We were sitting at the Library tables formed into an oval large enough to seat about thirty last Saturday morning when Bob summed up much of the talk by using the terms “extirpation, absolution and atonement”.  We were talking about sin and trying to explain what happens to sin when we try to get rid of it. We were trying to make sense of the term “Azazel” that referred either to: a “monster out in the desert”, an “angel” or a “sacrificial goat”. The Torah was explaining how we should deal with the problem of recurring sin.  As sinful humans, we try to expiate sin by atoning for it. We then wish for absolution but the sin recurs and we have to go through the process all over again – forever.

This makes for delightful input from the members of our Bible study group who must certainly qualify as a totally sinless group. My problem with the subject is the universal human answer to personal sin is to pass it on to someone else.  This is a process that involves selecting a convenient receptacle for that sin, anyone else as long as the sin is now washed off you. We choose “scapegoats” and rarely think of the chain of terrible events that are wished onto the someone “else” who was now tarred with, blamed and then carried the sin along to whatever punishment was merited. “Azazel” appears as a name in Deuteronomy, a portion of the Torah that is often read on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is unclear exactly what the writers of that section of the Bible actually meant.  It may never be clear what they meant.

However, their recording ancient, pre-scriptural, ideas and practices have given us hope that in washing our selves and cleansing away sins is a useful accoutrement of civil society even if it does also give us the shameful practice of allowing someone else assume, mostly unknowingly, our guilt.

In ancient Jerusalem the practice of sacrificing goats, bulls and other animals in order to please God with the odor and essence of burning fat was recorded as God’s commandment in how to “expiate” sin. Today, we make atonement by confession. In the Jewish practice, by doing so, we are absolved of that sin. It takes a day of fasting to get up the courage to shed sin but in the following year we may expect the same “Holy” day to recur and for us to go through it all over again.

The “scapegoat” makes it so much easier and much more satisfying.  We can eliminate a friend or enemy by making it appear that he was the culprit, not ourselves. We regularly sacrifice relatives, friends and innocent others by awarding them the contract to bear our sin. Don’t we ever get rid of it permanently? Why does it come back so shamelessly regular?