Komentaryong Sumisipi para sa Mga Hukom 13:20

כחצות הלילה means, WHEN THE NIGHT IS DIVIDED (i. e., when midnight arrives). כחצות is an infinitive with prefix, of similar form to, (1 Kings 18:36) בעלות, “when went up” and (Psalms 124:3) “when their wrath was kindled (בחרות)”. This is its literal meaning which fits in with the sense, for חצות is not a noun, being another form of חֵצִי (when the meaning would be about midnight I will go out etc.”, for this does not fit in with the sense, since God would certainly have stated exactly when He would do this). But our Rabbis took it in this sense and explained it as meaning “about the middle of the night”, and they asserted that Moses said כחצות “about midnight”, which implies near to it — either just before it or just after it, and he did not say בחצות “at midnight” (as God had bidden him say) because he feared lest Pharaoh’s astrologers might make a mistake as regards the time when the slaughter of the firstborn actually took place, thinking that it was a little earlier or later than midnight, and would say, in consequence of this error, “Moses is a liar!” (cf. Berakhot 4a).

When you consider all that we have written and quoted on this subject you will be convinced that there most certainly cannot be a question of the scapegoat being an offering, a sacrifice to a Satanic force called Azzazel. All strife, war, etc., in the world have their origin in that domain where Satan-Se'ir, the other name for Esau and the negative character traits he symbolizes, reign supreme. This is the force which welcomes this scapegoat laden with sin. All goats, both male and female, are part of his domain. The nearest “relative” of this Satan-Samael-Azzazel is Esau and the nation descended from it. Esau already bore the name שעיר, a hairy man, as the antithesis of Yaakov the “smooth” man. The land in which he settled was named after him, and when pagans used to offer sacrifices to the שעירים, the he-goats, representing brute physical force and obstinacy, this was their way of paying homage to the ideals represented by Esau.
According to Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer chapter 27 Samael started out as a respectable angel in the celestial regions until he and his colleagues were expelled from there by G’d Himself. As a form of protest Samael held on to the wings of the archangel Michael trying to prevent his expulsion, or to drag that angel down to earth with him. G’d saved the archangel Michael and this is why that archangel became known as מיכאל הפליט, “Michael the escapee” (a veiled reference to who it was that told Avraham that Lot had been taken captive by the kings who had defeated the king of Sodom and his allies). We were told in Genesis 14,13 that the פליט came and informed Avraham that his relative Lot had been taken captive. Considering the fate of Azzazel-Samael, we know that he ended up at the lower end of the emanations which we associate with the celestial regions or domains. In fact, as the result of his expulsion from heaven, Samael constitutes a barrier between earth (the lowest of the emanations, מלכות), and heaven, i.e. the destination of the sacrifices. How can our sacrifices reach heaven when Samael forms an effective barrier to their ascent to heaven? In the words of Solomon in Proverbs 26,13 Samael is like a שחל בדרך, “a type of lion barring one’s progress.” Presenting this scapegoat to Samael is like throwing a bone to the dog, keeping it happy while one pursues one’s main objective. The Torah did the same thing when instructing us to dispatch the scapegoat to the domain of Samael in order to pave the way for our sacrifices to Hashem to ascend to heaven without hindrance and interference. This is why the author of Pirke d'Rabbi Eliezer chapter 46 wrote that the purpose of the scapegoat procedure is to prevent Samael from interfering with our offerings.
It is important for the Jewish people to be aware of the existence of forces such as represented by the Azzazel and only in this manner are they able to deal with such a phenomenon. This was not the first time that normally hostile forces turned supportive. We encounter the phenomenon for the first time in Exodus 11,7 where the Torah tells us that the very dogs which could have been counted on to impede the departure of the Jewish people from Egypt kept their mouths shut and did not interfere with the Exodus. [According to tradition the dogs were rewarded by the Torah in that the Torah instructs us to throw meat unfit for us to eat to the dogs (Exodus 22:30, compare Rashi). It is not a new idea that the Torah suggests neutralizing potentially hostile forces by feeding their appetite. Ed.]
To sum up: it is not forbidden in principle to feed the appetite of our adversaries (placed there by G’d Himself) as long as we do not feed their appetites at the expense of our spiritual integrity [my phrasing, Ed.], and as long as we perform such a procedure at G’d’s command; the reason is that by doing so we are like servants of the Lord who share out gifts on behalf of the Lord to ministers of the Lord in order for those ministers not to object to the way the Lord wants to deal with us. This point is reinforced by the fact that until after the drawing of the lot it was not even clear which of the two he-goats would be dispatched to the Azzazel. The lot saying “for G’d” or “for the Azzazel” respectively would sometimes fall on the animal to the right of the High Priest and sometimes on the animal on his left. The High Priest was not allowed to change the determination made by the lot.
The Talmud Yuma 40 reports that they asked Rabbi Akiva once whether if the lot with the word “for G’d” fell on the animal to the left of the High Priest he was allowed to change it so that it would fall on the animal to his right (as usually happened); Rabbi Akiva answered that this was not permitted as it would provide a pretext for the heretics to claim that Azzazel and G’d were two separate domains, independent of each other. This is why the decision by the lot had to be honored although, according to tradition, the animal on the Priest’s right was to be offered as the sacrifice in the Temple. The heretics did not appreciate that the procedure was a decree from G’d and if He were willing to forego the animal intended as a sacrifice for Him, He was entitled to do so. If and when G’d waives His right, He does so for our benefit. At any rate, it is clear from all the above that the Israelites on their own do not give anything to Azzazel. All the Israelites and, of course the High Priest, direct all their thinking, prayers, and confessions only to the Lord, to the attribute represented by the tetragrammaton.
When we review what Manoach had done in Judges 13,20 when the angel ascended to heaven within the flame of his offering, he did not, G’d forbid, address himself to the angel, but he addressed himself to Hashem, hence his terrible fear that he would die as a result of having seen such a manifestation of the Lord.
The same consideration holds true for the gifts apportioned to the priests from the various sacrificial offerings for their consumption. Even though Aaron and his sons quite obviously enjoyed these portions of meat, etc., this is not part of the sacrificial service anymore pertaining to the owners of the animals whose blood and fat parts have been offered on the altar; the owners have simply carried out the will of the Lord in leaving these parts for the priests. By no means does G’d and the priest share in the offerings as “principals.” The entire offering is addressed to the Lord, exclusively.

ויבן נח מזבח לה’, “Noach built an altar for the Lord, etc.” Noach’s thinking when offering sacrifices was in an ascending manner. First, he built an altar on earth, addressing himself to G-d as the attribute of Mercy, hence the word לה’. From this attribute of Mercy, he proceeded to ויעל עלת, “he raised total-offerings on top of that altar.” Although the word עולות for total-offerings is read as a plural, it is spelled without the letters ו, i.e. as if it were a singular. This indicated his intent to elevate himself spiritually by means of the sacrifices. The animal was to take his place symbolically when the smoke of its flesh rose heavenwards. Isaiah 60,7 where the prophet, quoting G-d, exclaims יעלו על רצון מזבחי ובית תפארתי אפאר, “they will ascend on high achieving goodwill associated with My altar and I will glorify even further My glorious House,” is similar. [We would have expected the prophet to write יעלו לרצון על מזבחי, “they will ascend on My altar to achieve goodwill, etc.” The change in the wording indicates that the person offering the sacrifice wanted to achieve a spiritual union with Him [Who is “above,” Ed.]. We find such a concept even with Manoach in Judges. He had not even bothered to build an altar [it was forbidden at that time to build private altars, Ed.], but the prophet described the ascent of his sacrifice from a spiritual point located as higher than the altar i.e. מעל המזבח, “from above the altar” (Judges 13,20). Subsequently, that same sacrifice is described as reaching heaven. At that point the angel is depicted as “taking a ride in the flame and ascending” (to heaven? also). The word להב in Judges may be understood as connected to לב, heart. In other words, the heart was the medium which enabled the sacrifice and what it stood for to reach heaven. This explains G-d’s reaction which is described here in the words וירח את ריח הניחח, “G-d’s bounty which originates in the celestial regions was drawn “downwards”. At that point G-d said אל לבו, to the attribute of Justice, “I will not continue ever to allow My attribute of Justice to curse the earth because of man, i.e. “because I have discovered something positive in man.”