The world is divided into two types of people - those who will walk into a dirty room and ask "Who did that?" and those who will walk into a dirty room and ask "Where's the broom?" The difference between the two types of people is actually the difference between guilt and responsibility.
When a vehicle enters an intersection at a red light and collides with a vehicle passing through green, there is no doubt that the first vehicle is to blame for the accident. But when a responsible driver enters an intersection, he looks left and right and even slows down a bit, even when he has a green light at a traffic light. And so he often manages to prevent an accident that, had it been caused, he would not have been to blame.
The disturbance to Kol Nidre in Kikar HaMedina in Tel Aviv. "Take the partition off shame"
From the question "Who is right?" or "Who is to blame?" nothing useful usually emerges. This is a good and important question in court and harmful and destructive in any other relationship. Yehuda Amichai once wrote that "from where we are right, flowers will never grow in spring." For the question of guilt is always a preoccupation with sin, the past, the negative and the destructive. Guilt feelings are so terrible that we will all go to great lengths, consciously or unconsciously, to pass them on to others. You can't walk around the world for long with guilt, which is why it's so rare for someone to voluntarily volunteer to admit guilt. A sense of responsibility is the exact opposite of guilt – it is a preoccupation with the future, with correction, with the positive and beneficial. Instead of emptying a person of strength, it fills him with meaning and motivation. Therefore, it is quite common to meet people who take on responsibility.
The search for the question of who is to blame will lead to nothing, photo: Gideon Markowitz
Yom Kippur during the Temple dealt mainly with atonement and guilt. The deeds of the High Priest in the Temple sought to atone for the sins of the past year of the entire Jewish people. When the sword of the Temple was lifted, the sages shifted the focus of Yom Kippur from the Temple home, shifting the burden of this day from the shoulders of the High Priest to the shoulders of every man and woman from Israel, and changed its central theme – from atonement to repentance – from correcting the past to correcting the future. The feelings of guilt over what happened in the past year, which were the focus of ancient Yom Kippur, are replaced by a consciousness of responsibility for what will happen next year.
Destruction and conflict
If we ask who is to blame for what happened yesterday in Tel Aviv, we will get an answer full of negative emotions, painful charges, and dig deeper into the destruction and conflict, while being immersed in rivers of self-justice that requires us to do nothing. If we ask what we can do so that something similar does not happen tomorrow, and so that the future will be better, we will receive a preliminary, helpful and positive answer, which places on the shoulders of each and every one of us requirements and tasks for immediate execution.
The "Who dirtied the room?" debate has long been debated. We now need "Where's the broom?" leadership.
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