There is something deeply unsettling about the scapegoat ritual in the portion of Acharei Mot.
Something that does not allow us to remain only at the symbolic level.
Because this is not just a ritual – it is a piercing observation about human nature.

The term “scapegoat” has come to carry a psychological meaning in our time:
the transformation of a person or a group into a target –
a place onto which aggression, fear, and hatred are funneled.

And in the Torah, this is described through a precise ritual:
two identical goats-one is sacrificed, and the other is sent into the wilderness, carrying upon it the sins of the people.

But perhaps what is most profound here is not the act of sending it away,
but what happens beforehand:

The High Priest places his hands upon the goat, confesses, names the sins.
In other words, there is recognition. There is accountability and only then – release.

And when we think about it, it is impossible not to remember Joseph.

His brothers feel pain, anger, jealousy toward him – and they turn him into an object,
a target through which they can unleash the “wild beast” within themselves.

He is almost killed, sent away, cast out from the family.

And this dynamic did not remain only within the stories of the Torah.

Throughout history, entire peoples – and especially the Jewish people –
have again and again become that target, onto which the fears, hatred, and frustrations of others are projected.

And even today, in the reality we are living in, it is easy to see how this mechanism is still at work.

And this is precisely what brings me back to the ritual. Because it does not justify the act of projection -it exposes it.

And perhaps the invitation today is to choose a different way of relating to it –
a way that calls for awareness and discernment:

• What within me needs to be “offered” -something I am willing to truly see and take responsibility for, even if it is not flattering
• And what is it time to send into the wilderness – not as an act of projecting onto another, but as a willingness to stop carrying something that no longer serves me

Perhaps repair does not lie in eliminating all traces of aggression within us,
but in not turning another person into the place where we discharge it blindly.

And in days when it is so easy to be swept into a discourse of blame,
into dividing the world into “good” and “bad,” this is delicate, difficult work –
but perhaps more necessary than ever.