In 2030 we will celebrate the 500-year anniversary of when William Tyndale introduced the word “scapegoat” into the English language. As he was preparing the first English-language translation of the Bible, Tyndale sought a word to describe the second goat of the mysterious Yom Kippur service we read about in this week’s parsha, when “Aaron must place lots upon the two he-goats, one lot for God and the other lot for Azazel.” The goat selected by the former lot is sacrificed up to the Lord as an offering. The other is to be “sen[t] away into the desert of Azazel.” It is, then, the escape-goat, or, in brief, the scapegoat: By the operation of providence, it escapes the fate ordained for the sacrificial goat, flees for the desert, and lives another day.
Thus is the way of goats. It is not so with men.
We, unlike the goats, have the freedom to choose our own destiny. Commenting on this week’s parsha, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch teaches us that the two goats represent the two diverging roads a man may travel: He may consecrate his life to something or Someone higher, or, gripped by fear or pride or both, he may choose to escape into the wilderness.
And those who choose the wilderness, Rabbi Hirsch observed, often mock those who chose a life of sacrifice, believing themselves to be happy even as they wander further and further into the desolate desert, forever lost. Because, Rabbi Hirsch concluded, there is no “safe harbor” version of life. It doesn’t exist. Our choice is between standing up for what’s right even when it is difficult and requires immense sacrifices, or escaping it only to realize that instead of free we’re forever lost.
My late grandfather, Emil Bezverkhny z”l, understood this idea perfectly.
Among the few possessions our family, refugees, had brought to the USA was a yellowing manuscript, an account of my grandfather's life in the Soviet Union. Although it was written four decades earlier, much of it felt fresh and strangely relevant.
A brilliant physicist, Emil was also an unrepentant and proud Jew, a crime for which he was blacklisted by no fewer than 72 research institutions, universities, then as now, being inhospitable to Jews who refused to denounce their tradition and beliefs. He was surveilled by the KGB, and when he was offered the face-saving measure of resigning his job voluntarily, he refused: if they wanted to fire him, he told the authorities, they would have to do so publicly and without any pretenses. He fought for his name and his dignity, preferring penury to the loss of his honor, exercised his rights all the way up to the premier of the Soviet Union – and, incredibly, won.
As I learned while translating my grandfather’s memoir into English—published early next month under the title The Penny is Gone—the comrades who watched him fight the good fight were not impressed. In fact, they laughed at the stubborn Emil, believing him to be silly and themselves to be clever and free. They couldn’t figure out why Emil would choose to make the sacrifices he did, why he would choose to offer himself up to HaShem rather than grovel before the Communist Party and win back his job and his salary.
On his deathbed, at the much too young age of 54, his last words were these: “My heart gave out, but never my dignity.”
I thought of my grandfather while reading this week’s parsha. As Jews are once again being made to feel unwelcome in too many corners of polite society, may we all merit to follow his lead and remember that, sometimes, a life of worthy and dignified sacrifice is much greater than a mad and desperate dash into the arid wilderness.
Emil Pitkin is a Wharton professor and author of The Penny Is Gone, available online here.
