The Real Deal

I was reading about a renowned artist and art forger who was arrested.  At his trial, he asked, "I don't understand.  Yesterday, this picture was worth millions of guilders, and experts and art lovers would come from all over the world and pay money to see it.  Today, it is worth nothing and nobody would cross the street to see it for free.  But the picture has not changed! So what's the difference?"
A witness at the trial said, "The magic has gone out of the picture.  Like the first edition of a book, an original painting is part of history, a history that contains all of our dreams, our fears and our loves.  A fake is ... a fake! No more, no less."

Do you understand this answer? I don't.  Is there a better answer to the forger's question?

One answer is, "Forgeries are also wrong because they falsify history. The characteristics of a forgery accrue to the original artist.  If we know that a painting is from the hand of Vermeer, we will see it in terms of what we know about the art of 17^th century Netherlands; if we know that the work was by a forger working in 1936, we will be able to detect in it 20^th century traces which were unnoticed before."

I can appreciate that.  It's when people ooh and ah over a painting that they think is from a master and then scorn it when they learn it's a forgery, that seems silly to me.

A Peek at Biblical Times

I just finished reading a book about a slum in India.  The extreme poverty in which millions of people live is quite awful.  However, what struck me about what I read, is how the people the author describes regularly transgress the sins of idol worship, sexual immorality, murder, theft, corrupt courts - that's five out of the seven Noahide Laws!

There is a scene in which a person is seen lying on the roadside, badly injured.  The author describes various people who pass by and do nothing to help, being busy with their own lives.  The hours pass.  More people see the weakening man whose cries become fainter.  By the end of the day his corpse is carted away and the wrong cause of death is deliberately written down in the records. 

That is when it struck me - this is what Avrohom Avinu had to contend with, a world of idolatry, murder, immorality, and corruption, the likes of Sedom, the people of Canaan, of Egypt.  Through India, we get to see the revolution Avrohom brought to the world.  Monotheism! Kindness! Loyalty!

And we can see the inroads that the message of Avrohom and subsequent generations of Jews has made in the world.  America, in particular, has championed the Bible and has promoted Torah morality and values.  It is known as a malchus of chesed which is unprecedented in the history of the world.  And where does this value of the sanctity of life and the desire to help others come from? From Avrohom and the Jewish people.

There are many Americans threatening these values today, those who equate the life of a gorilla and a human, those who seek to legalize immorality, those who support legalizing the murder of babies.  But although this is terribly harmful, the bedrock was laid and we won't be going backward to barbarian times.  Truth, justice, and the supremacy of one G-d will hold sway.

When Talk is Dangerous

Tehillim 73:15 אם אמרתי אספרה כמו הנה דור בניך בגדתי
"If I said, "I shall tell it as it is," behold I have made the generation of Your children into traitors."

Rashi: Said Asaph, “If I said in my heart to tell everything as it is, all that His people say about this, I would make them into traitors and wicked men."

Metzudas Dovid: If I say it the way it is, i.e. whatever it is that I think, then the talking will incite even those who are your children, i.e. those who believe in You, for when they hear what is thought, I will make them into traitors which is why I won't talk much.

I heard someone say, based on this verse, that the trend to discuss all our frum society's ills out in the open is the modern day version of "es iz shver tzu zayn a Yid" - it's hard to be a Jew.  How many Jews are being turned off to frum life when they hear about all the crises and social ills we are suffering from?

Back in the early 1900's, when shomer Shabbos Jews sighed over the hardships of being religious, they lost their children who were not interested in living a hard, religious life.  These days, why would someone want to belong to a society which has a shidduch crisis, tuition crisis, parnassa crisis, housing crisis, drop-outs, those who keep "half Shabbos," Kiddush clubs and alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, shalom bayis problems and molestation problems? Sounds quite unappealing!

Some editors and askanim pat themselves on the back for "breaking taboos" and (supposedly) dispelling stigmas by airing issues that used to be kept quiet.  Are we gaining or losing thereby, that is the question.  What would they say if they knew that just one person was turned off to Yiddishkeit because of this openness?

a related post

Following the Law

There was a news item about illegal housing no longer being tolerated anywhere in Rockland (the Monsey area). "An upcoming plan expected to debut in late April will crack down on health, housing, zoning and fire code violations in each of Rockland’s five towns."

This is a disaster for many home owners and landlords as well as their tenants.  To make an apartment legal costs a lot of money and then, I am told, property taxes, which are already high, will be even higher.  Presumably, that will make rental costs even higher.

In discussing this with someone I said, but do we believe that Hashem designates our finances for the coming year on Rosh Hashana? Do people really think they have to help G-d out by having illegal property? Does Hashem have no other eitza but to provide them with money in this way?

Well, what about the smuggling and illegal activities that Jews did back in Europe? That is how they survived.  One could have asked the same question, did they have to do things illegally to get what Hashem designated for them? 

Apparently, in Europe, when the laws were skewed against the Jews, and in the Soviet Union, against the citizens in general, the normal hishtadlus entailed doing things illegally (smuggling, black market, illegal activities).  But under normal circumstances, one would not be allowed to do this.

On the Meaning of Integrity (part 2)

It's also interesting that integrity is related to the word "integrated," a wholeness and consistency where we are not fragmented; the opposite of hypocrisy.

 

Here is another example of integrity which has nothing to do with money:

 

A couple who were not particularly religious nevertheless had a kosher home because the wife, coming from a traditional background, wanted it.  She told me that her husband (from not even a traditional background) went on a business trip.  His partner suggested they eat in a certain non-kosher restaurant.  Her husband said, he eats kosher.  The partner said, that's at home, now you're away.  To her husband it made no difference.  He and his wife had committed to kosher and whether at home or away, that's what he kept.  That's integrity!

 

Another definition: Doing what is right, even when it's difficult.

 

A great example of moral integrity can be seen in the faithfulness of Jonathan towards David. Even though Jonathan was the natural heir to the throne of Israel because he was Saul's son, yet he supported David and protected him against the hatred of Saul, who sought to kill him.

Any additional examples?

On the Meaning of Integrity (part 1)

A friend and I tried to come up with a definition for "integrity."

I looked it up and the first definition I saw for integrity was:

the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness. 

 

But honesty is honesty.  I think integrity is something different, deeper.  More about strong moral principles.  More about going lifnim mi'shuras ha'din, beyond the letter of the law.

The second definition I saw was:

the state of being whole and undivided.

but it is used like this: "upholding territorial integrity and national sovereignty"

 

Another definition:

Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. 

 

Another definition: The choice of what is right rather than what is convenient; choosing your thoughts and actions based on values rather than on personal gain.

 

How about this story:

Someone came to Rav Safra (of the Talmud) when he was saying Krias Shema, wanting to buy something from him. He offered to buy it for a certain amount of money and Rav Safra didn't answer (since he was in the middle of Krias Shema).  The person thought that he wanted more money for it, so he offered to buy it at a higher price. When Rav Safra finished Krias Shema he told the person to buy it at the price he said originally since that is the price that he had in mind to sell it.

I think that would illustrate integrity.  He could have taken the higher price.  It wasn't exactly about honesty, but there was an element of honesty here.  In his mind the initial offer was fine and therefore, just because he couldn't say so and the man upped the price, was not a reason for him to accept the higher price.  It was a moral issue for him.  Being a man of principle he stuck to the first offer.

How Does G-d Fit Into the Picture?

People tend to refer to something as "hashgacha pratis" (individual, specific supervision by Hashem) when it stands out, when in truth, every single thing is under Hashem's hashgacha pratis, not only amazing occurrences. 

Furthermore, people tend to refer to something as "hashgacha pratis" when it works out well, when it truth, everything that happens, whether it seems good or not, is under Hashem's hashgacha pratis. 

To give a common example, whether someone misses a flight and it crashes or someone doesn't miss a flight and it crashes, both are hashgacha pratis.

We need to establish these as the ground rules because otherwise, for one thing, we will have the wrong outlook.  For another thing, we can end up hearing heretical ideas presented as logic and be convinced that it's reasonable. 

I'm thinking about this because of a chapter in a book I'm reading which is about how human nature is such that we focus on those things that fit our premise and ignore the rest.  We like to see patterns and so we attribute meaning to certain events whether a pattern may be there or not. 

Where the chapter went wrong, from a Jewish perspective, is when the author made it clear that he doesn't think G-d is running the world.  It's not that he says so explicitly. What he says is our minds reject randomness.  But one minute, Judaism rejects randomness! And yet, even as believing Jews, we don't say on a clear day, "Wow, I was walking down the street and no tree limbs fell on me" or "I wasn't struck by lightening."  Why don't we say that? Because on a clear day, there is no reason to expect that those events will occur, and although we believe Hashem oversees every detail, we know that He wants the world to run by teva-nature.  The reason humans look for patterns is because we innately know that G-d created the world and there is a seder here.  So the author is correct in that we sometimes attribute meaning to something that is not statistically meaningful (akin to expressing amazement about not being struck by lightening on a clear day), but he is wrong when he says everything is random!

I find this perturbing not only because he's wrong, but because he is not being intellectually honest in a book that is about how we delude ourselves! There are things in our world which are statistically rare and make no sense logically and yet he does not acknowledge this.  In the author's atheistic worldview, he must believe that all is random.  It is disturbing to pick up a book that is ostensibly objective but actually has a distinct, anti-G-d bias.

Is There A Connection?

The other day, someone told me about how a school applies after-school vouchers towards the during-the-day program.  It got me thinking.  There have been so many articles and lectures and gatherings about chinuch over the past two decades, so many angles explored, so many problems addressed.  And yet, I haven't heard anyone raise the possibility that children's chinuch is compromised when the schools they attend misappropriate funds or do other financial shenanigans. 

Is it because nobody considered this as a possibility? Is it because it's silly and one thing (cheating) has nothing to do with the other (chinuch)? Or is it too sensitive a topic and nobody dares to address it?

Author's Candid Observation

"I used to think that by writing about my various struggles and sharing them with others, I would end them, exorcise them forever.  But I was wrong."

How refreshing! Someone in a frum publication who has not only discovered, but let us know, that talking or writing about something is not synonymous with eliminating the problem! We have been subject to numerous exposes on a wide range of ills, epidemics, and crises and have been patting ourselves on the back for our willingness to face our problems.  Many people have "come clean," sharing very personal life stories with or even without pseudonyms.  We have been told that this is the first step in dealing with our society's problems. 

However, there is never any follow-up research done to inform us whether the ills, epidemics and crises have receded, been mitigated, or done away with as a result of airing our problems in public.  What were the statistics before the exposure and what are they now.  Nobody knows. 

If this author's experience is any indication, I'm afraid that the results of our "tell all" approach are disappointing.

What's Amazing - Am I a Crook?!

Rabbi Orlofsky tells about the day he took his kids to Central Park and had no choice but to park his car in a lot at $18 an hour.  Then the attendant said, "You've got a van, and the price for a van is $36 an hour!"

When he came back to retrieve his car, the new attendant asked him for $18.  After an inner struggle and clenching his teeth, Rabbi Orlofsky asked him, "Is it the same price for a van?"

The attendant said, "Oh right, it's $36 for a van, thank you very much."

Rabbi O's former student who was there with him and amazed that he had volunteered the information said, "What a tzaddik you are," to which Rabbi O said, "It's easy to be a tzaddik for $18.  Can you be a tzaddik for $18,000?"

"What do you mean?" asked his talmid.

R' O explained that three people in Har Nof, where he lives, had their cars stolen.  And each of the three was asked by the insurance company, "Did you have your alarm on?"

There is no way the insurance company would know if they did or did not have their alarm on and the result of a "no" meant they would receive no money and yet all three said, "no."  When Rabbi O. said to one of them, "That's amazing," the man said, "What's amazing about it? Am I crook? A liar? I have a chavrusa who was telling me, maybe there's a heter because it's a corporation and this and that, and I said, 'You love me so much that you want to lie and steal for me? I didn't know you were such a friend! But I'm not so good.  I don't want to lie and steal.'"

Some people, sad to say, boast about the "shtick" (read: geneiva) they pull off.

Chazal (Eiruvin 65) say A person's character can be recognized in three ways:

B'kiso - lit. his pocket, i.e. his spending, when he has money, does he apportion it correctly? is he generous? stingy? How far will he go for a "buck?" How far will he go for many bucks?

B'ka'aso - his anger, can he control himself, even when angry?

B'koso - lit. his cup, i.e. his drinking - how does he behave when inebriated?

How refreshing to read about people who do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. People who absolutely recoil at the idea of being a thief and a liar.