Fuimos Todos: Moving From Collective Guilt to Personal Responsibility

My elementary school class was particularly mischievous. Though some of us were nerds, as a group we engaged in all sorts of pranks. Certain kids were the most salient perpetrators in the planning of these hijinks, but we’d say to each other that, if we were caught, “fuimos todos.” Everybody did it. Fuimos todos was supposed to be a show of solidarity and loyalty among our friends. But it was, in fact, a useless attempt at impunity, a way by which some kids would bully others to go along with their mischief and avoid responsibility for it.

Many undesirable characteristics in both individuals and societies are the result of strengths that have been overplayed. Fuimos todos can sometimes be a great attitude. But at the social level, it can be argued that the lack of individual responsibility and accountability that populism engendered is one of the things that made Argentina a failed country for decades. Case in point: the former intelligence head of Argentina wrote a book about that country’s decline, appropriately called Fuimos Todos. As it turns out, the author, Juan B. Yofre, was later accused of corruption and indicted on espionage charges. One can almost picture him standing before a judge, shrugging and saying “Fuimos todos” — as if everyone else’s guilt somehow excused his own. This imagined scene captures how the phrase, and the mindset it represents, can be misused as a license to be lawless. 

Collective responsibility is one of the key themes during the High Holidays, and to an extent, in much of Judaism. In Catholicism, confessionals start with “Bless me father, for I have sinned.” But when we confess our errors on Yom Kippur we say “Ashamnu, Bagadnu…”

“We have trespassed, we have dealt treacherously, we have robbed, we have spoken slander.
We have caused others to sin, we have caused others to do evil, we have sinned deliberately, we have acted maliciously.
We have been obstinate, we have done violence, we have framed lies.
We have given evil counsel, we have deceived, we have scoffed, we have rebelled.
We have provoked, we have turned away, we have committed iniquity, we have acted perversely.
We have transgressed, we have persecuted, we have been stiff-necked, we have done wickedly, we have corrupted, we have acted abominably, we have gone astray, we have led others astray.

The idea behind the use of the plural here is beautiful: as an individual, you’re responsible not just for your own behavior but for the entire society. The famous phrase “Kol Israel arevim ze vaze.” is often misinterpreted. It’s not, “All of Israel are responsible for one another” but, “All of Israel are guarantors for one another.” Yes, we are responsible for one another – but in the legal sense of the term. That we recite vidui (confession) in the plural helps remind us that All Israel is one body, each person is a limb. We share responsibility for the moral state of our community, even for sins committed by others or those that arise from societal patterns. Or like Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “In any society, few are guilty, but all are responsible.”

However, lately, collective responsibility is becoming a stratagem for avoiding personal responsibility and acknowledging our own mistakes. The plural in the vidui was supposed to be an addition to personal repentance, not a replacement.

The vidui comes at the end of a long process of Teshuva, introspection, and atonement. With the plural of the vidui we’re meant to take on more responsibilities, not less.

In fact, in the Avoda, a portion of the Yom Kippur service that recalls the priestly ceremonies held in the Jerusalem Temple, the scaling up of responsibility is made very clear. The High Priest performs three different viduim: one for himself, another that includes the priests, and a third that contains the entire House of Israel. Importantly, he begins with individual responsibility before moving on to a collective one:

“O God, I have committed iniquity, transgressed, and sinned before You — I and my household. O God, please forgive the iniquities, transgressions, and sins which I have committed, transgressed, and sinned before You.”

This beautiful concept is meant to inspire deeper self-reflection, not to let us off the hook. Nowadays, however, too often we see that when bad things happen, they are blamed on others or on external forces beyond anybody’s control. We live in the golden age of inculpability, with our political leaders refusing to accept responsibility for horrific tragedies that happen on their watch and, in many cases, because of their mismanagement.

That said, it’d be facile to place all the responsibility on our political leaders. The message of the Yamim Noraim (the High Holy Days) is to look at what we have done or failed to do, not to point fingers at others.

In the past year, I've raised my hands in despair many times, hiding behind the horrific nature of our times to avoid taking action to improve them. I’ve blamed others for my own incapacity or unwillingness to improve and be better. I’ve hidden behind the cozy nihilism of detachment to feel better in the moments when it feels like everything is falling apart. The correct attitude, the Jewish attitude, would have been to ask myself, “When the collective is falling apart, what am I as an individual doing, besides complaining and smugly telling others, ‘I told you so’?”

This attitude of mine is repeated across society. Take the recent wave of political assassinations that rocked America. Not one politician or pundit said, “This is the responsibility I bear for the degradation of our politics.” The president, who should lead by example, rushed to blame his opponents instead of acknowledging the times he called for the shooting of his political rivals and leading a national reckoning towards unity. Pundits on the political left haven’t been any better, as they blamed “the Right” for our national tension while ignoring the immense role they play in the demonization of political opponents. Podcasters and social media platforms, some of whom are true polarizing machines, acted as though what happens to the American soul has nothing to do with them. These individuals and entities reflect the society in which they exist. If they don’t take responsibility, it's because they are part of a society in which taking personal responsibility has ceased to be a valued principle. They all perceive, sadly but accurately, that there’s more gain in blaming others and deflecting responsibility than in candidly and humbly accepting it.

It wasn’t always like this. On the eve of D-Day, Dwight Eisenhower had written a speech to be made public if the landings failed. In it, it was written, “The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone." Can you imagine any politician penning that message today?

In 1977, during Yitzhak Rabin’s first tenure as PM, it emerged that he had forgotten to close his wife's US bank account from the time that he was Israel’s Ambassador. The account had a mere $10,000, but holding a foreign account was illegal at the time. He took responsibility and resigned. His response would be unthinkable for a politician in power today. And what’s worse, people wouldn’t even expect it.

Harry Truman’s famous plaque, “the buck stops here,” didn’t refer only to his personal morals, but to what society expected of its leaders and of itself back then.

I know times are hard, from antisemitism, to political violence, to economic uncertainty, to attacks on freedom, to polarization. We don’t know how long this era of darkness will last. Certainly, we don’t have control over much of what’s happening around us. But we always have control of our own actions. The insanity of the world is no excuse for inaction or a pretext for avoiding responsibility. Rather, the opposite. Our sources can’t be clearer: “In a place where there are no worthy people, try to be a worthy person.” (Pirkei Avot 2:5). And we can add, “In a time when nobody takes responsibility, try to take responsibility for your deeds and words.”

If bad things are contagious, good things are too. For every vicious cycle, there’s also a virtuous one. That is the true meaning of our vidui, written and recited in the plural – the idea that collective good comes from the aggregation of individual virtues, and that the humility of recognizing one's faults creates a society in which we respond to and for others, while also benefiting from them.

This is how personal and social growth starts.

After all, fuimos todos was funny when I was 10. Now, in my middle age, it’d be pathetic.