#festering

A slightly unusual one this week in that I’m not going to be citing a specific verse, but rather a word that shows up in multiple verses in this parashah: כַּפֹּֽרֶת | kapóret, a word that refers to the lid of the Covenant Ark. As far as we can tell, kapóret isn’t a generic term for a lid that goes on a box, instead, it’s a technical term for this covering and this covering alone. Etymologically, kapóret comes transparently from the root כפר | KPR, which generally refers to atonement or the clearing away of sin. It’s the exact same root that gives us Yom Kipur.

I am always a little hesitant to put much weight on etymology when it comes to explaining technical terms. Jargon has a way of tying terms to meanings by the most tangential relations, and those terms tend to stick even when they make very little sense. In music, the field I know best, a piano is not a quiet instrument (despite what its name might suggest), an Italian augmented sixth chord has no discernible historical connection to Italy, and altos (literally “high ones”) aren’t the highest vocal part in a standard vocal ensemble. It’s sometimes possible to explain these names historically (tho, again, some of them really are flummoxingly inexplicable), but there’s no way to reverse-engineer those explanations from the words themselves.

Still, the etymological connection here is suggestive. The most direct explanation may be that the kapóret is where the High Priest would sprinkle the atonement blood on Yom Kipur — not so much a lid as an atonementizer. But I think there’s a teaching for us here as well.

In particular, I’m struck by the similarity of kapóret to another technical term in this parashah: פָּרֹֽכֶת | parókhet, the curtain that separates the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Mishkan. The words are almost identical, the same four consonants in only a slightly different order, all but the same vowels. What are we to learn from the juxtaposition of these words?

Both the lid and the curtain separate and contain. But there is a key difference: On occasion — once a year on Yom Kipur, in fact — the High Priest can pass thru the curtain; at no point is anyone ever to remove the lid from the Covenant Ark. One is slightly permeable, the other is permanently sealed.

What does this teach us about atonement?

There is a state of affairs that, at first blush, looks an awful lot like atonement. When one person wrongs another, it is common for the two of them to never speak of it, to never address the harm directly, to carry on as tho the harm had never been done, not because the harm has been healed but instead because letting it fester in the background is easier than the fraught work of apology. Perhaps you have even experienced this yourself.

As I said, at first blush, this might look like atonement. But unaddressed, these things tend to accumulate, repeated little incidents amplifying each other towards a ruinous breaking point. The parókhet might seem like a kapóret, but it is not quite: The miasma of sin can still seep thru it and contaminate the holiest space. Harm suppressed is not atonement.

The work of atonement requires piercing that veil. It requires the risky, terrifying work of going inwards, digging up feelings of hurt and sitting with them, figuring out what went wrong, what can be done to make it right, and what can be done to prevent future failings on the same lines. And then, crucially, the matter must be laid to rest. It cannot be atonement if the same incident is going to be relitigated again and again. That’s a curtain, not a lid — once the Tablets go into the Ark, the kapóret goes on, and it doesn’t come off again. If it were permeable, it would be a parókhet, and that’s no good.

This work, tho difficult, is uttmostly Holy. The very Divine Presence of G-d manifests in the Holy of Holies in the heart of the holy meeting tent directly on top of the kapóret. Atonement, when we can reach it, is the foundation that allows G-d’s presence to enter the world.