Amitz Koach

 Amitz Koach

The Torah prescribes a dramatic ceremony of expiation to be performed on Yom Kippur.  This was the core of the service in the Temples, and stopped after their destruction, along with all the other sacrificial rites.

 

It is hard for me, a modern person to understand how this works.  I live in a culture that finds animal sacrifice alien and adds adjectives like primitive and cruel to this unfamiliar process.  We do not have this ritual anymore, but we are asked to imagine it.

 

In our machzor, the description is embedded in a highly structured poem written over 1000 years ago in Italy by Meshulam ben Kalonymous.  It is not the most difficult piyut, liturgical poem, to understand, but I need the help of the translation and it is slow going. The piyyut is not a mere description of the events, it explicates and comments upon this mystery

 

How can I relate to an early medieval poem describing an ancient service that is far from the familiar; a service that is scorned by the ambient culture. 

This service brings kaparah, a word that is the root of Yom kippur.

 Translation does not capture the various facets of the word.  It has elements of covering up, it conveys compensation ( kofer)  for damages, it is related to renunciation( kafirah) ; and it means atonement; and it means that atonement may have all of these aspects inside it.

 

Kaparah comes from Gd;, it is not a natural thing, it  is not something to be expected, it should, literally, not be taken for granted.  I cannot fathom the entity that will grant kapara; I cannot understand the process by which it takes effect.

It is not surprising that I do not easily understand a poem that describes it.  

 

Yom kippur is the opportunity to explore this deep secret, and whatever insights I can gain from this process are treasures

A small example:

 

The piyyut begins by describing creation and surveys the first 6 days as described in Genesis.  When it comes to the creation of the human it says

 

הִקְרַֽצְתָּ גֹּֽלֶם מֵחֹֽמֶר בְּתַבְנִית חוֹתָמֶֽךָ. .

 

You formed a shape, a golem from clay in the imprint of your seal.

 

This poem was written 500 years before Judah Lowe, the Maharal of Prague, the fabricator of the famous Golem was born. What does it mean? How does it fit?

 

Welcome to the mystery.