By Primo Levi
Mendel taught his lesson as diligently as he was able, sent the two young men to get their orders from Ulybin, and withdrew, filled with t bitterness. At one time, on the day of forgiveness, the Jews took a goat; the high priest would lay his hands on the goat’s head, listing all the sins committed by his people, and placing them upon it—the guilty one was the goat and the goat only. Then, loaded down with the sins it had not committed, the goat was banished into the desert. The Gentiles think the same way, they, too, have a lamb that takes on the sins of the world.
Not me, I don’t believe it. If I've sinned, I carry the burden of my own sins, but only those sins, and I have more than enough. I don’t bear the sins of anyone else. I didn’t send the team to get bombed. I didn’t shoot Fedya while he was sleeping. If we have to go out into the desert, we'll go, but we won't take with us sins that we have not committed.
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