Ethics and Morality – Returning to Basics
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5778
Thursday morning, I was learning with someone in the shul and we came across the halacha that shemittah cancels loans. Every seven years in, at the end of the shemittah cycle, all monies owed to you are gone.
He was extremely perplexed. Why would anyone ever pay back a loan? You simply borrow money, push of the creditors, push them of a little more and then you are off scott free. What kind of system is that? What would push anyone to pay the money back?
I looked at him and said: what about ethics, morality and the fact that it is a mitzvah to pay back monies that you borrowed.
It was like a light bulb went on in his head. Ethics and morality. He was surprised to learn that paying back a loan was a mitzvah.
Standing before Shavuot and re-acceptance of the Torah affords us the opportunity and pushes us to ask – what does the Torah demand of us? What does God want from us?
There are many things in the ritual realm that we are commanded and obligate to do. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that in addition, God desires that we be good people, ethical and moral and that we treat each other properly.
There are so many places in the Torah where this point made, and I have spoken about this often, this morning I want to add another interesting source.
Two commentators highlight the fact that while God’s name is everywhere in the first 5 commandments that we read tomorrow morning, God’s name is absent from the last 5.
Why should that be?
Chizkuni – uses a story about Rabbi Akiva and the evil Turnusrufus to answer our question. One day Rabbi Akiva was summoned to Turnusrufus who took him on a tour of the property. He took him to his palace and showed him the spear on the wall. He then took him to the castle and showed him his shield on the wall. Finally he took him to the vault where he showed him his armor and other weapons. Nature called and Rabbi Akiva is taken to the bathroom. He looks at the walls and they are bare. When he returns he asks Turnusrufus, why are there no weapons hanging in here? Turnusrufus answers – this is a filthy and disgusting place, it is insulting and degrading to place my weapons here.
Similarly says Rabbi Akiva, the first 5 commandments are honorable visa vis God and thus you find God’s name there. The last five deal with murder, adultery, lying, and jealousy. It is not respectful to put God in there. He wants no part of these things.
I will admit that this is not a very good answer, but I was intrigued by the question and really taken with the second answer that I found.
Rabbi Ephraim Lunschitz in his Kli Yakar writes that the first five commandments are bein adam l’makom and thus God’s name is mentioned. The last 5 are bein adam l’chaveiro and thus God’s name is omitted.
That sounds perfectly reasonable until you consider that these are mitzvoth, these are God commanded as well. And that should not be lost on us.
So what does it mean that it is a mitzvah and yet because it is bei adam l’chavero we omit God’s name?
I am not sure he means this, but he should:
- God wants us to understand that treating each other with kindness and acting morally are inherently correct and we should not need God to command us to act properly in this realm. In reality we do need those commandments, yet they are written without God’s name to teach us that ideally, we would have come to them on our own.
- God wants us to reach a point where kindness, truth and morality become so much a part of who we are that the simply act that way. We don’t have to stop and do “x” because Hashem has commanded us. It should be second nature and first nature! God’s name is omitted to teach us that we act this way without thinking, even about God.
That is part of what we accept on Shavuot as well.
I want to end with an incredible story that I just heard about Rebbe Umori, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein Zatzal.
A number of years ago, the yeshiva held some sort of essay contest and Rav Lichtenstein was tapped to be a judge. That was his first mistake.
Because after the entries were collected, he got a phone call from the yeshiva’s largest donor letting him know that his nephew had entered the contest and he would really like his nephew to place. He did not have to win, but he should come in the top 3. Pretty sporty of him.
Rav Lichtenstein would not hear of it. He explained to the donor that he had to judge the contest on merit and could not award an entry that was not worthy.
A few weeks later the donor called him back and said, I hear you and understand your position. I have an idea- I will sponsor a 4th prize in addition to the first three. Give my nephew the 4th prize and I will continue my donations to the yeshiva.
Rav Lichtenstein would not hear of that either. He explained to the donor that he could not award a 4th prize to someone who did not deserve it.
There was no happy ending. The nephew did not win, the Yeshiva lost is largest donor by far and had a few very tough years.
Why didn’t he make the accommodation? Was 4th place really that bad? For the sake of the Yeshiva?
To anyone who knew Rav Lichtenstein, this story comes as no surprise. He was simply incapable of acting dishonestly. He had internalized the value of truth and honesty to the point that he could be no other way. He did not have to think about it, not figure out what God wanted from him. It was simply a part of his nature.
That is part of our kabbalat Hatorah as well.
