Parsha Analysis - Acharei Mot – Kedoshim: The Torah's Two Goats - Jewish Wisdom: When Good And Evil Look The Same

0:00 SPEAKER_00: A burglar breaks into a house one night.

0:04 SPEAKER_00: He shines his flashlight around looking for valuables.

0:07 SPEAKER_00: He sees some silver candlesticks and puts them into his sack.

0:11 SPEAKER_00: Suddenly a voice in the dark says Heaven is watching you.

0:15 SPEAKER_00: He nearly jumps out of his skin, clicks his flashlight off and freezes.

0:20 SPEAKER_00: After a time he shakes his head, promises himself he'll take a holiday and carries on his search.

0:26 SPEAKER_00: Just as you put some jewellery into his sack he hears a voice.

0:30 SPEAKER_00: Heaven is watching you.

0:32 SPEAKER_00: Totally rattled, he shines his light around frantically looking for where the voice is coming from.

0:38 SPEAKER_00: In the corner of the room, his flashlight beam comes to rest on a parrot.

0:44 SPEAKER_00: Did you say that?

0:45 SPEAKER_00: He hisses at the parrot.

0:47 SPEAKER_00: Yes, the parrot confesses.

0:49 SPEAKER_00: Then it squawks.

0:50 SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to warn you.

0:52 SPEAKER_00: The burglar relaxes.

0:53 SPEAKER_00: Warn me, huh?

0:54 SPEAKER_00: Who do you think you are anyway?

0:57 SPEAKER_00: Moshe, replies the bird.

0:59 SPEAKER_00: Moshe the burglar laughs.

1:02 SPEAKER_00: What kind of people would name a parrot Moshe?

1:05 SPEAKER_00: The bird promptly answers.

1:07 SPEAKER_00: The same kind of people who would name their rotweiler heaven.

1:12 SPEAKER_00: In this week's Pashra Akare Mot, we read about the service that would take place in the Beitham Middash on Yom Kippur.

1:19 SPEAKER_00: One part of the service is the two goats, which in the Gomorrah in Yomah 62 Ahmad Alf says must be identical in appearance, height and value.

1:30 SPEAKER_00: There is a lottery, and one goat goes to Hashem as a Korban in the Beit Hamiddash, while the other is thrown off a cliff.

1:38 SPEAKER_00: What is going on during this unusual service?

1:42 SPEAKER_00: Why must the goats look identical if their fate is so completely different?

1:47 SPEAKER_00: What does it teach us?

1:49 SPEAKER_00: The lessons are so important for us and the way that we live today.

1:55 SPEAKER_00: The ritual of the two goats of Yom Kippur is a metaphor for the life of every one of us every single day.

2:03 SPEAKER_00: The two goats look the same, yet they represent two different options for the same life.

2:09 SPEAKER_00: This is the reason why they were identical.

2:13 SPEAKER_00: This is how life works.

2:15 SPEAKER_00: Two careers can look the same.

2:18 SPEAKER_00: Two lawyers can work for the same firm, yet one is motivated by justice and the other purely by money.

2:26 SPEAKER_00: One serves justice, one sells its soul.

2:30 SPEAKER_00: Two relationships can look the same, with the same home, children and photographs on the wall.

2:36 SPEAKER_00: Yet one relationship is healthy based on love and giving, while the other is destructive, with both people only out for what they can get.

2:45 SPEAKER_00: One is love, one is mutual exploitation.

2:49 SPEAKER_00: Two ideologies can use the same language.

2:52 SPEAKER_00: Liberation could be motivated by a genuine desire to help people become their best selves.

2:58 SPEAKER_00: Or liberation can sometimes mean merely replacing one regime with another while being just as cruel and coercive.

3:06 SPEAKER_00: Two pleasures can look the same.

3:09 SPEAKER_00: Wine can be used to sanctify Shabbat and bring some pleasure to a meal.

3:13 SPEAKER_00: It can also be used to drown sorrows and numb emotional pain.

3:18 SPEAKER_00: Two moral claims can sound equally compassionate.

3:22 SPEAKER_00: Tolerance can mean a genuine desire to allow others dignity, or it can be a refusal to call out evil and stand up when something is wrong.

3:31 SPEAKER_00: Like those goats, every day the choice is before us.

3:35 SPEAKER_00: We stand either at the entrance to the Beithamidash and a life of meaning and holiness, or we can choose a path leading to the wilderness, barrenness and waste.

3:47 SPEAKER_00: Our choices will lead us either upwards or downwards.

3:51 SPEAKER_00: The above and ill reiterates this exact point, explaining that the two goats are an allusion to Yakov and Asav.

3:59 SPEAKER_00: These were twin brothers, born to the same parents with the same lineage, in the same house with the same values.

4:06 SPEAKER_00: Yet one becomes Yakov, dedicating his life to the service of Hashem, while Asav dismisses spirituality entirely, living a life of the base physical, treating the physical world as an end in itself with no higher meaning or purpose.

4:22 SPEAKER_00: These are the two goats that appear on the service to be completely identical and yet proceed on completely divergent paths based on the choices that they make.

4:34 SPEAKER_00: Part of the lesson of the deception when Yakov dresses up as Aesav to receive the Bracha is that Yitzhak finds it hard to tell them apart.

4:44 SPEAKER_00: The most important distinctions are sometimes the hardest to detect.

4:50 SPEAKER_00: We are told in Pashabrash that Adam and Hava were both naked and they were not ashamed.

4:56 SPEAKER_00: Rushi explains on that Pasak that the Yitzhara is not within Adam until he ate from the tree.

5:04 SPEAKER_00: Adam was capable of making choices.

5:07 SPEAKER_00: However, the Yit Sahara was outside of him in the form of the Nahash.

5:12 SPEAKER_00: Inside, Adam Arisham was completely holy, with no impulses driving him towards sin.

5:19 SPEAKER_00: In order for the Yetsahara to get Adam and Hava to sin, it convinced them it would be good for them.

5:24 SPEAKER_00: The Nahash tells Hava that when she eats from the tree, her eyes will be opened and she will be like Hashem.

5:31 SPEAKER_00: This is very tempting for spiritual beings like Adam and Chava.

5:36 SPEAKER_00: Once Adam and Hava sinned, the Yetsahara was inside of them as it is today.

5:42 SPEAKER_00: That is the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

5:45 SPEAKER_00: Both impulses were now inside of humanity, the battle moved within.

5:50 SPEAKER_00: Once the Yatzsahara is inside of us, we find it hard to make distinctions between good and evil.

5:56 SPEAKER_00: We start to think that sins are mitzvot and that mitzvot are sins.

6:01 SPEAKER_00: This is the two goats, the Yetzhara and the Yetzitov, that can often look similar, but of course are not.

6:08 SPEAKER_00: So we can convince ourselves that Samlashon Hara is a mitzvah, that the person we are telling really needs to know.

6:15 SPEAKER_00: And we can tell ourselves that missing shul on Shabbas and staying in bed is good because we had a hard week and our Shem would want us to rest.

6:23 SPEAKER_00: The two identical goats are necessary, because without them we would not be able to make a choice.

6:30 SPEAKER_00: The basis of Torah is that we are made but Selem Elokim in the image of Hashem, and therefore we have free will, we have the ability to choose.

6:39 SPEAKER_00: That means that the Yetzahara and Yetzatov must be equally strong.

6:43 SPEAKER_00: In other words, like the goats, they must be identical, because if one of them was stronger than the other, we would have no choice but to follow the stronger driving force.

6:53 SPEAKER_00: The Gomorrah in Sukha 52 Ahmed Alf says that at the end of days Hashem will bring the Yet Zahara and slaughter it.

7:01 SPEAKER_00: For the Sadikim it will appear as high as a mountain, and for the wicked it will appear as a mere strand of hair.

7:09 SPEAKER_00: The righteous will weep because they won't believe that they were able to overcome such a mountain so high.

7:16 SPEAKER_00: The wicked will weep that they were unable to overcome such a small strand of hair.

7:22 SPEAKER_00: The Gomorrah explains that initially the Yetsahara is like a small strand of a spider's web.

7:29 SPEAKER_00: Ultimately is like the thick ropes of a wagon.

7:33 SPEAKER_00: As a person grows spiritually, the Yitzhara grows with them.

7:38 SPEAKER_00: This is in order to maintain balance which provides the platform for a person to always choose.

7:44 SPEAKER_00: That is why when Mashiach comes and Hashem slaughters the Yetzhara, it will appear like a mountain to the righteous and a small hair to the wicked.

7:54 SPEAKER_00: In other words, however great or evil the human being, the goats remain identical.

8:01 SPEAKER_00: And this confusion does not only happen inside individuals, it can happen to civilizations.

8:08 SPEAKER_00: The challenge of the identical goats is to recognise that they are not the same, that one represents good and one represents evil.

8:18 SPEAKER_00: Modern culture often confuses neutrality with morality, tolerance with virtue, and refuses to distinguish between aggressor and victim.

8:29 SPEAKER_00: For so many in the West today, like our goats, everything is identical.

8:34 SPEAKER_00: Everything is the same.

8:35 SPEAKER_00: There is no right or wrong.

8:36 SPEAKER_00: There is just different perspectives.

8:39 SPEAKER_00: It's not that the West doesn't believe in morality at all.

8:42 SPEAKER_00: It is that for the West there are no longer fixed, permanent moral values to profess.

8:48 SPEAKER_00: In a secular society that has rejected the idea of sin, there no longer seems to be a belief in absolute evil.

8:56 SPEAKER_00: So when Israel, a democracy that values law, liberty and life, fights regimes or terror groups like Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah that reject those values, the moral difference should be obvious.

9:10 SPEAKER_00: Yet this is not the case.

9:12 SPEAKER_00: Ethical relativism and situational morality now plague the West, so the two goats seem exactly the same.

9:20 SPEAKER_00: They can no longer tell the difference between Yaqov and Aesaf.

9:25 SPEAKER_00: Of course, between those two poles lie many stages.

9:29 SPEAKER_00: Both poles are parts of a continuum.

9:31 SPEAKER_00: Both lie within a larger field that unites them.

9:35 SPEAKER_00: Indeed, if this were not the case, then those on the side of good can have no effect on evil.

9:42 SPEAKER_00: The ability to affect evil is only because ultimately it is all connected.

9:48 SPEAKER_00: The unwillingness, however, to call out evil means it advances and grows.

9:54 SPEAKER_00: Islamic fundamentalism has expanded across Western Europe because there has been a lack of willingness by European governments to call it out for what it is.

10:04 SPEAKER_00: Life is sacred.

10:06 SPEAKER_00: There is an absolute truth that requires no further exploration or contemplation.

10:12 SPEAKER_00: Therefore, murder and terror, in whatever guise, simply to further what ultimately is a political cause, should elicit outrage and disgust.

10:21 SPEAKER_00: It goes against everything that we believe.

10:24 SPEAKER_00: In the Torah, Hashem gives us the choice between a life of meaning, holiness and good and its opposite.

10:32 SPEAKER_00: Much of the West seems to have lost the ability to know the difference.

10:36 SPEAKER_00: Ultimately there is one goat for Hashem and one for Azazel.

10:41 SPEAKER_00: What is striking is that the goats are chosen by lottery.

10:45 SPEAKER_00: Why a lottery?

10:46 SPEAKER_00: Why can't the Kohen Gadol simply choose one for Hashem and the other for Azazel?

10:52 SPEAKER_00: Because for free will to exist, the choices before us must often appear evenly matched.

10:59 SPEAKER_00: If evil always looked ugly and good always looked beautiful, there will be no challenge and no real choice.

11:05 SPEAKER_00: Like the goats, the options before us are often identical on the surface.

11:11 SPEAKER_00: That is why life can sometimes feel like a goral, a lottery.

11:15 SPEAKER_00: Two opportunities, two voices, two paths, both seem reasonable, both can be justified, both can even wear the language of virtue.

11:26 SPEAKER_00: That was the sin of Adam and Hava.

11:28 SPEAKER_00: The tree did not appear evil, it appeared wise, elevating, desirable.

11:34 SPEAKER_00: So how do we choose when logic alone cannot decide?

11:38 SPEAKER_00: We choose based on what we are attached to.

11:40 SPEAKER_00: A person who is attached to ego will choose one way.

11:44 SPEAKER_00: A person attached to comfort will choose another.

11:47 SPEAKER_00: A person attached to Hashem will choose differently.

11:51 SPEAKER_00: Rav Solovechik explains that Hashem is one, there is nothing outside him.

11:56 SPEAKER_00: Rav Cook teaches that the divine image within us draws us back to our source.

12:01 SPEAKER_00: The closer a person is to Hashem, the clearer the choice becomes.

12:06 SPEAKER_00: What looked like a lottery to the eye is no lottery to the soul.

12:11 SPEAKER_00: That is why choosing Torah is not merely choosing rules, it is choosing truth over illusion, essence over impulse, and closeness to Hashem over distance.

12:23 SPEAKER_00: The Gomorrah in Kadush in 30 Ahmed Bet sheds more light on all of this.

12:27 SPEAKER_00: The Gomorrah says that Hashem said to Klali Shrael, I created the evil inclination and I created the Torah as its antidote.

12:36 SPEAKER_00: That seems pretty straightforward.

12:38 SPEAKER_00: The way to defeat the Yetsahara is with Torah.

12:42 SPEAKER_00: However, the Gomorrah is far more nuanced.

12:45 SPEAKER_00: Although most English translations say antidote, that is not the Hebrew word.

12:50 SPEAKER_00: The Gomorrah does not say antidote, it says Tavlin, spice.

12:56 SPEAKER_00: Why?

12:58 SPEAKER_00: What spices do a change, enhance, and add to food to make it more pleasant, palatable and tasty?

13:05 SPEAKER_00: The Gomorrah in Yomah 69 Ahmed Bet explains that we need the Yat Sahara.

13:11 SPEAKER_00: Without it the world will be destroyed, as there would be no desire to procreate.

13:16 SPEAKER_00: At its heart, the Yatsahara is pure unadulterated physical desire.

13:22 SPEAKER_00: If it takes charge of you, that leads to a life of physical desire with no spirituality or meaning.

13:28 SPEAKER_00: That is a.

13:30 SPEAKER_00: However, with direction, the Yet Sahara can lead mankind to scientific endeavor, material progress, and the continuation of humanity.

13:39 SPEAKER_00: That is why Torah is the Tovlin, the spice.

13:43 SPEAKER_00: It can influence and direct the Yet Sahara, not to eliminate it, but to direct it and give it a flavor so it enhances and doesn't destroy.

13:52 SPEAKER_00: When we choose Hashem in a life of Torah, we can choose the path of holiness, spirituality and meaning.

14:00 SPEAKER_00: Not because we always fully understand the difference between the identical goats, but because the Torah and our dedication to Hashem directs us to make the right choices.

14:11 SPEAKER_00: If not, our lives become a lottery.

14:15 SPEAKER_00: In Seifa Devarim in Pashanitzavim, we are told that Hashem is placed before us life and the good and death and the evil.

14:23 SPEAKER_00: We are told to choose life.

14:25 SPEAKER_00: The ceremony of the goats on Yom Kippur puts that choice strictly in front of us.

14:31 SPEAKER_00: Will we choose life, holiness, spirituality, and good?

14:35 SPEAKER_00: Or do we want to end up in the wilderness and live a life without meaning or virtue?

14:41 SPEAKER_00: What the identical goats come to teach us is that the difference is not always obvious.

14:47 SPEAKER_00: However, if we choose to serve Hashem and ensure that Torah is our guide, we can navigate these choices and live our best life.

14:55 SPEAKER_00: Every day two goats stand before us.

14:59 SPEAKER_00: They may look the same.

15:01 SPEAKER_00: One leads to holiness and one to emptiness.

15:05 SPEAKER_00: Torah teaches us how to tell the difference.

15:08 SPEAKER_00: Hashem says choose life.

15:11 SPEAKER_00: The choice is between two goats.

15:15 SPEAKER_00: Which one will you choose?