A Kind Place for Scapegoats

In Jewish ritual history, it was of great import to the Israelites, along with many people of the Near East, to maintain the spiritual purity of sacred spaces. This is why at the changing of the seasons, during the holiest time of the year, spiritual cleaning took center stage. To purify God’s dwelling place on earth, the holy Tent of Meeting, there was a dual goat ritual (Leviticus 16:7-23). One of the two goats was designated as an offering “to God,” as an animal sacrifice acknowledging sin. The second goat was “sent to Azazel”: Aaron, the high priest, placed his hands on the head of the second goat and confessed the Israelites’ sins, symbolically transferring the sins to the goat. Then the goat was sent alive, into the wilderness, to banish those sins forever. 

Annie Levy’s A Kind Place for Scapegoats, a midrash told from the goat’s perspective, embraces several questions around the origin of scapegoats and scapegoating. Central to her brilliant exploration is the question, “Who is responsible?” As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel tells us, “Some are guilty; all are responsible” – a theme of his life’s work and a leitmotif of our Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur season. 

Levy’s question reminds us that there are so many who are designated guilty, while those who actually perpetrated the wrongful acts wash their hands and walk away. As the founder of the “Survivor’s Shiva” (a project of www.wonderandrepair.org ), I am privy to the multitudes of stories in our Jewish communities of scapegoated children and adults. Professional and volunteer leaders are told through words and deeds that they need to hold the mistakes of others, to rid the community of responsibility for them. I see our community of survivors in Levy’s tale. And I believe in the scapegoat’s antidote she depicts. In her story and our work, I recognize the recurring truth: that we can never promise those who have been scapegoated that they will be healed, but we can, and as a Jewish community are responsible to, witness their pain in the hopes that it will lead them to a new and better place in the wilderness.

Tehilah Eisenstadt


Picture this: You are a goat. An ancient goat. An ancient goat with the soul of a precocious, wide-eyed child.

You say things like:

Being pushed out of the only community that you’ve ever known isn’t the end of the world. Although, understandably, it feels that way. You are talking about a specific, mythic event that you, an ancient goat, recently participated in. Recently survived.

You say things like:

The event itself I can’t access. So don’t ask me to. The trauma of it. Or my memory of the trauma of it. Or, since I am not the first, my memory of someone else’s trauma of it. Or the memory of their memory of their trauma.

You get the idea. Or you don’t. It’s not about you. Not yet. 

You, a goat, continue:

First accessible memory of what I now know is my new life: The sudden quiet. The noise of the event, gone. And I can no longer recall the sounds that, at that moment, I thought were all I would ever hear again. Or the last thing that I would ever hear. 

All the other sensations were surprisingly forgettable: The pushing, the hands, the blood. 

But the words. The words being whispered into my ear. Whispered so gently, it was funny how gently he was whispering these words considering what was being passed onto and into me.

And then the pulling. As soon as they were done with me, they couldn’t get me out of their presence fast enough.

And then finally, I was gone. And everything was quiet. 

Did it actually happen like that? Did it actually happen? 

That was my first thought, after the event. The peace.

It was peaceful, making my way across the sand. 

You assume it’s sand. Because you assume it’s the desert. Which, for some reason, limits your imagination. This is probably a good way to move forward here, with limited imagination, because remember, you are an ancient goat.

I remember the light too, the way it cut through the clouds. 

At one point I took a nap. Who could blame me?

And could you blame me? Of course you could. That’s how I got here in the first place.

When I woke up, I assumed I was visibly marked. It’s dangerous to be caught on your own. 

So I started moving

The direction to head in seemed obvious. I don’t know how I knew. I am not often required to listen to my intuition.

Mine just tells me to over-explain and run.

But it doesn’t mean I can’t when the opportunity presents itself. Or when there is nothing else to listen to.

Like I said. It was quiet.

It was getting dark too. I knew the way forward required me to walk through the night.

I talked myself into believing that this was a nice idea. So I did. One step at a time. Taking me farther and farther away. 

But as I walked, in the quiet, my mind became aware of all of the words that I carried, words that had been whispered and trapped in my head. Words for vile things that had been done or vile things that had been considered. Words for all kinds of hatreds and deceptions. I didn’t want them there. 

It’s one thing to be an unwilling participant in an ancient ritual. It’s another thing to find yourself trapped in an ongoing metaphor. I am not sure which is worse. 

Memories of each description stuck to me. As I walked, I shook my head left and right in some strange hope I would dislodge the words and expel them back out through my ears. 

I don’t think it works that way. You can’t unhear things.

Why did I have to hear them in the first place?

This is the ancient mythic origin of a practice that exists now. Although the goat’s gone from it. [To the goat] It’s nice to have you here now.

Why am I here now?

Because every year I find myself wondering what happens to you, in your story, once you’re sent away. I am hopeful that you’ll tell me. Tell us.

I walk through the night, alone except for all the misdeeds I’ve been forced to take with me. Around sunrise the next morning, I saw them. 

I don’t know how I knew they would be there. And they were watching me approach as if they knew I was on my way.

Which, it turns out, they did.

I stopped. 

We stared at each other. 

Then they slowly formed a large circle around me.

I didn’t have any fear left in me to feel.

So I let them.

They began, in unison, to approach me. The circle got smaller and smaller until their bodies were touching mine. And then smaller still until their weight was holding me upright.

They were holding me. I was being held. 

This is the thing I hoped for. This is what I wished for you. 

Before the event, I had never considered the need for being held. But the closeness of all these other bodies, bodies just like mine, it was kind.

Can’t say how long it continued, being held by this group of strangers. Afterward, our legs buckled and we all dropped down into the sand, content and cared for, and slept. 

And the sounds of the misdeeds in my head didn’t evaporate. But I did feel them get smaller. 

I found out later that this ritual of holding and being helped is called The Kindness.

Every year, we go out and wait for the newly arrived, to make sure that The Kindness is the first thing the newly arrived experience. Holding a stranger continues to heal each of us, year after year.

Sometimes, the newly arrived doesn’t make it past The Kindness. Everything they had endured on the day they were sent away is not always survivable. But the thought is, that if they can’t survive the event, then kindness would be a peaceful way to go. 

Can you imagine? The shunned all finding each other? Taking care of each other? 

Is this in first person or third person? 

Once awake, I am led further away from where I had started, to my new home. Although it was never stated outright, I understood that I could stay as long as I wanted. I also understood that no matter how uncomfortable things got here, I would never feel at home anywhere else. 

And things often got very uncomfortable.

To stay was to wrestle with the concept of blame. Blame was all anyone wanted to talk about. Did we deserve what had happened to us? Some thought that we did. No one ever assumed anything about anyone else but, yes, some individuals felt that the role they were cast to play was a fair and fitting one.

This is the phrase that the others in that new place used: “The role they were cast to play was a fair and fitting one.”

What they mean is that being said to be the cause of everything terrible is… correct. Even justified. That they are the source of all that is wrong. That they alone are worthy of the blame.

And maybe that’s it, the “they alone” part. They give their experience meaning by believing in its accuracy. That they are at fault. That they are to blame. 

You see them fighting amongst themselves sometimes. Trying to settle who is the most to blame. The guiltiest amongst the guilty. No amount of The Kindness can help once this spiral starts. It usually ends with someone leaving.

I am trying to conjure a new community of those who have been blamed for the wrongs of their old community. I want us all to find each other and take care of each other. I want our existence to suggest that there is a world on the other side of unjustified blame. 

Does this want to be in first person or third person?

It’s one thing to be an unwilling participant in an ancient ritual. It’s another thing to find yourself trapped in an ongoing metaphor. I am not sure which is worse. 

The rest of us try to harness our power as survivors, although we don’t use that word. We don’t often feel the need to use too many words at all. Words seem to be a sore spot for many of us. Words are not trustworthy. And what is there left to say? Rather, there is an acceptance in silence. And a softness. 

The community we’ve built, we’ve built on the principle that words hold too much power for too little usefulness. Once you’ve been blamed for everything, you too would welcome a place where words are used sparingly. 

No, that can’t be it.

Instead, we move about understanding everyone’s basic needs, basic emotional fluctuations, and basic recurring nightmares. We satisfy our need for sound through singing. We move slowly. We rest often. And once a year we go out to greet the newest arrival. With kindness. 

I’ve lost the allegory now. This conceit I am hiding behind in order to tell two stories at once.

That sounds complicated. And wordy.

The first is the story of the scapegoat, an ancient story of how the Israelites would cast off their sins each year with the help of an actual goat. One that lost an ancient lottery, wherein it was not immediately sacrificed. Instead, it received all of the wrongdoings committed by the Israelites that year. In a ritual of transmogrification, the sins of the people were magically made the sins of one very blameworthy goat. The goat was then cast out of the community and sent to its fate in hell. Or, depending on your ability to understand ancient Hebrew, led out to the garbage pits just outside the community’s walls. 

The goat that would become the scapegoat is initially in the running for the role because of its perfection. There are two perfect goats brought before the high priest who then draws lots. One goat gets a white mark and is immediately sacrificed. One gets the black mark and becomes the scapegoat. But both goats are in the running because of their perfection.

It never sat right with me. Which I suppose is the point. What does it mean for a perfect creature to be pinned with all that’s wrong with people? 

But now, the ancient ritual has been recast. We no longer need a goat. We take accountability for our misdeeds in a once-a-year collective admittance that we are flawed, individually and collectively. 

But old habits die hard: The ancient need for something that can take responsibility for our ugliness still exists. 

Does this need to be explained? 

Are you asking because it’s confusing or are you asking because it’s obvious?

I am asking because it’s painful. 

But this is the time of year to look at the painful parts. The pain we inflict and the pain that has been inflicted upon each of us by others. I want to understand how you cope.

When I sit and think about this story, I think about the very human tendency to look to blame something other than ourselves for our mistakes. I think about the little goat turned scapegoat. And the ridiculousness of being blamed for a whole group’s mistakes. 

You are telling the story of the biblical scapegoat. And what else? What’s the other story?

Perhaps it is that we still look for scapegoats.

Perhaps it is that we still create scapegoats.

Perhaps it is that we still need scapegoats.

Does it look the same as it did? A perfect creature is selected, and then all of the vile things that have been done are whispered in their ear?

No. It’s a lack of perfection that creates an ideal candidate for scapegoating. It’s the perceived difference between you and the masses that make you stand out.

Vile things are whispered, but not to you. About you.

And then you are sent away?

Sometimes. Sometimes you show yourself out. But sometimes you have nowhere else to go.

Or when an entire community is scapegoated by another, bigger, or just more powerful community. But has nowhere else to go. 

And then you are forced to remain. An outcast living among their cast-outers.

You were lucky. You found somewhere else to go. 

Come here.

What are you doing?

Sit down.

Alright.

Lean into me.

I can’t. I am much bigger than you.

I’m stronger than I look. Just lean into me.

Okay.

Just be still. You can close your eyes if you want. I won’t move. 

I think about you. A lot.

I know.

I think about the ancient scapegoats surviving and finding each other, far away from the now-blameless community. I think of these creatures as survivors, their original perfection unchanged and even amplified. To become so close to the truth of human depravity, to see the ugliest of human ugliness and survive. There is something divine in that.

And it’s sad. It is very sad this thing we do to each other. 

But rather than going back and having anything to do with the community that rejected them, they find a new community with each other. Out in the wilderness or on an ancient garbage heap. Where they happily live out their lives, independent of those that hurt them and blamed them. Where they can look each other in the eyes and know that no one is to blame for everything.

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