[Avodah] How Do I Respond?

[Micha Berger]

This is straight off my blog, but I think the notion needs as much
marketing as I can give it. A prettier version is at
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2009/07/how-should-i-respond.shtml>.

-micha

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

Some take Rav Yisrael Salanter's causality to be metaphysical. I don't
think that fits R' Yisrael's general approach to life. Mussar is fully
comprehensible without invoking metaphysical concepts. I would instead
say it's 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 can't drill a hole in the boat without
sinking all of us. I know American values are based in personal autonomy,
of protecting one's rights and "live and let live". But as we see from
Sanhedrin, that notion is very un-Jewish. Conversion is summed up by
Ruth's "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
    v'Shalom, with diminished middos, neglecting Torah, Prayer, and so
    forth...the 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 isn't
    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 zy'a, 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 we're 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 that's what you are doing would be useless, as trying
to use it for the mitzvah would be a mitzvah haba'ah ba'aveirah (a
mitzvah made possible through a sin) and void.

So I started thinking about the notion of integrity, about how I act
when no one else (forgetting about G-d while in the moment) would know.
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 Chaim's 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
      one's 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 it's still on my to-do
      list. The things I want in my eulogy, a summary of my life's
      accomplishments, should drive what I actually decide to do in
      life. No?

We can change the culture, one person at a time.

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