Sinning Like a Goat

We used to own goats. We had one goat, named “Gali Gali,” who had its ear torn off by a pit bull who lived next door. Gali Gali promptly earned the monicker “Gali Gali Van Goght.” (My father shot the pit bull with a shotgun the next time it came over, and the dog made it home to bleed out on its owner’s front porch.)

I loved that goat. He was smart, headstrong and inquisitive. He also liked to dance, kind of a “watch me look like I am going to flip over sideways” kind of dance. Specifically, when my grandfather would come up to our house in his fine Lincoln Continental, Gali Gali would take one look at that shiny car, and promptly skip onto its long hood and prance away, leaving lots of little devilish footprints. My grandfather did not think it was as funny as we did.

Goats are also famous in world lore for being deeply sexual animals – Pan is the deity of woodland frolicking, of giving in to lust and any other desire that happens to cross his mind – without any moral or longterm considerations. Consider Horny Goat Weed. The concept of a goat deity even makes an appearance in the Torah: “So that they may no more offer their sacrifices to the goats after whom they lust.” (Lev. 17:7)

The word for “goat” in the Torah is a seir, the same word as “hairy,” and the name of the place Esau chooses to live, Mount Seir. Esau, Jacob’s brother, is the embodiment of this word: The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau.

And Esau is true to his name. Esau is described very much as a Pan-like figure – he prefers the woodlands, the company of nature instead of the company of man. Think of all that we learn from this short passage:

And the boys grew: and ῾Esav was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. … And Jacob cooked pottage: and ῾Esav came from the field, and he was faint: and ῾Esav said to Jacob, Give me to swallow, I pray thee, of that red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom (red). And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And ῾Esav said, Behold, I am at the point of death, and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he swore to him: and he sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Ya῾aqov gave ῾Esav bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus ῾Esav despised the birthright.

Esau is all about the Now – so much so that he sees fulfilling his momentary desires as essential to his very existence. Esau Lived In The Moment. He happily traded his future for temporary physical pleasure. Even when Esau eats, he does it by himself, unsociably, foregoing any opportunity to grow positive relationships.

The goat-god Pan stood for reckless abandonment of mature responsibilities in favor of emulating an animal pursuing his pleasures in nature.

In other words, Esau is the Torah embodiment of Pan. Making an offering to goats is literally pantheism.

Which might explain why goats in the Torah are only brought as sin offerings! Goats embody a certain (and very common) kind of sin: the sins of thinking, acting and behaving like an Esau/Pan, of succumbing to our animalistic natures. It is the sin of acting without consciously making a choice – like an animal does.

If we insist that we are what we are, and cannot change – then we are acting like Esau. If we decide we are slaves to our natures, to the essence of our inner beings, then we are sinning. Everyone who says, “I must do this thing: this act is what I truly am” is acting like an Esau, is committing a sin. This kind of sin, the sin that merits bringing a goat, is driven purely by naked self-interest. So is the sin of seeing ourselves as Esau did, as the Apex Predator of the natural world. Mankind may indeed be an apex predator, but that is not our mission; we are not commanded to be the king of the jungle.

And when we succumb to pantheism, we must acknowledge it, and always strive to do better. For we are meant to be more than our natures, and indeed, have a higher spiritual calling than nature itself.