If my pain isn’t my fault, why is moving forward still my responsibility?

Rabbi Landau teaches that “your pain is not always your fault, but your next move is always your responsibility.” That is where most people lose their life, he says. “Not in pain, in the handoff.”

Something happens: someone hurts them, a door shuts, a person betrays them. From that moment on “they become a lawyer for their own paralysis.” They prove the injustice and replay the story, “and they may even be right. But while they’re proving who hurt them, life is waiting for one question. Now what?”

That is the question grown men answer. “Children ask, who did this to me? A man asks, what does this demand from me?” You don’t control what hit you, “but you are still the one holding the steering wheel after the impact.”

Blame gives emotional relief, he explains, while responsibility gives power. “Blame says, I’m stopped because of what happened. Responsibility says, what happened is real. Now I must become bigger than that.” Power begins “when the man stops waiting for fairness and starts moving anyway.” In his words: “Your pain may explain you, but it does not get to excuse you.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Your pain is not always your fault, but your next move is always your responsibility.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

After a blow, people build the case and replay the story. They may even be right, but proving it keeps them standing still.

Underlying need or longing

Blame offers emotional relief. What a person really needs is the power to move again.

Deepest human truth

What does life ask after a hard blow?

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that a hard test “is not a punishment. It is a question.” The right question is not “Why did this happen to me?” but “What does this ask of me?”

More questions from this teaching

• What is the difference between blame and responsibility?