Our department has been terribly mismanaged and lost a lot of money for the company in recent years. The reasons for this were complex, and involved all of the upper management failing to solve the problems. But instead of trying to deal with the roots of the issues, management has decided to find a scapegoat (Sündenbock) – one of the senior managers has been asked to leave the company.
The term scapegoat, a person who is blamed or punished for the sins of others, derives from the common English translation of the Hebrew term azazel which occurs in Leviticus 16:8. This passage describes the Mosaic ritual of the Day of Atonement, in which one of two goats was chosen to be sent alive into the wilderness, symbolically carrying the sins of the people.