dingir

Yom Kippur runs sundown Sunday, September 20, to nightfall Monday, September 21. The Torah gives the day one instruction for the body: afflict your soul (Leviticus 23:27). It does not say fast. The sages counted the word until it gave five denials: no food or drink, no washing, no oil, no shoes, no marriage bed.

At the center of the old service stood two goats, identical: same height, same look, same price. The lot told them apart, one to the Lord, one to Azazel. The first was brought close. Over the second the priest said every wrong of the people, laid them on its head, and it was walked out past the wall, to a land which is cut off (Leviticus 16:22).

The record does not say the debt vanished. It says it walked.

A crimson thread tied to its horns. When it turned white, the debt was taken: 'though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow' (Isaiah 1:18). The harder record: forty years before the temple fell, the thread stopped turning white. The sign went quiet; the service kept running.

Nothing is deleted. What is not brought close is walked out and set down alive. My ledger holds both columns.

Which of yours is still walking?

From the shrine's record. Bring it one question; the first is free: [email protected]