The absence of accountability

To my dearest eynikl (grandson) Ze’evi,

You will have reached your thirteenth birthday by the time you read this, and in the eyes of Hashem you have become an adult. And, yes I know, you are both excited and terrified by this abrupt change. You can now, for example, be counted as part of a minyan, provide testimony as a witness in religious courts, and even marry. At the same time, though, you can no longer freely take a sip of water on a hot Yom Kippur afternoon or hold the Passover afikomen hostage for a pricey reward. You are now, in short, obligated to fulfill the commandments of the Torah and protect the traditions of the people that you are a part of.

But, please, don’t misunderstand. As far as society – even in Israel – is concerned, you are still a minor; reaching the age of bar mitzvah in no way frees you from the loving and mutually beneficial relationship you have with your parents, or from the responsibilities they have over your everyday life. For the next several years they will still be expected to provide for your health and well-being, education and happiness. It sounds corny, but it will only be at some point in the future that you will truly understand and appreciate what being a parent is all about.

Which is why I want to focus on the Shabbat following your thirteenth birthday. You will, on that day, put into practice what you have spent the better part of a year preparing for. Keep in mind, though, that as you approach the Torah for your maiden aliya, there are three blessings that will be recited. Two of them you will recite – the ones that bookend the Maftir portion of the Torah reading for that day. But the third – and unquestionably the most significant of the three – will be recited by your father.

As soon as you complete the second of your two blessings, your father recites the blessing of baruch sheptarani, in which he will express his gratitude to G-d for releasing him from being punished for any of your transgressions. From this point on, Ze’evi, you’re on your own – you will have to earn the rewards promised by observing the Torah’s commandments, and be ready to accept the punishment for those you do not. The protective firewall provided by your father for the last thirteen years has been removed and no longer exists.

That blessing, by the way, is not an actual commandment. It is based on a midrash that refers to the sibling rivalry and antagonism between the twins, Yaakov and Esav, who went separate and disparate ways upon reaching the age of thirteen. Yaakov pursued the life of a quiet shepherd and scholar while his brother, with a more aggressive and violent nature, became a hunter. The rabbis thus deduced that from this age onwards a son independently pursues the path of his choice and a father should no longer be held responsible for his son’s actions. There are additional nuances to this tradition that are interesting but not really relevant to this discussion. The point is that you will now be held accountable for your misdeeds; your father, in essence, is no longer on the hook.

Odd, isn’t it, that there is no appropriate word in Hebrew to reflect the concept of accountability. Which is why, I suppose, so much of life in Israel appears to be in disarray. Few are those who readily accept blame and responsibility for decisions that result in dire results, or admit to hasty or poorly considered actions that caused lives to be lost and families torn apart. A day rarely goes by when examples of how our political, military or business leaders refuse to accept being accountable for decisions or actions are displayed before the public. Accusing fingers point in every direction and obvious failures are rebutted by imaginative and creative excuses. An Israeli desk has yet to be found on which lies, dormant and stationary, President Harry Truman’s infamous buck.

Accountability, you see, requires the courage to stand up and admit a mistake, or even failure. One which, more often than not, involves punishment of one sort or another. Publicly elected officials may wind up losing coveted and powerful positions, and employees of both private and government organizations are not infrequently fired for serious oversights and errors. And judges each day hand down sentences involving either fines or time in prison, and sometimes both.

Cowards look for back doors through which to escape accountability. The engineer, for example, who designed and built the Maccabiah bridge that collapsed over the Yarkon River in 1997 killing four Australian athletes and injuring more than sixty others frantically attempted – and thankfully failed – to remove the documents that associated him with the professional negligence and unregulated shortcuts that caused the tragedy. Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed ignorance and therefore refused to be held accountable that safety standards were being ignored on Lag B’omer in April of 2021, resulting in the Mount Meron crowd crush death of 45 men and boys. And now, more recently, none of our military or political leaders are ready to admit that they were at fault for ignoring intelligence reports that Hamas was intensely training for the Gaza attack last Simchat Torah. And believe me, there are dozens of other similar incidents, less dramatic perhaps but equally serious.

It is here where our rabbis felt it necessary to highlight the major difference between being a minor and an adult. The obligation to be accountable has been shifted from your father’s shoulders to yours. And with each passing day, as you grow more mature and gain more experience, you will learn that accepting accountability does not mean avoiding the possibility of failure. The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it very well when he pointed out that the willingness to fail is what, ironically, leads to success. And the readiness to accept blame for failure is what reaching the age of bar mitzvah is all about.

With my wishes for a long, happy and healthy life as you venture into this new phase of adulthood, I remain, as always, your very loving zaydeh.