Parshat Acharei Mot

Acharei Mot describes the service of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. It was a dramatic and highly charged ritual during which he cast lots on two identical goats, one of which was offered as a sacrifice while the other was sent into the wilderness to die, the so-called “scapegoat.” The entry of the High Priest into the Holy of Holies marked the spiritual high-point of the Jewish year.

The parsha also outlines the prohibition against eating blood, and the laws of forbidden sexual relations, both of them aspects of the life of purity God asks of the Jewish people.

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