Throughout the prayer service on Yom Kippur we focus on teshuvah (repentance) and taharah (purity). We confess our sins and renew our commitment to Torah and mitzvot. But the Yom Kippur service in the Beit ha-Mikdash, as recounted in this week's Torah-portion, seems quite different. The Torah describes an elaborate sacrificial service, culminating with the sh'nei ha-se'irim (the two goats, one designated as the sa'ir la-Hashem and sacrificed to God, and the other, the sa'ir la'azazel, invested with the sins of the nation and killed), which does not appear to have anything to do with the teshuvah process. How did this sacrificial service enable us to accomplish the goal of Yom Kippur, of "purifying ourselves before God"?
To understand the Yom Kippur service in the Beit ha-Mikdash, let us analyze the events that preceded and culminated in the first Yom Kippur, when the Jews wandered in the desert after leaving Egypt. Eighty days before the first Yom Kippur, the Jews assembled at the foot of Sinai to receive the Torah. The Talmud (Shabbat 88a) states that God lifted Mount Sinai above the Jewish people and warned them that if they accepted the Torah everything would be good for them, but if they did not accept the Torah they would be buried under the mountain. It was made clear to the Jews that their personal lives and their existence as a nation were entirely dependent upon accepting the Torah.
Although the Jews were given this warning before they received the Torah, they did not understand its true lesson until forty days later, after having committed the chet ha-eigel (the sin of the Golden Calf). God told Moshe that the Jews had demonstrated that they were unwilling to live up to their original commitment to accept the Torah, and so the entire nation would be destroyed. It thus became clear that the original warning still applied, and that the original consequence of not accepting the Torah could still be fulfilled. "Sham tehei kevuratchem," Hashem told Moshe; the entire nation would perish at Sinai.
Moshe Rabbeinu interceded on behalf of the Jews, and God decided to give them a second chance. God decreed that a second covenant would be made, and a second set of the luchot (Ten Commandments) would be given. The day for this renewal would be Yom Kippur. The Jews understood, as they reaccepted the Torah on the first Yom Kippur, that henceforth they would always live in the shadow of Sinai, and that life as a Jew cannot exist without Torah.
The two goats which were brought into the Beit Ha-Mikdash every Yom Kippur would remind the watching Jews of the first Yom Kippur and of its message, that life without Torah is death. The goats were physically identical, as the halachah requires (Yoma 62a), yet each would embark on a path radically different from that of its partner. One would be sacrificed to God in the holiness of the Beit ha-Mikdash, while the other would, symbolically, bear the sins of the entire Jewish nation. The one sacrificed to God would have its blood brought into the Holy of Holies, while the other would meet its end on the barren desert stones. The watching people would remember that, by accepting Torah and mitzvot, each Jew can become a sa'ir la-Hashem, devoted to holiness. But it would also be clear that without Torah and mitzvot, we will become weighted down with sins, and will be represented by the sa'ir la'azazel. Our lives would be empty, and meaningless as death.
These lessons would be made doubly clear to the Kohein Gadol, as he represented the Jewish nation on Yom Kippur. He would stand before the aron in the Holy of Holies, and would offer the ketoret (incense). Only when its smoke formed a cloud could he proceed with the service. Why? Because while the cloud of incense would form, and God's holiness would begin to manifest in it, the Kohein Gadol would remember the first Yom Kippur, when God also "descended in a cloud" ("va-yeired Hashem be-anan,, Shemot 34:5). The Kohein Gadol would stand in front of the aron knowing that there are only two things within it: the broken pieces of the first set of luchot and the whole second set, resting side by side. The broken set would evoke the memory of the failed first kabalat ha-Torah, of the Golden Calf, and the near-destruction of the Jewish nation. The second set, still whole, represents the second, unconditional acceptance of the Torah, the source of life. The goal of the sacrificial service of Yom Kippur is to impress us with our sometimes tragic history, to inspire us to choose the path of life, and to remind us that sin can only result in death.
Today, this goal has been encapsulated in the ne'ilah services, whose themes are the seriousness of Yom Kippur and the consequences of our choices. We remind ourselves that Hashem wants our teshuvah, not our death. We pray that we be inscribed in the book of life, and that we attain true repentance.
The ba'alei mussar tell us that when we read parshat Acharei Mot during the year, we should try to remember how we feel when we read it on Yom Kippur. Let us try to rededicate ourselves to the message of the luchot, and to the ideal represented by the sa'ir la-Hashem, so that we can all merit true life.