The Evolution of Yom Kippur

The Evolution of Yom Kippur "on one foot":

The way that Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is celebrated now is very different from how it has been over time.

What the Torah Says About Yom Kippur: Part 1

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Leviticus, from the holiday cycle. When it says "seventh month", it is counting from Nisan, the month when Passover falls. Today, we consider the month of Tishrei, when Yom Kippur is, to be the first month.

Some would say that people who do not practice "self-denial" (fasting) on Yom Kippur are cut off from their community today, at least in their personal feeling that they are not doing something that everybody else is. (Nonetheless, if one needs to eat and/or drink for medical reasons, that takes priority over fasting -- the Talmud says that one breaks Shabbat in order to live to more Shabbats (Yoma 85b:3), and how much more so for Yom Kippur.)

What do we learn from this text about what Yom Kippur looked like?

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Numbers, from the holiday sacrifice section that describes the "sacred BBQ of holidays". This is the Maftir for Yom Kippur morning -- we read about the sacrifice for Yom Kippur since we no longer have the Temple to offer it.

What do we learn from this text about how Yom Kippur looked like?

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Leviticus, from a description of Yom Kippur as it also was in the time of the Temple. When it says "the priest who has been anointed and ordained to serve in place of his father", this refers to future high priests after Aaron.

What do we learn from this text about how Yom Kippur looked like?

What the Torah Says About Yom Kippur: Part 2

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Leviticus, giving a description of Yom Kippur as it also looked at the time of the Temple. This is the Torah reading for Yom Kippur morning.

What do we learn from this text about how Yom Kippur looked like?

But maybe the story is more complicated

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Zechariah, written 520-518 BCE after the Jews return from the Babylonian Exile. This verse comes in a discussion of Jews returning to Jerusalem.

Some have looked at this verse and said, "It's talking about fast days but not mentioning Yom Kippur, so maybe Yom Kippur wasn't a fast day until later on and then it was written into the Torah." Others have looked at this verse and said, "It's pretty clear from the context that this is about fast days concerning mourning for Jerusalem, so naturally Zechariah didn't include Yom Kippur."

Context: This is from the Biblical Book of Ezekiel, talking about the holidays that would be celebrated in the rebuilt Temple after the Babylonian Exile. It is interesting to note that Yom Kippur doesn't make the cut, but Passover and Sukkot do. Some see this as evidence that Yom Kippur wasn't a holiday until later on and then it was put into the Torah.

Yom Kippur in the Time of the Second Temple

Context: What follows is from the Mishnah, Masechet (Tractate) Yoma, which is about Yom Kippur. The selections are chosen because they reflect what is in the Avodah Section of the Yom Kippur Musaf service, where we read about Yom Kippur in the Second Temple now that we can no longer do it that way. Note that the Torah readings for Yom Kippur were done by the High Priest in the time of the Second Temple (Mishnah Yoma 7:1).

​​​​​​​Yom Kippur After the Second Temple

Context: After the Second Temple was destroyed, Yom Kippur still had to be observed, but now it would need to be done differently. Based on the Torah saying all three times that Yom Kippur was to be a day of self-denial, the Rabbis came up with a new way of observing it. While the first 7 chapters of Mishnah Yoma are about the Temple and the High Priest, Chapter 8 concerns everybody else. Here is a sampling of texts from it.

​​​​​​​Parallel Practices in the Ancient Near East

Dr. Reuven Hammer

The rites of purgation described in Leviticus 16 resemble those found in other ancient religions. In fact, the entire biblical ritual of kaparah can best be understood against the background of ancient Near Eastern religions. The fifth day of the 10-day Babylonian new year festival, for example, included a rite called kuppuru, in which a ram was beheaded and its body used to absorb the impurity of the sacred rooms of the temple. Other parts of the animal were thrown into the river, while the officiants were quarantined in the wilderness. The temple was doused and fumigated. Later, sins were confessed and a criminal was paraded and beaten.

The biblical ritual contains many similar features but, as Theodor Gaster points out, has transformed its pagan antecedent. Carried out “before the Lord,” it is no longer “a mere mechanical act of purgation.… The people had to be cleansed not for themselves but for their God: ‘before the Lord shall you be clean’ (Lev. 16:30). Sin and corruption were now regarded as impediments not merely to their material welfare and prosperity but to the fulfillment of their duty to God” [Festivals of the Jewish Year, 1952, p. 144].

The priest was to bring a sin offering that would “make expiation for himself and his household” (Lev. 16:11), to enter the Holy of Holies and place sacrificial blood on the cover of the ark, known as the “atonement seat” (Lev. 16:12-14), and thus to “make expiation in the Shrine” (Lev. 16:17). He then purged the altar by applying sacrificial blood to it: “Thus he shall cleanse it of the uncleanness of the Israelites and consecrate it” (Lev. 16:18-19). Thus, although similar concepts existed in all religions of the time, the Torah eliminated the demonic and magical elements of impurity from the Yom Kippur ritual. Instead, it emphasized that the closer the worshiper came to the presence of God–that is, to holiness–the more restrictions there were in order to ensure ritual cleanliness.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-kippur-observances-through-the-second-temple-period/

This article comes from MyJewishLearning.com, a respected source of trustworthy Jewish information.

Jewish Virtual Library

The origins of Yom Kippur are unclear. It is not mentioned in the list of holidays to be observed when the Temple destroyed by the Babylonians was rebuilt. Zecharia omits Yom Kippur from the fast days Jews are to follow after their return from captivity, and Ezra says nothing about it in his instructions on preparing for Sukkot.

Elon Gilad argues that the biblical references to the Day of Atonement (Numbers 29:7-11 and Leviticus 16:1-34; 23:26-32) were “inserted by priests during the Second Temple period to validate new rites added to purify the Temple in advance of” Sukkot. He also posits that Yom Kippur may have been inspired by Akitu, a Babylonian festival marking the beginning of the new year, which has several similarities to the Jewish holiday.

The fifth day of Akitu was the only day the king entered the sanctuary of the Babylonian temple. Similarly, the Day of Atonement was the only time the high priest of the Israelites would enter the Holy of Holies (where the Ark of the Covenant was kept). The Babylonian king would tell his deity that he had not sinned; by contrast, the Jewish priest would confess the sins of the Israelites over the head of a live goat. The animal would then be sent away into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:21). This type of ritual performed by Jews and others gave rise to the term “scapegoat.”

Fasting is the practice most associated with Yom Kippur, but the Bible does not explicitly call for Jews to refrain from eating or drinking. The phrase “ye shall afflict your souls” is used, which is interpreted to mean fasting because that is the meaning elsewhere.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yom-kippur-history-and-overview

This article comes from JewishVirtualLibrary.org a respected source of trustworthy Jewish information.

Roy Gane

As the Israelites did on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16), other ancient Near Easterners periodically cleansed their sacred precincts and/or sacred objects contained in them. While some Anatolians purified a new temple with blood, other substances were generally used.

The Sumerian Nanshe Hymn mentions purification of the temple belonging to the goddess Nanshe : “[ ] her house Sirara where water is sprinkled. . . .”

On the fourth day of the Hittite Ninth Year Festival of Telipinu, images of several deities (including the god Telipinu) and a cult pedestal were ceremonially transported on a cart from Telipinu’s temple to a river, in which they were washed.

Purgation of the god Marduk’s Esagila temple complex in Babylon was accomplished by sprinkling water, sounding a copper bell, and carrying around a censer and torch inside the temple. Then the Ezida guest cella of the god Nabû was purified in two stages. The first stage included not only sprinkling holy water and carrying a censer and torch, but also smearing the doors with cedar oil and wiping (Akkadian kuppuru, cognate to Hebrew kipper, “purge”) the cella with the decapitated carcass of a ram. The second purification of the Ezida involved setting up a kind of canopy called “the Golden Heaven” and reciting an incantation calling on the gods to exorcise demons from the temple.

Composed centuries before the Israelite Day of Atonement “judgment day” began (Lev 16), the Sumerian Nanshe Hymn similarly expresses the concept that human beings would be annually judged by their deity. The Hymn describes a New Year celebration at which the goddess Nanshe is portrayed as holding a yearly review of persons economically dependent on her temple. Depending on whether they were faithful in observing her ritual and ethical standards throughout the year and in coming to her temple to participate at the New Year, she would renew or terminate their contracts.

http://archive.atsjats.org/Gane,_R._-_Unifying_Logic_of_Israelite_Purification_Offerings.pdf

This seems to come from an academic source and is probably trustworthy as far as an academic study of the Bible goes.

Zondervan Academic

While this information comes from a Christian website, I believe that this particular set of information is trustworthy.

Appendix A: Other Near Eastern "Sending Away" Rituals

Near Eastern Rituals of Sending Away an Animal

Sending away rituals generally involve dispatching to an uninhabited place an animal carrying on its body abstract evils—such as impurity, bad words, curses, etc.—or plagues and disease. After the evils or disease are transferred from a place or people to that dispatched animal, its release purifies the territory and/or cures the people.

Here are some examples from several cultures of the 3^rd, 2^nd and 1^st millennia B.C.E.:

An Eblaite Goat Ritual

The most ancient example of a sending away ritual was uncovered in the Ebla archives (Tell Mardikh in Modern Syria) from the twenty-fourth century B.C.E. A tablet describes a ritual in which an animal is sent away in order to purify the house of the dead prior to a royal wedding:

We purify the mausoleum before the entrance of (the gods) Kura and Barama. A goat, a silver bracelet (hanging from) its neck, towards the steppe of Alini we let it go.^[6]

Here the goat is sent out, dressed up in a decorative silver bracelet,^[7] and carries with it the impurity, allowing the gods, and later the king and queen, to enter the mausoleum as part of the wedding ceremony.

A Multi-animal Ritual from Hatti

A Hurro-Hittite rite for purifying the king and queen, recorded in the latter half of the 2^nd millennium B.C.E. by the name “The Ritual of Šamuha” and found in the archives of Hattuša (Bogazköy in modern Turkey), states:

[The exorcist] releases [one bull] for [the king], but one cow, ewe, and nanny goat [fo]r the queen’s implements—[all] as a nakušši (“sent-away”)^[8]—and [th]en declares as follows:

“Whatever evil word, false oath, curse, (or) [im]purity has been committed in the sight of the deity—may these nakuššis [c]arry them [off] from before the deity. May the deity and the ritual patron (=king and queen) be purified of these things!”^[9]

According to this text, the exorcist lets loose a number of live animals, referred to as nakuššis, which carry off abstract evils, and by doing so, purifies the patients and the deity alike. Interestingly, the purification of the deity here is consistent with the Priestly view propounded in the Pentateuch that the impurity of the Temple is caused by human sin.^[10]

A Mouse Ritual from Hatti

A Luwian-Hittite ritual from the same age and site, transmitted by the old woman Ambazzi, describes how the exorcist sends a mouse that is tied with a red thread, previously bound upon the “patrons” (i.e., the patients), into an uninhabited region:

She (=the exorcist) wraps a small piece of tin in a thread and binds it around the right hand and foot of the (ritual) patron[s].

Then (she) takes it from them, binding it around a mouse, (saying):

“I have taken the [e]vil from you. I have bound it around the mouse. May [th]is [mo]use carry it to the high mountains, to the deepest valle[ys], to the long roads.”

Then they release the mouse, (saying):

“Zarni[za], Tarpattašši—You, take this for yourself, and we shall [gi]ve you (something) [el]se to [e]at.”^[11]

This ritual has several significant connections with the Israelite scapegoat ritual. Firstly, it notes specifically that the mouse is to be sent into an uninhabited region, just as the biblical scapegoat is to be sent to “inaccessible region” (ארץ גזירה). At the same time, however, the mouse is said to be an offering for the minor gods Zarniza or Tarpattašši.^[12]

This is highly reminiscent of the biblical description of the scapegoat, in which the sins are carried by the animal to the wilderness area, while dedicated to Azazel, thereby transferring the impurity from YHWH’s realm to another.^[13] Secondly, this rite—as other Luwian-Hittite rites which are not cited here—includes the tying of a thread around the sent-away animal and a pronouncement over it. This thread is associated here with the evil whose transfer to the mouse effects the removal of the evil.^[14] While this custom is absent in the Bible, it is a part of the Mishnaic scapegoat ritual (Yoma 4:2).^[15]

An Ugaritic Goat Ritual

In the latter half of the second millennium B.C.E., Ugarit (Ras Shamra in Modern Syria) had the following comprehensive wording for, apparently, the same practice of sending away an animal when a danger threatens the city and its citizens:

If a city is captured (or) if the people die, (all) the people shall take a goat and lead it far off.^[16]

In contrast to the rituals of sending away a live animal into an uninhabited area practiced in the Syro-Anatolian region, the Mesopotamian equivalents usually include an animal carcass (or its skin) for “transporting” impurity.^[17] Nevertheless, a few Neo-Assyrian rites points to a closely-corresponding worldview of the Syro-Anatolian rituals, including the biblical one.

A Neo-Assyrian Frog Ritual

A ritual recorded on a Neo-Assyrian tablet describes how a frog is brought to a sick person, who must then pronounce the following words three times:

“Frog, you know the ‘grain’-disease which seized me, [but I do not know it]. Frog, [you know] the li’bu-disease which seized me, [but I do not know it]. When you (try to) hop off and return to your waters, you will return [the evil to] its steppe.”^[18]

After the sick person spits into the frog’s mouth three times, symbolically passing the illness onto it through the patient’s saliva, the exorcist takes the frog to the steppe, where he ties a red-and-white thread to its feet, fastening them with thorns. This sent-away frog thus carries away the person’s illness to its own natural habitat which, although it is in fact water, is twice referred to as a steppe.

A Neo-Assyrian Billy Goat Ritual

In this Neo-Assyrian ritual, a billy goat is tied to the head of the sick person’s bed and the following morning led alive into the steppe—together with a bough, a staff adorned with red-dyed wool, and a full cup of water. The red-colored staff and cup are laid down along the way, while the billy goat is taken to the end of the journey with the bough. Only then it is slaughtered, and the ritual is completed with its carcass.^[19] Notably, the fact that it is led into the steppe —i.e., the perimeter of the inhabited world—while still alive, diverges from the Mesopotamian customary practice of “transporting” impurity and is a reminiscent of what is done in the biblical and other Syro-Anatolian scapegoat ritual.^[20]

Apotropaic Sending-Away Rituals and the Biblical Texts

The extant ancient Near Eastern texts describe an apotropaic practice of sending away a live animal to an uninhabited region in order to ward off any malevolence threatening people or a place, such as evil, impurity, or plague. As the examples noted above and others reveal, the affliction, after having been removed from the body of the patients, is “loaded” onto the sent-away animal, with either a verbal accompaniment or with threads tied around its body. Following the release of the live animal, it is sometimes said that the entity, whether a god or a person, that encounters it receives the malevolence it carries. Thus, finally, the patient is purified.

This fits with the meaning of the sent away animals in the metzora and scapegoat rituals. In the former the impurity of the person is transferred to the bird, and in the latter the impurity of the temple / the sins of the people are transferred to the billy goat. When the animals are sent out into the uninhabited wilderness, the impurities go along with them, no longer able to harm people.

A Shared Ritual Tradition

Some may argue that the biblical scapegoat rite was influenced by Hittite culture, despite the substantial geographic and chronological disparities between the two cultures, but this is unlikely. Rather, this practice’s wide distribution, from the 24^th century onward, among the inhabitants of Ebla and Ugarit, as well as the Luwians and the Hurrians—in contrast to its rarity in Mesopotamia—demonstrates that this is another shared practice of the Syro-Anatolian region, which the ancient Israelite civilization is part of.^[21]

Additional examples for this shared cultural region include the purification by blood and the burning of sacrifices on altars, which have been found or are echoed in neighboring cultures stretching from Asia Minor through Syria and down to the Sinai Peninsula.^[22] In speaking of such practices, it is best not to speak of the Israelites borrowing the custom either directly or through nomadic mediators, but of Israel inheriting them from their predecessors of the 2^nd millennium Syro-Anatolian region.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-scapegoat-ritual-and-its-ancient-near-eastern-parallels

Appendix B: Thoughts on Mikvah before Yom Kippur

The Lessons of Mikvah for Yom Kippur

By Rabbi Benjy Forester

Used with permission of the author

Several years ago, I began immersing in a mikvah leading up to the High Holidays, specifically before Yom Kippur.

The mikvah is the Jewish ritual bath, perhaps best known for its use related to taharat hamishpacha ("family purity") practices, and for the final ritual of a Jewish conversion.

But mikvah 's uses are manifold, and the ritual of immersing in a mikvah is one that I am personally fond of. I immersed in the mikvah to mark my engagement and my marriage--and also the beginning and end of rabbinical school. I find the ritual of entering the natural waters a powerful marker of new beginnings.

Because Yom Kippur represents our perennial new beginning, immersion in a mikvah is a most fitting ritual. Now, if you paused here to double check your calendar and make sure that Yom Kippur isn't next week, let me assure you, you still have plenty of time! It falls on Oct. 12 this year, with the fast starting the previous evening.

So…why am I talking about Yom Kippur now? Our traditions hold that it is something to prepare for, well in advance.

I believe that Yom Kippur itself functions like a mikvah for the entire Jewish people, cleansing us of our iniquities, and releasing us pure and refreshed into our new year. And I believe that the process of preparing for the mikvah symbolizes preparing for the High Holidays. Starting now, as we near the month of Av.

You see, when somebody visits a mikvah , they don't just walk right into the pool. First, they cleanse themselves and remove their clothing and jewelry. Next, they walk the seven steps down into the water. Finally, they are ready to immerse.

So, if Yom Kippur functions like our collective mikvah , what does our arrival at the month of Av represent?

Let's work backwards. Before the High Holidays come the Seven Weeks of Comfort, during which we read special Haftarot , readings from the books of the Prophets. As these selections specifically focus on the love of G-d for the Jewish people and the possibility and power of repair, they help us reach the High Holidays feeling closer to G-d and inspired to mend our frayed relationships.

These seven weeks parallel the seven steps into the mikvah , the path that we walk to have the right headspace and heartspace for our new beginning.

Moving further back, before we reach the Seven Weeks of Comfort, we commemorate the saddest season on the Jewish calendar. That is where we now find ourselves, approaching the month of Av, about which our Rabbis say: " Mi shenichnas Av mema'atim b'simcha - When Av arrives, we decrease in joy!" Or: less joy, more oy!

A clever Hasidic reading of this rabbinic dictum rereads " b'simcha- in joy" as "while in [a state of] joy." The line now reads: When Av arrives, we decrease joyfully!

What does that mean and how does it relate to the journey towards the mikvah ?

Remember, the first thing that someone does when they arrive at the mikvah is to prepare themselves by shedding their clothing and jewelry. They decrease joyfully--eliminate the "stuff" of everyday life. When we shed our external layers, what remains is our sacred selves.

During this month of Av, let's take the opportunity to take stock of our hearts and our bodies--our beautiful selves, in need of no adornment--and begin our soulful march from despair to repair, and towards what I hope will be a healing new beginning for us all.

Rabbi Benjy Forester is a member of the clergy at Anshe Emet Synagogue in Chicago.

https://www.jewish-chicago.org/Mag/tmpl-article.aspx?id=454655

Appendix C: Yom Kippur's Origins are Shrouded in Obscurity

Yom Kippur's Origins Are Shrouded in Obscurity

Yom Kippur is the holiest day in Judaism, yet its intent has markedly changed and its practice today is a far cry from the rites of ancient times

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is by far the most widely observed of Jewish holidays and fast days.

It is a solemn day. The synagogues are packed with men and, usually [in Israel] in a separate section, women – often dressed in white, all praying that their sins be forgiven. Many of the worshipers wear Crocs, as leather shoes are not permitted.

Outside, children on bicycles race down the streets that in Israel at least, for this one holiest day of the year, are vacated by cars. Nothing but the odd ambulance or police car moves (except in mixed and Arab towns).

Yom Kippur in Israel is a special day indeed, but it is a far cry from the Day of Atonement of old.

Whiff of Babylon

Just when Yom Kippur began has been hotly debated by academics for over a century. The main question is whether it happened during the First Temple period. The evidence seems to indicate that it did not exist then.

Writing just after the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, Ezekiel seems unaware of Yom Kippur. It is not on his list of holidays to be observed when the Temple would be rebuilt.

Neither does Zecharia seem to have any notion of it when he instructed the Jews returning from captivity on observation of fast days. When Ezra reads the Torah to the returning Jews on the first of Tishrei, they learned that they need to prepare for Sukkot, but Yom Kippur is not mentioned. This is only proof of omission, but it’s all we have.

Thus, it seems that the three biblical mentions of the Day of Atonement (Numbers 29:7-11, Leviticus 16:1-34, and Leviticus 23:26-32) were inserted by priests during the Second Temple period to validate new rites added to purify the Temple in advance of the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar at the time, Sukkot.

The priests of the Jerusalem Temple who inaugurated Yom Kippur seem to have had the 12-day Babylonian festival marking the new year, Akitu, in mind, particularly the fifth day of Akitu, which has some striking similarities to Yom Kippur that are unlikely to be coincidence.

That fifth day involved a purification ceremony called kuppuru, which involved dragging a dead ram through the temple, supposedly purifying it of impurities. Kuppuru and its Hebrew cognate kippur meant “to uncover” or specifically in this case “to remove impurity,” which means a better translation of Yom Kippur to English would be "Day of Purification."

Preoccupation with sin

The purification of the Temple using an animal carcass was not the only similarity between Yom Kippur and the fifth day of Akitu. The two both share an occupation with sin, though they deal with it in a different way.

While in Jewish tradition, Yom Kippur is the only day the high priest enters the Holy of Holies, in the Babylonian tradition, the fifth day of Akitu was the only day the king enters the sanctuary of the god Marduk, accompanied by the high priest. Facing the statue of Marduk, the king would intone: "I have not sinned, O Lord of the universe, and I have not neglected your heavenly might."

In the Jerusalem Temple on the other hand, no statement of good behavior was made. On the contrary, the high priest confessed to all the sins of the Jews in the presence of God, in a strange and ancient ceremony: “And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of an appointed man into the wilderness.” (Leviticus 16:21)

The original scapegoat

The Temple priests, the Zadokites, saw themselves as descended from Aaron and backdated their legal prescriptions to him.
The practice of transferring the disfavor of a deity to an animal that is then removed from the community, what we call a "scapegoat" based on the biblical passage above, was common in the ancient Near East. It was probably practiced by at least some of the Hebrews from time immemorial long before incorporation into Yom Kippur ritual.

The earliest known reference to the practice was found in Ebla (in what is today war-torn Syria), in 1975, at a site archaeologists called "Palace G." Among the texts found there dating from 2,400 to 2,300 BCE were two descriptions of a scapegoat ceremony, which are very similar to those found in the Jewish tradition. One reads: “We purge the mausoleum. Before the entry of Kura and Barama, a goat, a silver bracelet [hanging from the] goat’s neck, towards the steppe of Alini we let her go.”

An obscure origin for the fast

The biblical accounts of the Yom Kippur ceremonies are laconic. It is hard to know what exactly was done on that day. Even the act of fasting is not explicitly mentioned, just the phrase “ye shall afflict your souls,” which elsewhere in the Bible usually refers to fasting.

That is the only source for the most widely-practiced Yom Kippur tradition.

Thus to get a clearer view of what Yom Kippur was like in the Second Temple period we can only rely on the Mishnah, which was redacted over a century after the destruction of the Temple in 220 CE. Specifically, we should look in tractate Yoma, literally “The Day,” dedicated to Yom Kippur. The Mishnah description - the first seven of eight Yoma chapters - is almost entirely about rites at the temple itself, nearly all officiated by the high priest himself. Only the eighth and final chapter deals with what everyone else is supposed to do on this holy day. Here is a summary of ancient Yom Kippur rites according to these chapters.

The High Priest's rites

A week before Yom Kippur, the high priest would leave home and move into the Palhedrin Chamber in the Temple compound, where he would spend the week studying and practicing the rites he was to perform. On the night before Yom Kippur, he would stay up all night studying Torah, lest he sleep and have a “nightly emission” which would render him unclean and thus unfit to perform the ceremonies, dooming all of Israel.

In the morning, the high priest would immerse in a mikveh and adorn special golden clothes. He would then proceed to offer the normal daily sacrifice (the Tamid): A lamb doused with oil wine and flour would be burned on an altar. On all other days this would have been performed by a lower-ranking priest.

After the sacrifice, the priest would remove his golden garments, wash his hands and feet in a mikveh twice and don a set of special linen garments. He was now ready for the next stage.

Purifying blood

A bull bought with his own money would be brought in and the high priest would rest his hands on its head and confess his and his family’s sins before God, pronouncing his name, the Tetragrammaton.

Upon hearing God’s name, which in all other contexts was prohibited, the crowd would prostrate themselves. Then the high priest would kill the poor beast and its blood would be collected in a bowl for further use.

From the altar, the high priest would go to the Nikanor Gate in the eastern side of the temple, to which two goats had been led by priests. Pulling lots out of a box, the goats were randomly assigned to God and to Azazel, a slight corruption of the name of a wilderness demon. The one assigned to Azazel would be marked with a red string tied to its horns.

The next step was the trickiest. The high priest would carry glowing hot embers in a special shovel held using his armpit while his hands were full of incense. He would enter alone into the Holy of Holies, which was a large empty room only entered by the high priest and only on Yom Kippur, and place the shovel, embers and incense in its middle. He would wait for the room to fill with the aromatic smoke, then leave.

Once outside, he was handed the reserved bowl of bull's blood and would enter again, this time flicking blood all over the room with his finger. He would leave the Holy of Holies and place the bowl with the remaining blood on a special stand at the entrance.

At this point the high priest would return to the Nikanor Gate, place his hands on the goat assigned to God and made a confession on behalf of the priestly class, once again pronouncing God’s holy name, at which point once again the crowd would prostrate themselves. Then he would kill the goat and its blood would be drained into a bowl.

This bowl of blood would be borne by the high priest to the Holy of Holies, where once again he would enter alone, sprinkle blood with his finger, exit and place the bowl on another stand.

Standing between the two bowls of blood, the high priest would sprinkle their contents with his finger on the curtain obscuring the Holy of Hollies.

Next came purification of the golden incense altar. The high priest would pour the remaining goat blood into the bowl of bull blood. He would carry the blood mixture to the incense altar, and smear it with blood, then sprinkle some more.

This done, the high priest would return to the Nikanor Gate, place his hands on the head of the surviving goat and, pressing down, would confess the sins of all the People of Israel, once again pronouncing God’s name. During this, people in the crowd would make their own private confessions.

Sacrificing the scapegoat

Then the goat would be led into the wilderness by a specially appointed man, usually a priest, accompanied by the city’s dignitaries. Along the way they would stop at ten booths where food and drink were offered to the man, who would ritually decline.

At the tenth booth, the man and the goat would continue alone until reaching the top of a cliff in the Judean Hills. He would turn his back to the cliff, hoist the goat over his head and throw it down to its death.

While this was taking place, the high priest would disembowel the bodies of the bull and the goat. Once he was done the goat and bull would be taken to the Beit HaDeshen. Upon confirmation that the second goat was dead, the bull and goat carcasses would be burnt to ashes as the high priest exited the Nikanor Gate and entered the Women’s Courtyard, where he read the biblical passages describing the Yom Kippur sacrifices and rites. After finished with this the high priest would make another wardrobe change, wash twice in a mikveh and put on another set of golden clothes. Once ready, he would go to the outer altar, where he would slaughter two rams and collect their blood into bowls, which he used to pour on the altar. Then he would disembowel the rams. Once this task was complete he would burn them on the altar, adding grain and wine.

Next up was the Musaf sacrifice, in which in a succession of animals were killed and burned: A bull, a deer, seven sheep, and yet another goat. Then the bowels of the bull and the goat from earlier in the day were burnt to ashes. After this, another ritual washing and change of clothes took place, and this time linen clothes were donned. Now the high priest would return to the Holy of Holies and remove the shovel, embers, and incense. Then once again he would wash and change, into another set of golden clothes. Once dressed, he would sacrifice a lamb doused in flour and wine as a Tamid offering.
By this time it would be early afternoon and the day’s work was over. The dignitaries would retire to the high priest’s home, where they would celebrate with a feast.

As regards to everyone else, the Mishah says that people must abstain from food and drink, from anointing themselves with oil, wearing sandals, and sex. The young and infirm may eat and drink, it qualifies. Elsewhere the Mishnah provides more detail what the people may do and may not: for example, if a person is buried by a landslide, one should check to see if he’s alive so he can be rescued. If he isn't, the body must stay there until the next day.

Yoma ends with a discussion on whether all transgressions are remitted on Yom Kippur. It says that those transgressions carried out against other person’s are not, while those against God are. This is the origin of the tradition of asking your fellow man for forgiveness on the days leading up to Yom Kippur.

Naturally, once the Temple was destroyed by Titus in 70 CE, the main function of Yom Kippur, purifying the Temple in preparation for Sukkot, could not continue. Instead a new form of Yom Kippur formed over the centuries, centered on acknowledgement of wrongs, atonement - and praying for forgiveness in synagogues.

This article was originally published in September of 2014

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2023-09-20/ty-article/.premium/what-is-yom-kippur/0000017f-dc1f-d3ff-a7ff-fdbf3a720000

Appendix D: Ancient Yom Kippur Observances

How the Day of Atonement was marked before the destruction of the Second Temple

By: Dr. Reuven Hammer

Unlike the first day of the seventh month [which became known as Rosh Hashanah], the 10th day has a specific designation and purpose in the Torah , with elaborate rites connected to it:

“Mark, the 10th day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you; you shall practice self-denial, and you shall bring an offering by fire to the Lord; and you shall do no work throughout that day. For it is a Day of Atonement, on which expiation is made on your behalf before the Lord your God… Do no work whatever; it is a law for all time, throughout the generations in all your settlements. It shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your Sabbath” (Lev. 23:27-32).

The designation of this day is reiterated in Numbers:

“On the 10th of the same seventh month you shall observe a sacred occasion when you shall practice self-denial. You shall do no work” (Num. 29:7).

Self-denial–inui nefesh in Hebrew (literally, afflicting one’s soul)–traditionally has been understood to refer to fasting. For the Israelites, this Day of Atonement was therefore a day for fasting and complete cessation of work, observed by individuals in their homes and settlements.

While observed today as a time for individual atonement, the biblical Yom Kippur is primarily a priestly institution:

“The priest who has been anointed and ordained to serve as priest in place of his father shall make expiation. He shall put on the linen vestments, the sacral vestments. He shall purge the inmost Shrine; he shall purge the Tent of Meeting and the altar; and he shall make expiation for the priests and for all the people of the congregation ” (Lev. 16:29-33).

Since Yom Kippur rites were performed in the sanctuary by the High Priest, the presence of the common people was not required. Individual observance was merely an accompaniment to the work of the High Priest, who was engaged in “rites of purgation” or “rites of riddance,” in the sanctuary.

The Torah emphasizes these rituals of purging or cleansing the sanctuary and the altar, and the priests’ atonement for themselves and for the people. Kaparah (atonement) means to cleanse that which has been defiled or contaminated. The sanctuary was a place of holiness and of ritual purity, which was tainted over the years by human beings who entered it in states of ritual impurity. If the sanctuary was to function as a holy place, as the dwelling place of the Holy One, it had to be purged of this impurity.

The rites of purgation described in Leviticus 16 resemble those found in other ancient religions. In fact, the entire biblical ritual of kaparah can best be understood against the background of ancient Near Eastern religions. The fifth day of the 10-day Babylonian new year festival, for example, included a rite called kuppuru, in which a ram was beheaded and its body used to absorb the impurity of the sacred rooms of the temple. Other parts of the animal were thrown into the river, while the officiants were quarantined in the wilderness. The temple was doused and fumigated. Later, sins were confessed and a criminal was paraded and beaten.

The biblical ritual contains many similar features but, as Theodor Gaster points out, has transformed its pagan antecedent. Carried out “before the Lord,” it is no longer “a mere mechanical act of purgation.… The people had to be cleansed not for themselves but for their God: ‘before the Lord shall you be clean’ (Lev. 16:30). Sin and corruption were now regarded as impediments not merely to their material welfare and prosperity but to the fulfillment of their duty to God” [Festivals of the Jewish Year, 1952, p. 144].

The priest was to bring a sin offering that would “make expiation for himself and his household” (Lev. 16:11), to enter the Holy of Holies and place sacrificial blood on the cover of the ark, known as the “atonement seat” (Lev. 16:12-14), and thus to “make expiation in the Shrine” (Lev. 16:17). He then purged the altar by applying sacrificial blood to it: “Thus he shall cleanse it of the uncleanness of the Israelites and consecrate it” (Lev. 16:18-19). Thus, although similar concepts existed in all religions of the time, the Torah eliminated the demonic and magical elements of impurity from the Yom Kippur ritual. Instead, it emphasized that the closer the worshiper came to the presence of God–that is, to holiness–the more restrictions there were in order to ensure ritual cleanliness.

The changes that took place in the observance of Yom Kippur during the Second Temple period were significant. Philo describes the day as one in which it was customary to spend the entire time, from morning to evening, in prayer. Regarding the ritual of the Temple itself, the descriptions that we have in the Mishnah and Tosefta were not edited in their present form until a century or more after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. There is little doubt, however, that they reflect an authentic tradition dedicated to preserving the rituals of the Temple in the hope that they would one day be restored.

The most significant changes were:

1. the expansion of the confessions made by the High Priest;

2. the expansion of the role of the people in the Temple ritual;

3. the inclusion of prayer both by the priest and by the people;

4. changes in the ceremony of the scapegoat.

Most of these changes can be ascribed to the general trend of democratization within Judaism. The people came to participate more and more in the rituals so that the Temple became less the realm of the priests than the center of national worship. The role of verbal prayer also increased at that time. And people became more aware of their need to attain forgiveness and atonement for their own sins as opposed to focusing on purely ritual matters.

These changes mark an overall trend toward inwardness and ethical‑moral concern within Jewish spiritual practice. What had begun as a problem of ritual impurity developed into a concern with human decency. The Prophets’ focus upon moral concerns became incorporated into ritual observance. Isaiah’s words challenging the value of fasts, incorporated later by the Rabbis into the Yom Kippur services as the prophetic reading, took on new significance:

Is such the fast I desire, A day for men to starve their bodies? Is it bowing the head like a bulrush and lying in sackcloth and ashes? Do you call that a fast, A day when the Lord is favorable? No, this is the fast I desire: To unlock the fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe him, And not to ignore your own kin. Then shall your light burst through like the dawn. And your healing spring up quickly. (Isaiah 58:5‑8)

Despite this change in focus, the ancient rituals of the day were in no way devalued or minimized. On the contrary, ceremonies in the Second Temple were much more magnificent than those in the wilderness Tabernacle or the First Temple, as was the building itself. Rituals in the Second Temple were carried out with great splendor. if anything, the presence of so many pilgrims at these rites made them more solemn and impressive than ever before.

Excerpted from Entering the High Holy Days. Reprinted with permission from the Jewish Publication Society.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-kippur-observances-through-the-second-temple-period/