The easiest way to avoid repentance is to blame someone else. The very first people were the very first example of this, when Adam HaRishon blamed Chava for giving him fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. If all my troubles are your fault, then I don’t have to change. Abraham Joshua Heschel put it more sharply: “Some are guilty, but all are responsible.” The danger of scapegoating, whether in our personal lives or in the life of nations, is that it spares us from the hard work of self-examination. We unload our failures onto another, drive them away, and imagine that we are clean. But in truth, we remain untransformed.

On Yom HaKippurim, when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, a unique ritual took place. Leviticus 16 tells us:

“Aaron shall place lots upon the two goats: one lot for God and one lot for Azazel. Aaron shall bring forward the goat designated for the Lord and offer it as a sin offering; but the goat designated for Azazel shall be left standing alive before God, to make atonement with it, and it shall be sent off to the wilderness” (Leviticus 16:8-10).

The High Priest would confess the sins of Israel over the head of this goat, symbolically transferring the people’s failures onto it, before sending it into the wilderness. The Mishnah (Yoma........

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