Shevuot 13: Repentance Versus Communal Atonement

The rabbis ask a question that continues to be relevant today: does Yom Kippur atone for all sins on its own?  What is the value of repentance?  The Gemara considers different situations that might require us to know the answer to this question.  The most interesting is the problem of a person who dies, perhaps on Yom Kipur, while s/he transgresses.  There is no time for repentance.  How could s/he be atoned for before the Day of Atonement?  And might there be opportunity for repentance in the World to Come?

This tension between what is done by oneself and what is done communally is of great importance to our rabbis.  While the azazel offers our ancestors the psychological confidence about forgiveness for what we have done wrong, it is not enough.  The rabbis discuss the most heinous transgressions to demonstrate that one must take personal action to ensure that one atones properly.  Extending this conversation to our own contexts, we might infer that our community will atone for our sins on Yom Kipur, but it is our own personal responsibility to make amends for our mistakes, whether or not they are intentional.  

The rabbis consider the possibility that the inner goat only suspends punishment until the transgressor realizes his or her transgression.  Of course a number of proof texts are suggested to validate this interpretation.

The rabbis return to our last Mishna and remind us that the Yisraelim, the Kohanim and an anointed Kohen are all subject to atonement by the inner and outer goats on Yom Kippur.  Perhaps, they argue, the bull atones for Kohanim who are ritually impure and that the inner goat atones for the ritual impurity of the Yisraelim.  The rabbis walk through the actions of the Kohanim - different animal offerings, different sprinkling of blood, etc. - and consider which sins are atoned by which actions.  

In considering whether or not the transgressions of Kohanim are atoned by the azazel, we are taught that "lo ve beito" might refer to himself and his wife or it might refer to himself and other Kohanim.  At the end of our daf we learn that Rava teaches that Rabbi Shimon said that the transgressions of Kohanim are not atoned for by the azazel.