process here, but it’s worth recognizing that the logic is at least sound. To stop Azazel from accusing the Jewish people of all their sins – and to stop him from trying to get in the way of their own sin offering to God – the people send Azazel an identical goat to the one they are offering to God as a gift to Azazel. Hence the Torah’s choice of language in framing the Yom Kippur service: while both goats stand “before God” (Lev. 16:7), only one goes to God, goral eḥad la-Shem, with the other going to Azazel, vĕ-goral eḥad la-Azazel (v. 8).
But I doubt that what really bothered you here was the logic. What was probably more bothersome for you while reading this was the idea of sending a goat to a demon – on, of all days, Yom Kippur – seems, well, just a tad (a tad!) contrary to everything we think we know about Judaism.
Also, I’m just going to repeat this so it has time to sink in: This midrash says that we send a goat to a demon on Yom Kippur.
And one (somewhat minor) objection you might have to this midrash is that it smacks of what I’d call “divine politics,” for want of a better expression. Because the midrash says that God let Azazel have one day a year on which the Jewish people gave him a goat to just stop him from complaining loudly in heaven. Which doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the congressperson who gets to include their cause célèbre in a bill just to quiet them.
Yet, even here, as outlandish as this seems, Judaism does have space for heavenly politics. One of Rashi’s most well-known comments, after all, is on the verse in which humans are created – “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26) – and captures a sense of the divine politics at play.
But even accepting this, your far bigger objection might be that this all smells a little too much like idolatry – and this is why Ramban is quick to neutralize any sniff of idolatry in the goat sent to Azazel. First, it’s clear that, unlike the he-goat offered to God, this goat sent to Azazel is not a sacrifice, as none of the typical sacrificial procedure applies to it. Second, the Torah’s insistence on lots ensures that there is never a point at which the people select a goat to gift to Azazel; instead, the lots ensure that the choice is left up to God. And third, God Himself commands it – which, by definition, means it cannot be considered idolatry.
But all of this still seems like avoiding idolatry on a mere technicality. Yes, it’s not a sacrifice; yes, it’s decided by God; yes, it’s commanded by God – but the Jewish people are still sending a goat into the wilderness as a gift to the demon Azazel on Yom Kippur!
But rather than assuage our concerns, Ramban adds another layer to all of this, still. And while it first only deepens our confusion, it helps us make sense of everything.
IV. The Non-Centrality of the Goat-Demon on Yom Kippur
For Ramban, while the secret of Azazel is God’s willingness to let Azazel have his day in the sun with a goat gift from the Jewish people, there is an added spiritual-psychological dimension to the Yom Kippur service.
Because, as the Torah itself explicitly states, the people had an instinctive desire to worship (of all things) goat-demons – a reality reinforced by their central role when King Jeroboam turned his kingdom into idolaters (II Chr. 11:15).
Yet, Ramban argues that while the Torah explicitly forbade the worship of goat-demons, God permitted a facsimile of it on one day a year: Yom Kippur. While other gods or demons were never acknowledged, Azazel alone was not just acknowledged but given a gift.
And the details of the gift – both the location to which it was sent and the fact that it was a goat – are key here.
Because the goat was sent specifically into the wilderness because, in the words of Ramban, Azazel is the sar ha-moshēl bimkomot ha-ḥurban, “the prince who rules over the wastelands.” And the reason it had to be a goat was because she-hu ba‘alav, “because [Azazel] is its master.”4
But here, Ramban introduces an additional concept regarding Azazel. Noting that Esav’s territory is Mt. Seir – which could be unexcitingly translated as “Mt. Goat,” because the Hebrew word for goat, s-‘-r, is the same as Seir – he sees Azazel, goat-demon prince of the wastelands, as the angel of Esav and thus Rome.
And between the fact that Esav and Rome are the quintessential evil oppressor in Judaism and that they were particularly evil from the perspective of Ramban – given his forced exile for (at least) two years after being deemed to have unsuccessfully defended Judaism in face of Catholic criticisms – this final part of Ramban’s understanding transforms the goat sent to Azazel.
On the surface, it seems to still be problematic. On Yom Kippur, the Jewish people sent a gift to Esav’s angel to stop him from persecuting the Jewish people. But there is a deeper layer to this.
Because what the Jewish people actually did – as Ramban is so quick to stress – was very much not this. Sure, the upshot was the same: Azazel got a goat gift. But the mechanisms that led to it were different.
The people didn’t voluntarily gift Azazel a goat. Rather, God instructed them to send a gift to the angel that would come to represent their ultimate enemy. But He instructed them to not only do so at His command, but to let Him select the goat that would be chosen. Because, while to human eyes the goats would be identical, God would determine which was better fitting for Him.
And in doing so, the Torah achieves a crucial goal: The neutralization of the temptation to worship goat-demons. And neutralization here is an important word. Rather than prohibit it outright, the Torah just weakens any power associated with Azazel.
Because as strange as it sounds to us, goat-demons in particular – whether it be their symbolic association with wilderness, destruction, or the Jewish people’s enemies – were clearly tempting to worship, getting their own specific prohibition in the Torah. And it’s not hard to understand why. If you assuage the evil demon, you protect yourself. But by allowing a gift to Azazel on Yom Kippur under very specific conditions, the Torah reinforces the supremacy of God over Azazel.
Because, rather than people illicitly worshiping a rival deity, the Torah concedes that the people wish to do something regarding a goat demon – and thus permits some sliver of acknowledgement. It’s the opposite of worship. Indeed, the midrash transforms this further: we’re just doing God a favor by agreeing to send a gift to Azazel. We’re not doing it for our benefit; we’re just doing it to stop him nagging God.
And there’s one more point here to make to all of this. As focal as all this sounds – as focal as it was – the gift sent to Azazel happened far away, with one person pushing the goat off the cliff. The actual drama of Yom Kippur happened in the Beit ha-Mikdash before the entire people. Which is to say that the concession to goat-demons was very much left to the back of people’s minds. It was very much “here, we’re going to focus on God but just so you know, someone is going to take this goat to Azazel – but you all focus on this, instead.”
And while I don’t want to repeat how I ended last week, I will do. Because this is another example of the Torah’s laws and message being eternal, but its context being specific. Nowadays, goat-demons strike us as so alien that we cannot conceive of Judaism recognizing and neutralizing the temptation to worship them.
But it was clearly a major issue the Torah had to confront – which is how Yom Kippur ended up having a moment where the demon-goat prince of the wilderness got a gift.
Other than those naturally arising from the mental image seared into your brain of a he-goat bleating in panic as it’s pushed off a cliff towards its doom, bouncing off all the sharp, pointy rocks before ending up as a bloody splat on the ground.
Even skulking about my across-the-road neighbor’s house in the dead of night yielded nothing goat-related (though his garage is full of Ryobi tools – I should probably return them at some point).
It has been suggested that one of Ramban’s main motivations for writing a Torah commentary – one of the greatest to have ever been written – was to simply argue with Ibn Ezra, someone whom he seems to criticize at every opportunity. Ironically, however, this led to the preservation and success of Ibn Ezra’s commentary. Given how many of Ibn Ezra’s understandings are controversial and that he isn’t known as a great halakhist (in contrast to Rashbam, whose Torah commentary is even more controversial but he is one of the great Rishonim), the only reason Ibn Ezra’s commentary is so widely printed – often right next to Ramban’s – is to provide the context for this commentary that so angered Ramban.
I think that this is actually a very disappointing point made by Ramban because it transforms the imagery of the term “goat-demon.” Until now, you were probably picturing an awesome demonic goat or, at the very least, a satyr – a half-person, half-goat like Phil from Disney’s Hercules – but according to Ramban, a “goat-demon” is just a regular, boring demon with particular dominion over, of all things, goats. Pretty anticlimactic if you ask me.