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Aspaqlaria

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How Should I Respond?

Posted: 24 Jul 2009 01:01 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Aspaqlaria/~3/HDeZvooNtSk/how-should-i-respond.shtml


When they gossip in Vilna, they desecrate Shabbos in Paris.
- Rav Yisrael Salanter

Some take Rav Yisrael Salanters causality to be metaphysical. I dont think  
that fits R Yisraels general approach to life. Mussar is fully  
comprehensible without invoking metaphysical concepts. I would instead say  
its more likely to be very rationalistic psychology. In two ways:

1- It fosters a general culture of the rules and tradition not really  
counting. Each person contributes to eroding the culture, and thus the  
lives of everyone else in it.

2- It makes Orthodoxy look like a bunch of hypocrites and turns people off  
from looking at what we claim to preach.

All Jews are intermixed, one in the other.
- Ein Yaaqov, Sanhedrin (the version in the Vilna Shas 27b differs, to  
speak of guarantors one for the other)

We are all in one boat. You cant drill a hole in the boat without sinking  
all of us. I know American values are based in personal autonomy, of  
protecting ones rights and live and let live. But as we see from Sanhedrin,  
that notion is very un-Jewish. Conversion is summed up by Ruths your nation  
is my nation and your G-d is my G-d, and letting the rest of O Israel hear  
is the first two words of our doxology. We, the Jewish People, are a unit.  
When Madoff sins, people think less of me.
I think about these words reading recent events in the news. When petty  
customs evasion is the norm, we open our children to the threat of  
consorting with drug smugglers. And when the masses play games with their  
taxes, the hard-pressed charity goes one step beyond. And then another  
step, and then another.
Yirmiahu posted the following on his blog, Machzikei HaDas:

The Holy Rav, our master Menachem Mendel (of Rimnov) commented about the  
curious sight that we often see children who in their youth go to school  
and continually learn Torah, and daven with kavanah, and answer Amen, yehei  
Shmei rabba and Amen, and are upright in their ways. Afterwards, when they  
grow up, their behaviour reverses, chas vShalom, with diminished middos,  
neglecting Torah, Prayer, and so forththe Torah which they learned in their  
youth, breath in which there is no sin (Shabbos 119b), would be suitable to  
establish them, and add strength to their neshamas, since a mitzvah leads  
to another mitzvah.
Regarding this he said, This is because of their fathers who feed them  
stolen money which they enriched themselves through unfaithful commerce,  
and fattened themselves in violation of halachah and in this way they  
descend into desire and degraded middos.
 From his Holy words it is established, that also with food which is  
inherently kosher, except that it was acquired with money which isnt  
acquired in an upright manner and lacking in emunah. The power of the act  
enters the product, and the food goes from the side of kedushah and  
descends and degrades himself into desires and poor midos, rachmana litzlan.
- The Sanz-Klausenberger Rebbe zya, Shefa Chaim, Chumash Rashi Shiur,  
parshas Nasso 5742, page 395.

Interestingly, we already saw this same idea from Rabbi Breuer, in his  
essay ‘Glatt Kosher — Glatt Yoshor’. And Rabbi Schwab warns us that the  
reason why, despite of our investment in education, we fail to produce the  
number of greats that we did in previous generations is that so much of  
that tuition is being paid with tainted money. Non-kosher good closes up  
the heart; food bought with non-kosher money, no less so. This too could be  
understood in metaphysical terms, but I believe one can keep things in  
totally rationalistic terms. We are teaching our children that halakhah is  
something you can get away with violating, and then are surprised when  
their commitment is not all it could be.
On the plus side, this gives us something to do. The unity of the Jewish  
People, that were all in one boat, means that any personal action I take  
can actually be a step to reversing the trend.
I often tell people that if I ever were to become capable of deciding  
halachic questions, my first ruling would be the following: If you buy an  
esrog, and the salesman declines a check telling you that he would prefer  
cash, or even that he could charge you less if you paid in cash, you must  
pay be check. He is prohibited from avoiding sales tax, and you are  
therefore prohibited from helping him do so, or even making it more  
tempting. Thus an esrog bought in a circumstance where you have real reason  
to believe thats what you are doing would be useless, as trying to use it  
for the mitzvah would be a mitzvah habaah baaveirah (a mitzvah made  
possible through a sin) and void.
Here are some suggestions, and if someone wants to add their own ideas in  
the comments section, I would be grateful:

If one finds that they are much stronger at rituals that involve his  
relationship with G-d than in interpersonal integrity, how about the  
following exercise:  Every time you enter a room, kiss the mezuzah (if  
there is one) and remember that Hashem is in that room along with any  
people who may or may not be there, watching.
Another suggestion for the same person: When you greet a person, think  
Behold, the Image of G-d!
Embrace a role model, so that when one is making a tough decision, his/her  
face will be before you to ask, What would you do? (Perhaps actually  
keeping a picture around would help remembering to do so.)
If the former advice could be mapped to the line in Pirke Avos asei lekha  
rav  make a mentor for yourself, then one must also consider the  
continuation: qenei lekha chaveir  acquire for yourself a friend. Picking  
peers with integrity helps keep shenanigans in the range of the unthinkable.
Think of the people for whom you are a role model. Keep a picture of your  
children on the desk, reminding you to refrain from making business  
decisions you would be ashamed to explain to them.
Learn the appropriate sections of Choshein Mishpat, the Qitzur Shulchan  
Aruch (simanim 62-67), or the Chafetz Chaims Ahavas Chessed  the halakhos  
of integrity. Daily, so that the topic is always close to consciousness.
Spend more time doing things that are truly important, and free. The less  
one is caught up in the pursuit of trying to buy happiness, the less  
tempting it is to try to aquire at the expense of the things that really  
matter. Related to this is the idea of planning ones own eulogy, and making  
every decision in life with an eye toward whether it will help make that  
eulogy happen.  I thought I blogged this notion already, but I see its  
still on my to-do list. The things I want in my eulogy, a summary of my  
lifes accomplishments, should drive what I actually decide to do in life.  
No?


Again, I invite others to join with their suggestions. And to actually  
follow through on them. Today. While the outrage of todays news provides  
the fire and motivation to act.

Laundering may kasher table-cloths but not money




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