A Thread in the Temple Changed Color Every Year Until It Stopped

Most people think Yom Kippur has always been a matter of faith. You pray, you fast, you hope God hears you. The truth is that for centuries, the answer was visible. A scarlet thread hung on the door of the Temple in Jerusalem every Yom Kippur (יום כיפור, the Day of Atonement). If it turned white by the end of the service, Israel had been forgiven. The proof text was (Isaiah 1:18): "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." No prophet needed, no scholar required. You looked at the thread. White meant forgiven. Red meant you were not. Then, according to the Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Yoma 39b (redacted c. 500 CE), it stopped turning white. Forty years before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, which places the break at approximately 30 CE, the miracle ceased. The thread stayed red. Every single year after that, for four decades, until the Romans burned the Temple to the ground.

The Ritual of the Scapegoat and the Scarlet Thread

The scarlet thread was part of the sa'ir la-Azazel (שעיר לעזאזל), the scapegoat ritual described in (Leviticus 16:7-22). On Yom Kippur, the High Priest (Kohen Gadol, כהן גדול) selected two goats. He cast lots over them, one marked "for the Lord" and the other marked "for Azazel" (עזאזל). The goat designated for the Lord was sacrificed as a sin offering. The goat designated for Azazel was sent into the wilderness, carrying the sins of the people on its head. Before the goat was led away, a scarlet thread, lashon shel zehorit (לשון של זהורית), was tied between its horns. Another piece was tied to the Temple door.

The Mishnah in Yoma 6:8 (redacted c. 200 CE by Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi) describes the procedure: the goat was led out through a designated route into the Judean wilderness, passed from handler to handler at 10 booths spaced along the way (a distance of about 12 mil, roughly 7 miles), and finally pushed off a cliff called the Tzuk (צוּק). When the goat fell, the scarlet thread on the Temple door turned white. The Mishnah states this matter-of-factly, as a known phenomenon. The miracle was not disputed. It was observed. A Scapegoat for Azazel in our preserves the full mythology surrounding Azazel, the fallen angel associated with the wilderness and the Day of Atonement since the time of (1 Enoch 10:4-8), composed c. 3rd century BCE.

What Happened in Yoma 39b?

The passage in Yoma 39b is one of the most discussed texts in the entire Talmud. It records not one but four miracles associated with the Temple that ceased functioning forty years before its destruction. The scarlet thread was the most visible of them. But there were three others:

• The lot for the Lord: During the scapegoat ritual, the High Priest drew lots for the two goats. For decades, the lot marked "for the Lord" came up in his right hand, which was considered auspicious. Forty years before the destruction, it began coming up randomly, sometimes right, sometimes left.
• The western lamp: The menorah (מנורה) in the Temple had seven branches. The western lamp (ner ma'aravi), which faced the Holy of Holies, miraculously stayed lit longer than all the others, even though it was given the same amount of oil. Forty years before the destruction, it began going out.
• The Temple doors: The massive doors of the Heikhal (היכל, the Temple sanctuary) began opening by themselves at night. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai (c. 30-90 CE), who witnessed the Temple's final years, rebuked the doors: "Heikhal, Heikhal, why do you alarm yourself? I know that you will ultimately be destroyed."

The Talmud presents these four signs as interconnected, a system of divine signals indicating that the Temple's spiritual efficacy was waning. The scarlet thread was the most democratic of these signs. The lot and the lamp were witnessed only by the priests. The doors were seen by the Temple guards. But the thread was public. Everyone could see it. And for forty years, everyone saw it fail.

Who Was Shimon HaTzaddik and What Changed After Him?

Shimon HaTzaddik (שמעון הצדיק, "Simon the Righteous") was a High Priest who served in the Second Temple, traditionally dated to either the early 3rd century BCE (according to Josephus, who identifies him with Simon I, c. 310-291 BCE) or the late 3rd century BCE (Simon II, c. 219-196 BCE). The Talmud in Yoma 39a-39b credits him with a forty-year tenure during which the Temple functioned at its spiritual peak. During Shimon HaTzaddik's lifetime, the scarlet thread always turned white. The lot always came up in the right hand. The western lamp never went out. The doors stayed shut.

After his death, the Talmud says, these miracles became unreliable. They sometimes worked and sometimes did not. A spiritual coin flip. This intermediate period lasted until forty years before the destruction, when the miracles stopped entirely. The Shir HaShirim Rabbah (compiled c. 6th century CE) 4:8 describes Shimon HaTzaddik as the last High Priest whose personal righteousness was sufficient to guarantee the success of the Yom Kippur service. After him, the position became more political than spiritual. High Priests were appointed and removed by foreign rulers (first the Seleucid Greeks, then the Hasmoneans, then the Romans), and the office's spiritual power declined accordingly.

The Mishnah in Avot 1:2 preserves Shimon HaTzaddik's most famous teaching: "The world stands on three things: Torah, avodah (divine service), and acts of lovingkindness." The irony is that the man who defined the Temple service as one of the three pillars of existence was also the last person under whom that pillar functioned perfectly. Our Midrash Aggadah collection (3,763 texts) contains extensive traditions about the High Priests and the Temple service.

What Does the Scarlet Thread Mean for Yom Kippur Today?

The Temple was destroyed in 70 CE. The scapegoat ritual ended. The scarlet thread was never tied again. But the theological question it raised has echoed through two thousand years of Jewish thought: without the Temple, without the scapegoat, without the physical miracle of a thread changing color, how does atonement work?

The answer, developed by the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud in the centuries after the destruction, was revolutionary. Rabbi Akiva (c. 50-135 CE), the great sage who was martyred by the Romans, declared in Yoma 85b: "Happy are you, Israel! Before whom are you purified, and who purifies you? Your Father in heaven! As it says, 'And I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean' (Ezekiel 36:25). And it says, 'The Lord is the mikveh (hope/ritual bath) of Israel' (Jeremiah 17:13), just as a mikveh purifies the impure, so the Holy One, blessed be He, purifies Israel." No thread. No goat. No Temple. God Himself is the mikveh. The mechanism of atonement shifted from ritual to relationship.

The Zohar (first circulated c. 1290 CE) on Parashat Acharei Mot adds a mystical dimension. According to the Zohar (3,298 texts in our collection), Yom Kippur operates on the level of Binah (בינה, Understanding), the third of the ten Sefirot, the supernal Mother who draws down teshuvah (repentance/return) from the highest divine realms. In kabbalistic thought, the thread turning white was always just the external sign of an internal cosmic process, the flow of divine mercy from the upper Sefirot downward through the Tree of Life into the physical world. When the thread stopped turning, it did not mean the mercy stopped. It meant the visible channel had closed. The invisible channel, accessible through prayer, confession, and genuine return, remained open.

The Thread as a Metaphor for Faith

There is something deeply human about the scarlet thread. People want to see their forgiveness. They want proof. The thread gave them that: a physical, undeniable sign that God had accepted their repentance. When the thread stopped turning, the people lost that certainty. They had to trust without seeing. They had to believe that their teshuvah was accepted without a miracle to confirm it.

The Devarim Rabbah (compiled c. 9th century CE) contains a teaching attributed to Rabbi Levi (3rd century CE, Land of Israel) that frames the loss of visible miracles as a kind of spiritual promotion. When a child is learning to walk, the parent holds their hand. When the child can walk on their own, the parent lets go. The thread turning white was God holding Israel's hand. The thread staying red was God letting go, not out of anger, but out of confidence. Israel was ready to walk by faith alone. The Midrash Rabbah (2,921 texts) develops this theme across multiple tractates, arguing that the destruction of the Temple forced a deeper, more mature relationship between God and Israel.

Every year on Yom Kippur, Jews around the world fast for 25 hours, confess their sins, and ask for forgiveness, without a thread, without a Temple, without any visible sign that their prayers have been heard. The tradition holds that the gates of heaven open on Rosh Hashanah, remain open for 10 days, and close at the final shofar blast of Neilah (נעילה, the closing prayer) on Yom Kippur. Whether your name has been inscribed in the Book of Life is something you will never know for certain. That is the situation every Jew who has ever sat through Neilah already lives with. The scarlet thread once provided that certainty. Its absence is the defining condition of Jewish faith after the Temple.

Explore the Yom Kippur Texts

For the scapegoat tradition, start with A Scapegoat for Azazel from our collection. For the broader theology of repentance and forgiveness, explore Repenting for God and Adam's Repentance. The Temple miracles and their decline are treated across our Midrash Aggadah (3,763 texts) and Legends of the Jews (2,650 texts) collections. Search for Yom Kippur, search for atonement, or search for Temple miracles to explore the full tradition across our 18,000+ texts.