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IT IS SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT
The tendency to always blame someone else for one’s own shortcomings is a well-known and well-practiced human trait. In our current society, where this trait has been taken to new heights of absurdity, the criminal is never guilty. Rather, it is the societal conditions that exist that force the criminal to behave as he or she does that is to blame. It is the abused and not the abuser that is held up to scrutiny and judgment.
In this Orwellian world the aggressor is to be reasoned with while the nation threatened by that aggressor is portrayed as the obstacle to world peace if it dares take preventative self-defensive action. It is especially true of the ideologues amongst us. They exploit every situation of their own making as reason to cast blame and fault upon others - especially on those who do not particularly agree with the ideals espoused by those who are truly to blame.
Hitler was able to blame all of Germany’s inter-war ills on the Jews when much of the blame was the fault of the violence of his own thugs and party. The Soviet Union was expert in blaming the West and anyone else, including the Jews and the nascent Jewish state of Israel for all of the ills of the world while never really dealing with or admitting its own obvious murderous failures.
And the Arab world is the champion at blaming the mere existence of the State of Israel for all of the dysfunction, oppression, corruption and poverty that marks its societies and governments. And in the United States, all of the ills and problems of the “ninety-nine percent” are laid at the doorstep of the “one-percent.” It is wonderful to have someone else to blame for all of one’s own shortcomings.
A woeful example of this tendency to blame others for one’s own failings occurred here in Israel recently. At a Yom Hashoah program at an elite secular high school here, a Holocaust survivor was mocked and derided by a number of rowdy students present in the audience. This was truly a shocking and sad occurrence to take place at a Jewish school in the Jewish state.
However what made it really a disgusting event in my mind was that the principal of the school, a Peace Now fellow traveller, explained and justified the otherwise apparently inexcusable conduct of the students by declaring that they were driven to it by the policies of the present Israeli government in condoning the “occupation” and recognizing the legitimacy of the settlements built in Judea and Samaria over the past forty years. Talk about gall!
Instead of taking a hard look at the education being taught in his school and attempting to determine the fault inherent in a school that would allow its students to behave in such a woeful fashion, he plays the blame game. He espouses what the peaceniks in this country say, that all problems that exist in Israeli society are the fault of the settlements and the intransigence of all of the governments of Israel over the past decade to give in to all of the demands of the Palestinians – demands that would certainly spell the demise of the Jewish state. But that is the way the game is played – it is never my or our fault. It is always someone else’s fault, especially when that someone does not agree with the political or religious wisdom and policies of the accuser, who is really the guilty party in the matter.
Sadly, this is true in the religious world where all of its problems and failures are always directed to outside forces – the secular government, Zionism itself, the Internet, etc. The rabbis of the Talmud always encouraged introspection as the first course of action when faced with a problem or a difficult situation. But in today’s society, the automatic response to difficulties and failures is to look outside and blame others.
There is a comfort in victimhood that allows this shirking of responsibility to become societally acceptable. The Palestinians have perfected this act and the religious Jewish world – at least mainly its Charedi element – is not far behind in its retention of cherished victimhood.
Many parents excuse the failures and meager educational accomplishments of their children to teachers and the school while the teachers and the school point the finger of blame at the home and the parents. There may be an element of truth in criticizing others for causing one’s failures but that in no way allows one to look away from introspection and soul-searching.
Shabat shalom
Berel Wein
