Parshas Acharei Mos 5782
On the holiest day of the year, the Kohen Gadol reached his hand into a box and pulled out two lots, corresponding to the two goats selected for that day’s service. The lots determined the future of each goat as being destined either for the mizbeach, or to be thrown from a cliff in the wilderness beyond the Bais Hamikdash.
How were the goats selected, before the selection? When it came to determining which goats would be used for this process, their fates being determined by the lottery, how did these goats come to be chosen?
The answer is that the goats were standouts in their similarity to one another. The Gemara in Yoma notest that the goats needed to be of the same height, weight, and build as one another, and needed to purchsed for the same price and on the same day. These two goats are selected, because, as best as possible, they appeared to be twins.
Why is this necessary? Why is striking similarity a prerequisite in selecting the pair of goats that will be processed in the two very different manners depicted above?
Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch sees the goats as representing two different paths in life. There’s the path towards the Bais HaMikdash—towards a life in Hashem’s presence—and away from it. The selection of two identical goats makes clear that what separates the two is not inborn talent or acumen, but avodah—the willingness to work hard, to go through the process. To sacrifice.
When we see others achieve that which feels beyond our abilities, what story do we tell? Likely one outlining the advantages they’d received and the innate talents they possessed. Of course they accomplished what they did, considering all they had going for them. Of course we fell short, considering all that stood in our way.
The goats remind us not to default to that narrative. The goat that ends up in the very center of the Bais Hamikdash on Yom Kippur is simply the one that undergoes the sacrifice that puts it there. That goat was neither taller nor stronger not of better parentage than the other, it simply went through the arduous process of sacrifice.
When we say, “Well he’s a genius,” we commit two acts of disservice. The first to the alleged “genius,” as we strip away the triumph of overcoming every challenge and obstacle and distill the process of success down to a fluke of DNA. The second is to ourselves, as the true difference-makers of success, perseverance, grit, and sacrifice, are overshadowed by what we innately lacked.
The communal avodah of Yom Kippur serves as a guide for the personal one. Teshuva that apologizes for errors committed is meaningful only if accompanied by an acceptance that it didn’t need to be so. That my IQ, bank account, or physical abilities did not themselves determine the life I would and could live. A sin is only a sin if I could have chosen otherwise. The goat that lands on the altar, fully consumed in the presence of Hashem, the pinnacle of the avodah on the holiest day of the year is no different from the goat that is thrown from a cliff. There is nothing about either goat that makes clear the path it will take. So which path will we choose for ourselves?