Photo Peter Neumann on unsplash Alone in the desert, he waits. What does he do between one Yom Kippur and the next? Can he hear the goat coming, stumbling across the bare rocks, heavy with misdeeds, red ribbon trailing in the sand like blood oozing from a wound? And what of the goats from years past? Did he take them in, save them from falling or being pushed over the cliff? Is there a tribe of them waiting too for the new arrival? At last the confused animal stumbles out of the wilderness. "There, there," Azazel says, "Welcome. Unburden yourself. Let me get some water for you to drink."
Just what it says: a little midrash, a filling in of some of the lacunae Torah leaves in the lives of its characters. The stories lay no claim to being right, but they do explore what is possible. Texts don't sit still long enough to have fixed meanings; too often we assume that Torah is done and finished. It is never finished.