From the sources by Eliezer Segal: The thin red line

By Eliezer Segal

(AJNews) – The tractate in the Mishnah tractate that is devoted to the Day of Atonement is quite thorough in describing the festival rituals as outlined in the Torah. Central to that description is the account of how the high priest designated two goats; one was to be burned on the altar as an atoning sin-offering, and the other—the original “scapegoat”—was to be symbolically loaded with the sins of the people and then driven off into the wilderness.

At this point the Mishnah inserts an additional detail that is not found in the biblical text: At the time of the scapegoat’s selection, as the animal was standing at the temple gate from which it was to emerge, and before the high priest laid his hands on its head to confess the sins of the people, he tied a strip of scarlet wool onto its head.

Later on, Rabbi Ishmael speaks of a scarlet ribbon that was tied to the sanctuary entrance; and attests that when the scapegoat arrived in the wilderness, it would turn white. This was understood as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about Israel’s future redemption: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as scarlet, they shall be like wool.” Elsewhere, the Mishnah lists the scarlet ribbon as one of the items that were purchased from the temple treasury. A tradition cited in the Talmud states that the person escorting the goat divided the ribbon into two parts, one of which he tied to a rock on the cliff where the animal was released, while the other he tied between its horns.

Scholars have observed that ceremonies involving scarlet threads occur elsewhere in biblical laws and narratives, especially in contexts involving purification or making visible distinctions between degrees of holiness. The Hebrew sources bear a similarity to numerous rites that were practiced in ancient Near Eastern lands, such as Syria and Anatolia (today’s Turkey) as recorded in Hittite texts, where scarlet threads served as conduits for the removal of disease, defilement or sin.

The sages of the Talmud proposed diverse explanations for why it was necessary to place the ribbons in various places. According to Rav Joseph, by placing them on different parts of the goats’ bodies—on the neck of the burnt offering and between the horns of the scapegoat—they could forestall possible confusion between distinct animals that were otherwise similar in their physical appearances.

The rabbis tried to balance their concerns that the people might notice the ribbon’s auspicious whitening either too early in the atonement process—in which case it might produce overconfidence—or too late, when it might cause them to despair of divine forgiveness.

Although the ritual of the scarlet thread was not attested in the Bible, it was known to an early Christian theological work known as the “Epistle of Barnabas,” probably composed in the early second century C.E. in Alexandria. The Epistle’s main objective was to demonstrate that the commandments of the Torah were not meant to be performed literally, but rather they were to be understood as allegories for religious doctrines. The author argued that their chief purpose was to prepare the people for the arrival of the Christian saviour, as the laws foreshadow the events of Jesus’s life and crucifixion—a trope designated as “prefiguration” in Christian theological parlance.

One of the rituals that he adduced in that connection was that of the Yom Kippur scapegoat. The image of a wretched victim bearing the sins of the people and being cast off in disgrace into the wilderness, provided the Epistle with an apt paradigm for the humiliation of Jesus in the crucifixion narrative.

The Mishnah tells us that as the scapegoat was led out to its destination, the “Babylonians” (identified in a talmudic tradition as Alexandrians) would hurry it along by plucking at its hair and crying: “Take our sins and go, take our sins and go, and do not leave them with us!” The Epistle presented this occurrence—not mentioned in the Bible—as an archetype for the humiliation of Jesus as described in their Gospels. The Roman soldiers, mocking the claim that he was “king of the Jews,” stripped him, clothed him in a scarlet robe (a prerogative of royalty) and a crown of thorns, and spat upon him as they led him out to his execution.

Dovetailing precisely with the description in rabbinic oral tradition, Barnabas paraphrases the Yom Kippur scapegoat ceremony:

“And all of you spit upon it, and pierce it, and encircle its head with scarlet wool, and thus let it be driven into the wilderness. And when all this has been done, he who bears the goat brings it into the desert, and takes the wool off from it.”

Of course, Jewish interpreters found multiple layers of spiritual symbolism in the ribbon of scarlet wool that turned white as snow to designate the divine forgiveness of Israel’s sins.

The medieval Provençal scholar Menahem Meiri derived homiletical insight from some basic facts about coloured wool: He noted that unprocessed wool is white and only becomes red by means of human intervention, through  the process of being dyed. This detail teaches us to always keep in mind that humans were created in an intrinsic state of moral purity, and that we must accept the responsibility for tainting ourselves through our sins. Accordingly, the rite of the scarlet ribbon should inspire us to seek divine forgiveness and restore that primordial state of wool-like innocence that was promised in Isaiah’s vision..

Meiri said that he composed his treatise on repentance in response to a challenge from a Christian friend who charged that Judaism did not deal seriously with sinfulness.

Indeed, the rabbi’s optimistic viewpoint of humanity’s essential goodness marked a powerful antithesis to the Christian doctrine of “original sin.”

Eliezer Segal is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter.