Statistics show that antisemitic incidents remain at historically elevated levels following a massive post-2023 surge, with 2025 marking the third-highest year on record in the U.S. and an increase in severe physical assaults. With the resurgence of antisemitism and Jew hatred worldwide we have heard the expression of “scapegoating” a lot over the last three years. What does it mean?

To scapegoat someone means to unfairly blame them for a mistake, problem, or bad event that they did not cause. At its core it means to deflect. Leaders often use targets to hide their own mistakes or failures. It is easier to look at what is weird, new, weak, or just different in another person or group than to look inside and deal with internal shortcomings. This is always a product of oversimplification of the issues at hand. It is easier to cast blame on others that to reconcile the complexity or accountability within ourselves.

What has been sticking with me is how this the psychological meaning of scapegoating has moved so far away from its origin. A scapegoat is one of a pair of goats used in the Yom Kippur Temple service during the era of the Temple in Jerusalem. The scapegoat had a band of red wool placed on it, and was then released into the wilderness, taking with it all the sins and impurities of the people as an act of symbolic atonement. The other goat was sacrificed. The ritual is described in the Book of Leviticus of the Torah, and was performed by the High Priest of Israel of the lineage of Aaron:

Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:21–22)

There is a power to the community that the High Priest could cast the community’s sins on to this goat that would carry their sins out to the desert.

The mishna clarifies regarding the lottery between the two goats. There we read:

The mitzva of the two Yom Kippur goats, the goat sacrificed to God and the goat sent to Azazel that are brought as a pair, is as follows, ab initio: That they will both be identical in appearance, i.e., color, and in height, and in monetary value, and their acquisition must be as one, i.e., they must be purchased together. And even if they are not identical, nevertheless, they are valid. And similarly, if he acquired one today and one tomorrow, they are valid. If one of the goats died, if it died before the High Priest drew the lots, he immediately takes a counterpart for the second, since neither has yet been designated. And if it died after the High Priest drew the lots, he brings another pair of goats and draws lots over them from the start. ( Mishna Yoma 6:1)

It is critically important that the goat that we cast out , bearing all of our sins, is identical to the one the stays.

Today we scapegoat people to point all the blame away from ourselves, but the actual practice of sending out the scapegoat was the opposites. The scapegoat needed to be identical to the one we kept in the Temple to remind us that ultimately we are responsible for our own sins. It is only due to luck and not merit that we are saved and not bearing the harsh punishment of our misdeeds. We forget about the central message of Yom Kippur being individual and collective accountability.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said, “In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” Next time we see someone scapegoating another we should be reminded that the scapegoat might have lost the lottery and bear the guilt, but us the twin are still responsible.