The Ritual of Release: Acharei Mot

The Ritual of Release: Acharei Mot

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

May 6, 2016

When I first read the Torah’s description of the rituals of the ancient Israelites, I was thankful for being alive today, not then.  I saw the sacrificial rites as primitive and meaningless.  Why did our ancient ancestors offer God food?  After all, God doesn’t need food.  Surely it was a useless relic of older, pagan cults and rituals.

Later, when I was of a more cynical age, I laughed at the detailed intricacies of these rituals: Which offering was burnt to a cinder, and which was roasted; which was boiled and which, fried in oil.  It was a take-out menu!  Pages from an ancient cookbook featuring desert and Mediterranean cuisines!

Now that I am older still, with a bit more experience in my bag, I return regularly to Leviticus to study—and learn from—its long list of sacrifices.   Now I find myself amazed by the psychological wisdom of this system.  It speaks deeply about the fears and hopes of the people who followed it.  It provided then—as it still does today—answers to humanity’s most difficult questions and deepest needs.

More specifically, I am intrigued by one particular sacrifice:  The Ritual of Release.   What makes it unique is that it involves not the usual slaughter of an animal, but rather the release of one.

For three circumstances, the Torah specifies that a pair of identical animals be brought forward. The priest draws lots, picking one to be slaughtered, while the other is released into the wild.  The first of these is the day when a metzora—a person once diagnosed as a leper, now pronounced cured—returns to the fold of the community.  On that day, he or she must bring forth a pair of birds.  One is slaughtered, the other is set free.  The second occasion is the sacrifice that the High Priest must offer once a year, on the most sacred day of the year, Yom Kippur.  And the third is any other time when the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies.  On such occasions, he must bring forth a pair of goats.  Again, one is sacrificed, while the other is sent out “to Azazel,” into the wilderness.

I have always wondered:  If the slaughtered offering represents God’s food, what is the meaning of the freed bird or goat? Why are they set free?

There are several explanations.  The simplest is that this is a vestige of an ancient pagan ritual.  It may once have held some significance, but over the eons, all that remained was the act itself, devoid of any purpose or meaning.  But I am stubborn.  I want to know why it remained. Surely there is some added Jewish perspective, a new layer of Jewish meaning, a moral or lesson, to this Ritual of Release.

Maimonides, from nearly a thousand years ago, offers a perceptive explanation for it:  Even after a sin is expunged, a stain remains—if not on our reputation, then in our souls.  Sounding a bit like Freud, Maimonides explains that releasing the animal is a dramatic enactment of letting go of the remnants of guilt we hold within ourselves even after we are forgiven.

In our own day, reflecting post-Freudian psychology, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Jonathan Sacks, has a different explanation.  He teaches that this ritual signifies the twin sides of human nature—the wild or animal part, and the more tame or moral part.  We are born with both, Rabbi Sacks says.  Casting out the wilder side refocuses us, redirecting our attention to the moral responsibilities that still lie before us.

Maybe it’s my impish side, but I can’t resist turning my gaze away.  I can’t help following—at least for a moment—the released bird or goat. I see it hesitating at first; trying first one direction then another; looking back for a moment, but finally taking off, never to return. 

And I wonder:  What exactly did we let go of?

To be sure, we do let go of guilt; the freed animal represents the release of the burden on our soul, the stain left behind by our misdeed.

But, additionally, as we focus and redirect our thoughts to the future, we also let go of the past.

I look back at the different stages of my life, and I discover than just traces of my past.  I find files tucked away in cabinets, memorabilia stored in worn briefcases.  I still have a few ancient textbooks from college days.  Periodically, I winnow these out and cast out items that have become too much trouble to keep, or that have eviscerated into dust.

We let go of the past when it becomes too heavy to carry with us any longer.

We also let go of anger and frustration.

Life doesn’t owe us anything.  We have life.  For the most part, we also have the means by which we take care of ourselves and help out others.  But of course that is never enough.  Our ambitions keep us wanting more. We want more from life, we want it to be more intense, more pleasurable, more gratifying.  And we get angry when don’t get what we want.  We feel cheated when we find nothing at all at the end of the rainbow.  We lash out, we yell, we scream and cry.  We blame ourselves or, just as often, someone else.  But nothing helps.  We remain what we are and who we are, no more and no less.

These, too, are parts of our experience that become too burdensome, that, as we move forward, we find no longer necessary to a meaningful life.  Our anger, we realize, holds us back; our frustration chokes us.

We let go of them.

And what do we keep? What do we hold on to as we move on?

We cherish and hold dear what we know will sustain us in the future: We keep our hopes and our dreams. We hold on to our faith and traditions.  We treasure our family and community.  Therein lies the source of our strength, holy to God, holy to us.  We offer and rededicate ourselves to our mission, to the path that yet lies ahead of us.

There is significance in the seeming coincidence that this unique ritual is described in this week’s Torah portion.  This is the week we observed Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. And the portion, Acharei Mot (“After the Death,” Leviticus 16:1—18:30), picks up the narrative where last week’s reading ended—with the tragic death of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu.

Acharei Mot gives Aaron the tools he needs to recover from his deep tragedy.  Performing the Ritual of Release empowers Aaron again, enabling him to carry on with his sacred duties. 

In the millennia that followed, Jews have followed Aaron’s example countless times, down to our own day and age.

For Aaron, as for survivors of the Shoah, these cataclysmic events have reshaped our understanding of the purpose of our existence.  Their enormity has necessitated a change in our faith paradigm, a shift in how we view God.

Now, just as in olden days, there are things we must let go of and things we must hold on to in order to go on living.

Gone is the innocent view we once had of God. Gone is our simplistic belief in a God who saves us from rivers and ovens.

For some, it is faith itself that is gone. 

It is so hard to turn a new page, to let go and begin again.  It’s draining to look at the world around us and realize that the beast of anti-Semitism is still here.  It’s disheartening to see evil and hatred still raging all over the world.  In the face of so much pain, it’s hard to hold on to faith, to our dream of peace, to the vision the prophet Isaiah held out for us nearly three thousand years ago, when he spoke of a time to come when “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

In the aftermath of the Shoah, we have to let go of our former naïve optimism and realize that if such an ideal world is ever to come about, it will be only if we double and redouble our efforts to make it so.  A passage in Pirkei Avot, the “Chapters of the Fathers” from the Mishnah, teaches that “It isn’t our responsibility to finish the task, but neither are we permitted to desist from it.”  Like Aaron, we are obligated to carry on with our sacred duty.  We have to be strong to persevere. 

So finally, in finding strength to continue, what we must let go of is our feeling of hopelessness, our weariness and sense of discouragement.

The Ritual of Release ultimately frees us.  It empowers us once again, enabling us to endure, to stay the course even Acharei Mot, even after the most terrible tragedies, cataclysms and devastation.

That is the meaning that I find today in an ancient and intriguing ritual.   This is the faith that strengthens me, that redirects my attention from the loss and devastation of the past, to the hope and work of renewal.  It permits me to let go of what I cannot do, but also calls on me to refocus on what I can do—what I must do—for a better tomorrow: for me, for my children, for my people, and for the entire world. 

The work of eradicating poverty, fear, hunger and sickness has been our mission since our earliest days.  Like Aaron three thousand years ago and as his spiritual descendants today, it becomes our sacred duty to let go of the forces that hold us back, and pledge ourselves anew to the task ahead. We are not free to desist from it.

May God bless us with strength, may God bless us with peace.  Amen.

© 2016 by Boaz D. Heilman