Rosh Hashana - 5773 Day 1

7/31/2019 Rosh Hashana - 5773 Day 1

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What happens though, said Ariely, when more money is offered? Weshould expect based on the Simple Model of Rational Crime (sinceconditions havent changed other than the reward) that the dishonesty

level should rise! They handed out the tests but this time promiseddifferent amounts of money to different students, some would receive25 cents, others 50 cents, others $1, $2, $5 and at the highest level,some students were offered a whopping $10 per correct answer. Butthe theory was wrong, not only did the students on average maintainthe same percentage of dishonesty, at the highest level, the amount of cheating was actually slightly lower.

Why was this the case? Those offered the highest reward, and thus thegreatest motivation for cheating should have been more likely to breakthe rules? It didnt fit argued Prof. Ariely, the cost -benefit based theoryproposed by Becker!

He argues that when the ante was increased to $10 it was harder forthe students to cheat and still feel good about their own sense of

integrity. At $ 10 per matrix, we re not talking about cheating on thelevel of, say, taking a pencil from the office. It is more akin to stealingseveral boxes of pens, a stapler, and a ream of printer paper which ismore difficult to ignore.

What makes people sin, and steal and exhibit dishonesty? Is it that wecan get away with it or is there something deeper occurring?

The experiment was taken one step further. Two of the researchers onArielys team, Eynav and Tali were taken to a farmers market, or a shuk in Beer Sheva. It was a hot day and there was a strong smell of herbsand vegetables, freshly baked bread , olives and cheese. The various


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merchants surrounded them shouting praises of their goods: RakHayom (only today), Matok (Sweet), Bezol (cheap).

Meanwhile, Einav and Tali entered the market, each heading in aseparate direction. Each were instructed to walk up to a vendor and toask the seller to pick out two kilos of tomatoes, only Einav walkedaround using her white cane noticeably blind to any onlooker. Theytook their tomatoes over to a third vendor who agreed to be the judgeover the quality of tomatoes. Surprisingly so, the tomatoes in Einavsbag were voted to be of a superior quality to those in Talis bag. Theblind customer was treated more fairly. The experiment was repeatedwith taxi cab drivers, who are often accused of long hauling toincrease the fair. Einav, accompanied with her walking cane enteredone cab and insisted on using the moneh (the meter), Tali did the same.Not only were Talis fairs higher, but Einav noted that she even heardthe cabby shut off the moneh earlier than the destination so that itshouldnt be higher than the initially proposed fair (of $20 shekel).

According to Becker this makes no sense, for if you are going to bedishonest and make a sub-conscious cost-benefit analysis, clearly one isbetter off lying to the blind woman than to one who can see! But thereis something else at play here.

Oscar Wilde once wrote: Morality, like art, means drawing a linesomewhere. The question is: where is the line?

We make moral decisions based on lines we draw in the sand how farwe are willing to go? Which buttons we will push and which ones wewont dare?


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We arent evil we dont overtly sin or cheat, its just that we createfuzzy lines between right and wrong, between what is considered sinfuland what is not.

And we spend the entire year in such a delusionary state, a place inwhich we fail to assess who we truly are, and what truly motivates us.

But sooner or later, we are forced to make a reckoning. To take anhonest assessment of self, and stare into the mirror.

That is what Rosh Hashana is all about.

Today we recite each time the shofar is sounded , "" today is the day we stand in judgment, but it is also theday of creation, not of the world, but rather of man. This day in history,man was forged from the earth, Gods crowning achievement.

And why is it that the day in which we were created was selected as the?

Perhaps the explanation is that on Rosh Hashana we return back to thatmoment of creation, and that itself is our judgment. Because when youtake a look back and see how much you have changed from the originalmodel, that in of itself is the most jarring and most eye openingexperience of judgment possible.

As the Gemara tells us that on the final , those who did not livetheir lives as was required of them will look upon the mitzvos, the manymissed opportunities as a little hill as opposed to an opposingmountain, and they will scream out in anguish because for the first timethey will look backwards and see that which they could haveaccomplished, and will appreciated how simple it would have been!


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We were given a Rosh Hash ana, because it doesnt have to come tothat, we can look backward before the final Day of Judgment andreturn to that place of holiness right now. We need not wait that long

to abandon our slumber.Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook explains that the selected instrument to provideus with this message is the . The Shofar is a device which amplifiesthe voice. And man, at his root, at his core, is the , the voice of man.

As we read in Bereishit (2:7) " " and explains " " , in other words, the essence of mans life,

the purpose of his being created was for , speech. As the Maharalwrites ( , )

" "

For this reason, a isnt considered to be a human being.

Now, throughout history, man has created substitutions for the .From the earliest moments in civilization, man has fashioned new andinventive tools to create an artificial . We read by s descendents:

-, -, , ;

,.

17 And Cain knew his wife; and sheconceived, and bore Enoch; and he buildeda city, and called the name of the city afterthe name of his son Enoch.

,-,,-;

,-,,-.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad; and Iradbegot Mehujael; and Mehujael begotMethushael; and Methushael begotLamech.

-: , 19 And Lamech took unto him two wives;


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,.

the name of one was Adah, and the nameof the other Zillah.

,-:

. ,

20 And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father

of such as dwell in tents and have cattle.: ,

,- .

21 And his brother s name was Jubal; hewas the father of all such as handle theharp and pipe.

But the most natural device, the one which brings us back to theoriginal voice inside of man, is the Shofar. And on Rosh Hashana, theday in which we are so pre-occupied with re-locating that original voice,we sound the Shofar, over and over again, as a reminder of who weonce were and who we ought to be.

As is the case in Arielys research, dishonesty and sin, begins with layersthat we create to obfuscate the true voice. We spend a great deal of time creating cover ups, concealing reality. It is that distance from the

truth, which allows us to stray from the pure voice, the .And it is when the grey lines are drawn, when fuzzy morality andflexible ethics are introduced, that we begin to excuse acts of blatantimmorality and perverseness.

One month ago, when El-Al made an error and forgot to add thesurcharge for gas on one of their flights to Israel, ticket prices were

offered in the $300 range. Why is it that thousands of Americansimmediately tweeted and emailed their friends and family about thesteal of a lifetime? Why is it that very few actually thought of consulting the halacha and finding out if it was indeed permissible totake advantage of another persons financial mi stake?


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Why were we so far from the truth that it never occurred to us to askwhether there was a problem?

We place so many layers on top of the voice, that the of hasbecome silenced. The ethical man has become mortally wounded.

And whether it is through the harp and the pipe the , oremail and texting, the art of true communication, the original voice, haseffectively been vanquished!

And when we dont use our voice any more, the damage extendsbeyond the self. For not only have we strayed far from who we weresupposed to be spiritually, we have not only strayed from God, but wehave strayed far away from others as well.

To get together with family, it used to take effort, time and planning.One had to really use their . You didnt talk over email or skype, if you had a son or daughter or parent out of state, you would have toclear the calendar and spend time and money.

So the children of came up with more devices; devices, whichpurportedly made communication easier, which solved all kinds of problems. But now talk is cheap. Whens the last time you recallhaving a face to face with your father? When did you last call yoursister to say I love you? Or, when did you last reminisce with yourbest friend from childhood?

I fear that many of us cannot answer these questions. Sure we can saywe saw them on the computer, we read their latest electroniccommunication, but when did we speak with them, with our real voice,without the masks and the layers of concealment?


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The voice of man is sadly nowhere to be found. And just as honestyand integrity have fallen by the waste-side, so has genuine humaninteraction.

In the year 2000, an article ran in the Jewish week called Youve GotMechila with the advent of email, the question being raised at thetime was can you ask forgiveness with an email?

http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/youve_got_mechila

And while the article treated the question as a halachic, Jewish legalmatter, the real question was beyond halacha, it was a philosophicalone Is it humanly possible to beg forgiveness of your fellow, withoutthe true voice?

Because of the layers of falsehood, we have generated an emotionalimmaturity like never before.

We cannot tell someone when we are hurt so we leave it to festerand eat us up alive. And we cant ask forgiveness, because we are sofar, that we no longer know when we have wronged someone.

This is a generation so small that most businesses cannot lay someoneoff, so we will send them an email, or create a pre-mature retirementparty, or worse yet, we make their job so unpleasant that the employeequits.

We cant love someone so we will drop them a text message, or worseyet, never say anything at all.

A lack of direct communication has not only destroyed relationships forus, it has caused us to have fewer inhibitions against wrong doingbecause every act is obfuscated through multiple layers and facades.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/youve_got_mechilahttp://www.thejewishweek.com/features/youve_got_mechilahttp://www.thejewishweek.com/features/youve_got_mechila


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To cheat someone out of money, to plan an illicit rendezvous, no longerdemands actually looking into another persons eyes and making thesuggestion to them.

And so, the human dynamic has been broken, the is lost, moralityhas gone bankrupt.

But alas, we have Rosh Hashana!

The birthday of man, the day in which we come face to face with the

truth about ourselves and which we hopefully work on restoring all of the lost values and relationships.

Today is a day which demands visceral honesty, no more cover ups andno more lies, no more rationalizations, and no more emptyconversations with the people we love that is what is all about- it

is according to the Rambam the process of removing the layers, of nolonger pretending, of finally owning up to who we have become and tohow far we have fallen.

I want to share with you a story which appears in the biography of theformer chief Rabbi of Israel, Rav Yisrael Meir Lau: Out of the Depths(pg. 14-17):

A STOLEN APPLE

"Before we went into hiding in the place my father had arranged for us, my mother baked a big batch of her specialhoney cookies. She knew they were a sure way to distract me and, most importantly, to stop my mouth when we hadto be quiet. I can remember looking at her with my mouth full of cookies, as if to say, 'This really isn't necessary,Mamma. I know I mustn't make a sound. I may be only a little boy, but I've been through enough to know what thiswar is all about.' But I can still recall exactly how those cookies tasted, and the memory of their sweetness comfortsme in times of bitterness.


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"The Germans came one day, searching for Jews. The entrance to our attic hiding-place was open, but by miracle,their attention was drawn to a pile of scrap wood on the floor. They jabbed their bayonets into the pile, thinking theremight be Jews hiding there, and then they went away.

"Years later, when I was serving my first term as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, an elderly Jew from London came to myoffice without an appointment, explaining that he wanted to ask the rabbi's forgiveness. I told my secretary to showhim in, and he said, 'Hello, Lulek. I'm Mottel Kaminetzki. I was in hiding with you and your mother in Piotrkow, and Istole an apple from you. I'm sure you never knew it was missing, but it's been on my conscience all these years.'

"He had also been a child then, just a few years older than I was. My mother had brought a bag of apples when wewent into hiding, and the bag was sitting open next to me. At some point, Mottel couldn't resist; when we weren'tlooking, he grabbed an apple and took a big bite. It was just at that moment that the Germans came to search for Jews, and poor Mottel was stuck with the piece of apple in his mouth. It was too big to swallow, and he didn't darechew it, for fear of making a sound ...."

Mottel Kaminsky didnt owe an apology, but he couldnt live withhimself because he had harbored a lie. In order to breathe again, heneeded to tell the truth there is nothing more redeeming to man thanrestoring the truth. There is nothing more healing to a fracturedrelationship than honesty.

Let us bring life back to man! Let us begin to heal and love again! Letus feel pain, and let us be aware when we have hurt one another! Andabove all, when we hear the rousing call of the in just a fewmoments, let us restore the , the true voice which lies within!

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Rosh Hashana - 5773 Day 1