Subjects and Objects

The beginning of our parsha describes the special avodah of Yom Kippur. One of the unique features of this avodah is the that of the two goats, one of which is brought as a korban, and the other is sent away. The goat that is “sent away” is taken out to the wilderness, where it is pushed off a cliff and tumbles to its death. The Mishnah in Yomah relates: “It tumbled downward, and before it reached halfway down the mountain, it was torn limb from limb.”[1]

Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik sees within this unique and dramatic event a most powerful expression of the effects of sin on the person:[2]

Can there be a more accurate description of what sin itself does to a person? Even before the sinner’s total descent he is broken apart, an abject victim of gravity. Sin occurs when man becomes an object, when he is impacted upon. A person as subject is blessed with free will. This gift was not given to inanimate objects because their essential nature is that they are passive. Free will allows man to fulfill his role as an active personality, as subject and not as object.

The simplest verbs that denote the dichotomy between a subject and an object are those of ascent and descent, respectively. Ascent involves an act of overcoming the force of gravity, while descent involves succumbing to this force. Gravity is a force that is not characteristic of a subject, a personality; it is characteristic of an object, a thing. If a person loses his dynamic subjective existence and cannot counteract various forces that tend to pull him downward, he is acting as a simple object. The object most closely identified with sin is thus the scapegoat.

Two terms that reverberate constantly throughout Brisker-style discussions are those of "gavra" and "cheftza" – person and object. Although these designations are normally discussed with reference to Torah laws, such as mitzvos and prohibitions, it is recorded that Rav Soloveitchik enlisted them in contemplating life itself and the service of Hashem, exhorting his students to live life as a gavra – an active potent and capable being, and not as a cheftza, an object upon whom the forces of life merely act upon.[3]

As part of our role within Hashem's kingdom, a most meaningful goal is surely to strive to live as worthy subjects.

[1] 6:6.

[2] Machzor Mesoras HaRav, p. 613.

[3] Heard from Rav Aharon Rakeffet.