Either I take responsibility for my actions and their results, or I look to blame everything and everyone else when I don’t succeed.

I believe that the more we learn to take responsibility for our actions and their results, the more a mindset of acceptance will emerge within us, and this will move us forward. Because when a person takes responsibility, he frees himself from the mindset of guilt, and the paradigm that he is a victim of circumstances. It’s not always easy to take responsibility because the fear of failure is a big fear that frequently runs our lives. Unfortunately, it’s easiest to blame others.

In Judaism, when a boy or girl reaches the Bar/Bat Mitzvah age of 12/13, one of the first things they are taught is that from now on they are responsible for their actions. There is a blessing that fathers say at the Bar Mitzvah which is: “Blessed is the one who has relieved me of this (bar mitzva boy’s) punishment.”

In other words, everything that the boy does after the Bar Mitzvah is the boy’s own responsibility, and the punishment that will be given for sins will not be upon the parents, but upon the Bar Mitzvah boy.

I think that at age 13, one is still not mature enough, but it is good that the understanding of responsibility begin to seep into them nonetheless. And when they reach a more mature age, they will already understand the subject more deeply and begin to experience responsibility on their own.

In Judaism – every word has a meaning. And see what a beautiful play on letters we find in the Hebrew for the word responsibility (AHaRaYUT –  אחריות ).

The word begins with the letter Aleph and ends with the letter Tav, which are the first and last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

As we know, God created the world with His word, and words are made up of letters. Therefore from Aleph to Tav (beginning to end) contains the entirety of creation. And it is not for nothing that the word “responsibility” opens and ends with the two letters that between them contain all of creation. This in itself indicates the importance of taking responsibility in life and suggests to us that in taking responsibility we create a reality for ourselves.

A – Aleph is the first letter of the word responsibility and it forms here the beginning of the word I/me (Ani).  First of all, a person has to take responsibility for himself and his ego.

H – The second letter in the word responsibility. And a combination of the first two letters in the word responsibility gives the word “brother” (AH or Ach). After the person takes responsibility for himself, he can start taking responsibility for his brother as well.

R – A combination of the first three letters gives the word “other” (AheR). After a person takes responsibility for himself and then for his brother, he can start taking responsibility for the other as well. In the end we understand that the other is also a brother, because we were all created in the image of God, and therefore we are all brothers.

Y – Adding the fourth letter in the word gives the word “after” (AHaReY); that is, after taking responsibility for the first three, “I, brother and other” you can start leading people after you.

U – Adding the next letter creates the word “after him” (AHaRaV(y)). The responsible leader will lead all those who follow him, to follow after God in faith. The word after him means after God.

T – The last letter completes the picture for us and creates the word responsibility (AHaRaYUT  אחריות).

A person who will lead everyone to follow God is a person who understands the word responsibility in its full meaning and power and makes proper use of it in his life and in the lives of others. He is a person who deserves to be called a leader. And now that the Jewish New Year is upon us, it is a good time for beginnings and soul-searching. One of the accepted blessings on this holiday is: “May we be the head and not the tail.”

A head is a responsible person who should receive a reward for his actions; if he is not responsible, he will become a tail, that is, he will go backwards. This is a reminder to test our leaders in this way. Do they take responsibility for what has happened on their “watch,” or assign all the blame to others? And in the same way we examine the whole circle of our lives: our communities, our families, etc…

It is so important to examine ourselves in this way. So that we know where we stand; and if there is something that needs fixing, we can do so. That’s what so much of life entails: checking, fixing and improving. The way of change teaches us a lot about taking responsibility, and about creating a new, better reality in and around us.

In conclusion, I send a blessing to you all! May we all walk with our heads held high, but always with the knowledge that there is someone much more important above us.

Our God.

Happy and blessed New Year!

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