We think we know Yom Kippur through the fast. The Mishna describes something else first: a working day, that of one man who enters once a year where no one enters, while outside the people count the seconds.
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אֶחָד כָּתוּב עָלָיו לַשֵּׁם וְאֶחָד כָּתוּב עָלָיו לַעֲזָאזֵל
“Upon one is written: for God. Upon the other: for Azazel.”
Michna Yoma 4:1
Two identical goats, bought together, alike in size and price. Nothing tells them apart until a hand drawn at random decides which one goes to the altar and which one goes to the wilderness. The people then answer: blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom.
צָבַר אֶת הַקְּטֹרֶת עַל גַּבֵּי גֶחָלִים, וְנִתְמַלֵּא כָל הַבַּיִת כֻּלּוֹ עָשָׁן
“He piles the incense upon the coals, and the whole chamber fills with smoke.”
Michna Yoma 5:1
Once a year, one man alone passes the curtain. The Mishna notes that the measure of incense is his own hands: the large according to his size, the small according to his. The rite is the same for everyone, the instrument is the body of the one performing it.
וְלֹא הָיָה מַאֲרִיךְ בִּתְפִלָּתוֹ, שֶׁלֹּא לְהַבְעִית אֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל
“He would not extend his prayer, so as not to alarm Israel.”
Michna Yoma 5:1
This is the most human line in the whole tractate. Outside, the people are counting the seconds. If the High Priest lingers, they will conclude he has died inside. His prayer must be brief, not from lack of fervour, but out of regard for those waiting.
דַּרְכִּיּוֹת הָיוּ עוֹשִׂין, וּמְנִיפִין בַּסּוּדָרִין
“They would build platforms, and wave scarves.”
Michna Yoma 6:8
Three mil separate Jerusalem from the edge of the wilderness. To know the goat has arrived, men are posted on platforms along the way, relaying the signal by waving cloths. A telegraph of scarves, two thousand years before the telegraph.
וּכְשֶׁהִגִּיעַ שָׂעִיר לַמִּדְבָּר הָיָה הַלָּשׁוֹן מַלְבִּין
“When the goat reached the wilderness, the strip would turn white.”
Michna Yoma 6:8
A crimson-dyed thread is tied at the entrance of the Sanctuary. The moment the goat arrives, it changes colour. Rabbi Yishmael ties the sign to the verse in Isaiah: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall become white as snow.
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The Mishna lists six, tradition counts five: eating and drinking are one.
וְהַמֶּלֶךְ וְהַכַּלָּה יִרְחֲצוּ אֶת פְּנֵיהֶם, וְהֶחָיָה תִנְעֹל אֶת הַסַּנְדָּל, דִּבְרֵי רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר, וַחֲכָמִים אוֹסְרִין
Rabbi Eliezer allows three exceptions: the king and the new bride may wash their faces, and a woman who has just given birth may wear shoes. The king for his dignity, the bride because she is in her first month, the new mother because the cold would cause her pain. Then comes the shortest sentence in the tractate: and the Sages forbid. Three human allowances offered, three refused, and both views kept side by side.
Mishna Yoma 8:1
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The crimson thread did not always turn white. A baraita in tractate Yoma reports that during the forty years before the destruction of the Second Temple, four signs went out together: the lot for God no longer came up in the right hand, the thread no longer turned white, the westernmost lamp of the candelabrum no longer burned, and the doors of the Sanctuary opened by themselves.
Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai ended up addressing the building itself: Sanctuary, Sanctuary, why do you frighten yourself? I know about you that you will be destroyed.
And the Talmud adds an etymology that lights up everything else. Why is the Temple called Levanon? Because it whitens the sins of Israel. The thread was only displaying outside what the house carried in its name.
לָמָּה נִקְרָא שְׁמוֹ לְבָנוֹן, שֶׁמַּלְבִּין עֲוֹנוֹתֵיהֶן שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל
Talmud, Yoma 39b: read on Sefaria
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It is thought to be funereal. The Mishna Berura says the opposite. The prophet asks that the holy day of the Lord be honoured, and that day, it writes, is Yom Kippur. Now a festival is honoured with a meal. This one cannot be. So it is honoured with clean clothes and with light: the candle replaces the meal.
There are two, and the second one is indeed for the dead. The Rema asks that a soul candle also be lit for one's father and mother. The Mishna Berura explains its purpose in two words: to atone for them. It is not remembrance, it is repair, and Yom Kippur forgives those who are no longer here too.
The Rema finally adds what to do if it goes out during the day. You do not relight it, and you ask no one else to. You relight it at the close of Yom Kippur, you let it burn to the end, and you undertake for all your days that it will never be put out again.
גַּם נֵר נְשָׁמָה לְאָבִיו וּלְאִמּוֹ שֶׁמֵּתוּ
Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 610:4, Rema's gloss · Mishna Berura 610:9 and 610:12
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