Q&A: Atonement Without Repentance
Atonement Without Repentance
Question
Maimonides writes in the Laws of Repentance, chapter 1, halakhah 2, that the scapegoat atones for all sins, provided that a person repents. But if he does not repent, then the scapegoat atones only for the lighter sins, meaning those for which one is not liable to karet.
And this is difficult for me: how can such a thing be understood? How can it be that someone who does not repent, and yet the scapegoat still atones for him? The person does not regret it, intends to commit the same sin again and again, doesn’t care about it at all, and yet the scapegoat atones for him?! I’m baffled.
Answer
Some would raise the same question even about someone who does repent. Rabbi Soloveitchik, in On Repentance, deals with this. According to one view, even the very day itself atones. He compares it to a ritual bath. But this is conditional on partnership with the community and with the service of the day (entering the ritual bath), and then one is purified as part of the public.