** AVODATYOM KIPPUR**
Once Yosef sees that his brothers’repentance is complete, he reveals himself, for he understands that the purposeof his disguise has been realized. Immediatelyupon revealing himself, he explains to the brothers why they may allowthemselves to feel liberated from their past evil behavior: ועתה לא אתם שלחתם אותי הנה, כי האלקים.... With these words, Yosef isrevealing to them the most essential element of the phenomenon of teshuva:namely, that a person is defined by his moral and spiritual responses tosituations. The brothers are exoneratedin Yosef's eyes because, morally, they are no longer the same people who hadcommitted that heinous crime.
This reality is perhaps symbolicallychoreographed in that part of the Yom Kippur Avodah service, where the twoidentical goats - one offered to G-d and the other offered to Azaz'el - aresacrificed. The following analysis builds upon Hoffman's interpretation of thesacrificial service. Hoffman views theAkeida as the Torah's prototype for sacrificial worship, and therefore sees thekorban as the baal's surrogate (not as a gift which is separablefrom himself). The worshipper thusoffers himself to G-d Most High; the sinner, in contrast, offers himselfto The Tempter - the satanic force of self-worship, the force that constantlypromulgates the view that the whole world is ultimately an object ofmanipulation for the goal of realizing one's selfish ends.
Ramban points out that"Azazel" is in actuality that Satanic Force - the סטרא אחרא andis the real object of the offering - as per Hashem's request/command. In the spirit of Ramban's and Hoffman'sapproaches, I feel that the שעיר לשם - שעירלעזזאל servicerepresents a symbolic reenactment, on the part of every man - of his erstwhile surrender to sin. G-d commanded that this reenactment beperformed on Yom Kippur, in order that each person symbolically -choreographically - "tease" that element of the sinner's personalityout of himself, and thus remain exclusively with his Yetzer Tov - hisinclination towards deeds of tikkun olam - total devotion to the betterment ofG-d's world.
The baal teshuva is thus the personwho is able to retrospectively view -and choreographically relive - hiserstwhile self-service as a sacrifice to the Master of the Sharp Cliff, whoshreds its victims to death at the edge of a barren desert experience. That victim, asserts the baal teshuva, isseparable from every man's true personality, which ultimately - if onlysubliminally - never abandons its yearning for the Divine and the good. Inresponse to his brothers' reformed behavior, Joseph acknowledged (asserted,declared) that they had indeed separated themselves from those qualities ofself-involvement that had previously led to their abusive treatment of him. Hewas finally able to declare that they had successfully and completely removedthemselves from that aspect of their personalities; they retrospectivelyassessed that behavior as a sacrifice of themselves to the סטרא אחרא.That aspect of their selfhood is now torn to shreds. In contrast to the Divineservice, it possesses no afterlife; it does not linger as a ריח ניחוח אשה לה'. What remains in them is the pure, untainted שעיר לשם -that truly Divine element of their personalities who had indeed neverparticipated in his mistreatment.