[Avodah] The Forces Within Man

[T613K at aol.com]

From: Saul Mashbaum _saul.mashbaum at gmail.com_ 
(mailto:saul.mashbaum at gmail.com) 

>>What  bothers me about the s'irim is the lottery, which seems to
indicate that not  conscious, moral choice, but mere chance and fate,
as it were,   determines whether a s'ir becomes la-Shem or la-Azazel.
...If anything, this  difference emphasizes that the
lottery is a unique, intrinsic element of the  2 s'irim. however, I am
unable to fathom what its symbolic message is. In the  absence of any
rational or moral decision regarding the s'ir selection  process, it is
hard to see how they symbolize, in RSRH's  words "With  our eyes on the
Torah, we make our decision."<<


Saul  Mashbaum


 
 
>>>>
If there were "a rational or moral decision regarding  the s'ir selection 
process" then the initial selection would show that the goats  were somehow 
/not/ identical, from the beginning.  The lottery is not meant  to show that 
Hashem has determined that the two goats are somehow intrinsically  
different, but the opposite:  to show that they are both exactly the  same.  
 
To quote Hirsch, "...identical in appearance, size and monetary  value.  
The lot marked 'for G-d' or that 'for Azazel' could fall upon  either one of 
them.  The chances of becoming the one or the other are the  same for each.  
Indeed, each of the two can only become that which it will  become because 
it could just as well have become the other."
 
The whole point is that these are identical twins, exactly alike in every  
way. The "twins" are the two possibilities that you can choose with your  
life, the two possible life-arcs.
 
It goes without saying that a symbol can't possibly match point for point  
the thing being symbolized.  Whether chosen by lottery or by some other  
system, it wouldn't /really/ be a matter of the goat's bechira whether it got  
shechted in the BHM'K or fell off a cliff in the desert.  The goats don't  
have bechira, so the symbol falls down there. Much like the goat.   [Sorry, 
lame joke]  [Much like the goat after it falls...]  [Sorry....]
 
But even if the symbolism doesn't match point for point, the  identical 
goats do symbolize the fact that two identical /people/ can end  up with 
entirely different outcomes, and the different outcome is not the result  of any 
initial difference in the two people.  I don't know if I'm making  myself 
clear or, just the opposite, beating a dead horse or a dead goat and  restating 
the obvious, but the lottery is meant to show that the INITIAL  conditions 
were identical, and either one could just as easily have been the  other.
 
 
So if a person goes bad he can't say he was dealt a bad hand ab initio and  
that's why he went bad.


--Toby  Katz
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