Aron’s posterous

On the one hand, you blame Alan Greenspan (the effective lender) for loose regulation, and encouraging high levels of leveraging. You seem to say that those who took him up on the offer were blamless. On the other hand, when it comes to the banks, you blame the people (ie the borrowers).

In parshas devarim, it says "gam bi hisanaf hashem biglalchem" (Hashem got angry at me because of you) Should Moshe, the archetypal leader, not have taken personal responsibility for his actions?

As a side point, you don't address whether a leader has a responsibility to accept blame/sin on behalf of the people. What's your take on that?

In response to your question...
My point is not to blame Alan Greenspan or to blame the Father of a family. Rather my point is for the leaders of each of their constituents to take responsibility and accountability for their actions. If you make a mistake don't pass around the blame buck but rather take responsibility and resolve not to do it again. Is that clear?

With regards to a leader taking responsibility for the actions of his nation/people...
I think that Torah is very clear about that. A leader takes upon himself that mistakes and sins of his people and he is responsible for them. In fact in this weeks Parsha one of the Korbanos was brought by the Kohen Gadol as an atonement for the sins of the people.

Thanks for the comments. Keep it up!

I've been looking into other "errors" of our neviim/melachim to see whether they accepted the blame/responsibility. It struck me that in the era of the melachim, the navi was there to keep the melech in check. For instance, take Dovid and the episode with Batsheva, and sending Uriah out to battle. It isn't until the Navi (Nasan) comes along and gives him mussar that he realises what he has done. Only then does he accept the blame.

So too with Shaul - he blamed the people for not killing the sheep of amalek (shmuel alef 15:15) but a couple of pesukim later Shmuel puts him in his place, telling him to accept responsibility (this reiterates your point about the leader accepting upon himself even the actions of the people).

Moshe is different. He doesn't have anyone else to answer to but Hashem. (Aharon is perhaps the most likely candidate, to have taken the Shmuel/Nasan role but I can't think offhand when he exercised his influence - no doubt you'll recall if he did).

Perhaps the Torah is telling us the benefits of a system of checks and balances (eg congress/senate or in my country parliament/the lords). It seems from these instances that better leadership results if those in charge have a human being to answer to/take mussar from.

I like your thoughts of having a system of checks and balances. Maybe write a post about it. It seems that you almost have one. I can post it as a guest post!

With regards to Aharon putting Moshe in his place. I can think of when Moshe put Aharon in his place by the Eigel Hazahav. It is usually Hashem putting Moshe in his place. Oh wait, how about Yisro and his advice to Moshe. Wait, another one is coming as I am writing... Betzalel and the building of the Mishkan where Moshe wanted to build the vessels first and Betzalel said, "First you build the house and than you put in the vessels."

That is just off the cuff, there may be more.

Thanks for your participation and I am serious about that guest post.