Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Your donation will be tax deductible in the US to the extent allowed by the IRS.
To make a tax-deductible donation by wire transfer in the US, please contact:
Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
To make a tax-deductible donation in Israel, please contact:
Dina Gudai, Israeli Representative
Phone: 074-7800643
Email: dina@schechter.ac.il
Please mail your check to:
The Schechter Institutes, Inc. (a 501(c) 3 tax exempt organization)
Box #3566
PO Box 8500
Philadelphia, PA 19178-3566
Attn: Mr. Avrum Lapin, North American Representative
Toll-free: 1-866-830-3321
Email: schechter@thelapingroup.com
Please indicate the donation is "for your joint Schechter Institutes program."
Checks should be made payable to the Jewish Theological Society of Canada and mailed to:
Jewish Theological Society of Canada
c/o Camp Ramah in Canada
3845 Bathhurst St., Suite 310
Toronto, ON, M3H 3N2
Phone: 416-789-2193, ext. 2139
E-mail: accounting@campramah.com
Please mail a check to:
The Schechter Institutes
Attn: Dina Gudai, Finance Department
PO Box 16080,
Jerusalem, 9116002
Israel
For assistance, please call Dina Gudai at 074-780-0643 (8:00 AM – 3:00 Israel time Sunday through Thursday).
Taking responsibility for our sins.
What happens if they never leave the world? asks Rabbi Chaya Rowen Baker
After the devastating deaths of two of Aharon’s sons, the Torah describes the way the leadership deals with those deaths, in public. It proceeds to give us what later becomes the Yom Kippur temple ritual. The high priest takes two goats, one of them is sacrificed and the other one the high priest declares the sins of the people and sends it off to the desert.
The Mishna in Tractate Yomah, describes how that goat is taken into the desert and thrown off a cliff and it falls apart into pieces.
However, the Torah narrative is different, significantly different, because it, the goat, actually probably does not die, necessarily die in the Torah narrative.
The Torah tells us that the high priest declares the sins and the goat is taken into la’Azazel haMidbarah לַעֲזָאזֵ֖ל הַמִּדְבָּֽרָה it goes into the desert into maybe a place called Azazel and sent out, sent out to roam the world.
This is an innovation in the concept of sacrifices, because it means that we don’t necessarily, that sacrifices don’t necessarily die. This is an offering that remains alive. This is an offering that symbolizes our transgressions, but it gives a deeper meaning to this system. Rather than having a scapegoat the way that we know, in how we use this term in our day.
A scapegoat is something external upon which we place our blame and that will die in our stead or pay the price for our transgressions. No, this is a model in which the scapegoat roams the world symbolically carrying our deeds, symbolically carrying our transgressions, and we get to live the rest of our lives with a consciousness that our transgressions, our deeds, our actions stay in the world and affect the world and continue to have an effect even if we have tried to atone for them.
It is not the use of the word capara כפרה covering, where we cover up and make things disappear. It is where we declare our sins in public and we let them roam.
We are invited, maybe even forced, to acknowledge the continued affects of our deeds in this world and to take continued responsibility for them.
I wish for us that we will carry this consciousness with us as people and that our leadership will do the same.
Rabbi Chaya Rowen Baker, Dean, The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary.
Ordained in 2007 by the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, Rabbi Rowen Baker has served, since her ordination, as the rabbi of Kehillat Ramot-Zion in French Hill, Jerusalem. Ramot Zion, a flagship Masorti congregation, is home to many Israelis in search of a meaningful connection to Jewish tradition in a rapidly changing world. For the past eight years, she has served as Coordinator of Practical Rabbinics at SRS.
Much of Rabbi Rowen Baker’s work is done outside the synagogue space, with those not accustomed to synagogue life, so as to make accessible a vibrant Jewish approach and practice which is part of all walks of life. In 2015 she was the first Masorti rabbi – and the first ever female rabbi – to be invited to teach Torah at the Israeli President’s residence.
Rabbi Rowen Baker holds an MA with Distinction in Talmud and Jewish Thought from The Schechter Institute, and a BA in Jewish History and Archeology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a fellow at the Honey Foundation for Israel and a member of the Rabbinical Assembly Executive Council.
Rabbi Rowen Baker lives in French Hill, Jerusalem with her husband Etai, their four children and their dog Hummus.
