Rosh Hashana 5773 Day 1

What makes us sin? Why do we rebel and break rules? Lie, cheat and cut corners? Thats really the question that we would like to have answered this morning, when more than any other time in the year we are so focused on the perfection of self. Dan Ariely in his recent work, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty debunks the classic theory of dishonesty: SMORC, or the Simple Model of a Rational Crime, suggested by economist Gary Becker (and Professor in University of Chicago) , which contends that we are dishonest because we can be, that human nature is that we will attempt to get away with what we can without getting caught. The theory suggests that we will make mental assessments, always calculating risk vs benefit by an act of dishonesty and we will use that assessment to determine whether or not a crime indeed pays. For example one experiment performed in his MIT classroom was that he took two groups of students and administered a mathematical exam. The exam consisted of 10 questions and students were promised to be paid 50 cents/correct answer. One group was asked to scan their exams electronically and report their own grade while the other received their grade from the teacher who would perform the scan himself. On a whole, the students who were asked to report their own score performed an average of two points higher than the other group.

What happens though, said Ariely, when more money is offered? We should expect based on the Simple Model of Rational Crime (since conditions havent changed other than the reward) that the dishonesty level should rise! They handed out the tests but this time promised different amounts of money to different students, some would receive 25 cents, others 50 cents, others $1, $2, $5 and at the highest level, some students were offered a whopping $10 per correct answer. But the theory was wrong, not only did the students on average maintain the 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 the greatest motivation for cheating should have been more likely to break the rules? It didnt fit argued Prof. Ariely, the cost-benefit based theory proposed by Becker! He argues that when the ante was increased to $10 it was harder for the students to cheat and still feel good about their own sense of integrity. At $10 per matrix, were not talking about cheating on the level of, say, taking a pencil from the office. It is more akin to stealing several boxes of pens, a stapler, and a ream of printer paper which is more difficult to ignore. What makes people sin, and steal and exhibit dishonesty? Is it that we can get away with it or is there something deeper occurring? The experiment was taken one step further. Two of the researchers on Arielys 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 herbs and vegetables, freshly baked bread , olives and cheese. The various

merchants surrounded them shouting praises of their goods: Rak Hayom (only today), Matok (Sweet), Bezol (cheap). Meanwhile, Einav and Tali entered the market, each heading in a separate direction. Each were instructed to walk up to a vendor and to ask the seller to pick out two kilos of tomatoes, only Einav walked around using her white cane noticeably blind to any onlooker. They took their tomatoes over to a third vendor who agreed to be the judge over the quality of tomatoes. Surprisingly so, the tomatoes in Einavs bag were voted to be of a superior quality to those in Talis bag. The blind customer was treated more fairly. The experiment was repeated with taxi cab drivers, who are often accused of long hauling to increase the fair. Einav, accompanied with her walking cane entered one 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 heard the cabby shut off the moneh earlier than the destination so that it shouldnt be higher than the initially proposed fair (of $20 shekel). According to Becker this makes no sense, for if you are going to be dishonest and make a sub-conscious cost-benefit analysis, clearly one is better off lying to the blind woman than to one who can see! But there is something else at play here. Oscar Wilde once wrote: Morality, like art, means drawing a line somewhere. The question is: where is the line? We make moral decisions based on lines we draw in the sand how far we are willing to go? Which buttons we will push and which ones we wont dare?

We arent evil we dont overtly sin or cheat, its just that we create fuzzy lines between right and wrong, between what is considered sinful and what is not. And we spend the entire year in such a delusionary state, a place in which 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 an honest 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 the day 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 that moment of creation, and that itself is our judgment. Because when you take a look back and see how much you have changed from the original model, that in of itself is the most jarring and most eye opening experience of judgment possible. As the Gemara tells us that on the final , those who did not live their lives as was required of them will look upon the mitzvos, the many missed opportunities as a little hill as opposed to an opposing mountain, and they will scream out in anguish because for the first time they will look backwards and see that which they could have accomplished, and will appreciated how simple it would have been!

We were given a Rosh Hashana, because it doesnt have to come to that, we can look backward before the final Day of Judgment and return 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 provide us with this message is the .The Shofar is a device which amplifies the 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 Maharal writes () , "" 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 and inventive tools to create an artificial .We read by s descendents: 71 -, And Cain knew his wife; and she , - ; , conceived, and bore Enoch; and he builded , a city, and called the name of the city after . the name of his son Enoch. , 81 , - And unto Enoch was born Irad; and Irad ; , - begot Mehujael; and Mehujael begot , , - Methushael; and Methushael begot . , - Lamech. : 91 - , And Lamech took unto him two wives;

 , the name of one was Adah, and the name . of the other Zillah. 02 , - : And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father . , of such as dwell in tents and have cattle. 12 , : And his brothers name was Jubal; he , - was the father of all such as handle the . harp and pipe.

But the most natural device, the one which brings us back to the original voice inside of man, is the Shofar. And on Rosh Hashana, the day 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 we once were and who we ought to be. As is the case in Arielys research, dishonesty and sin, begins with layers that 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 and flexible ethics are introduced, that we begin to excuse acts of blatant immorality and perverseness. One month ago, when El-Al made an error and forgot to add the surcharge for gas on one of their flights to Israel, ticket prices were offered in the $300 range. Why is it that thousands of Americans immediately tweeted and emailed their friends and family about the steal of a lifetime? Why is it that very few actually thought of consulting the halacha and finding out if it was indeed permissible to take advantage of another persons financial mistake?

Why were we so far from the truth that it never occurred to us to ask whether there was a problem? We place so many layers on top of the voice, that the of has become silenced. The ethical man has become mortally wounded. And whether it is through the harp and the pipe the , or email and texting, the art of true communication, the original voice, has effectively been vanquished! And when we dont use our voice any more, the damage extends beyond the self. For not only have we strayed far from who we were supposed to be spiritually, we have not only strayed from God, but we have 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 to clear the calendar and spend time and money. So the children of came up with more devices; devices, which purportedly made communication easier, which solved all kinds of problems. But now talk is cheap. Whens the last time you recall having a face to face with your father? When did you last call your sister to say I love you? Or, when did you last reminisce with your best friend from childhood? I fear that many of us cannot answer these questions. Sure we can say we saw them on the computer, we read their latest electronic communication, but when did we speak with them, with our real voice, without the masks and the layers of concealment?

The voice of man is sadly nowhere to be found. And just as honesty and integrity have fallen by the waste-side, so has genuine human interaction. In the year 2000, an article ran in the Jewish week called Youve Got Mechila with the advent of email, the question being raised at the time 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 legal matter, the real question was beyond halacha, it was a philosophical one Is it humanly possible to beg forgiveness of your fellow, without the true voice? Because of the layers of falsehood, we have generated an emotional immaturity like never before. We cannot tell someone when we are hurt so we leave it to fester and eat us up alive. And we cant ask forgiveness, because we are so far, that we no longer know when we have wronged someone. This is a generation so small that most businesses cannot lay someone off, so we will send them an email, or create a pre-mature retirement party, or worse yet, we make their job so unpleasant that the employee quits. We cant love someone so we will drop them a text message, or worse yet, never say anything at all. A lack of direct communication has not only destroyed relationships for us, it has caused us to have fewer inhibitions against wrong doing because every act is obfuscated through multiple layers and facades.

To cheat someone out of money, to plan an illicit rendezvous, no longer demands actually looking into another persons eyes and making the suggestion to them. And so, the human dynamic has been broken, the is lost, morality has 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 and no more lies, no more rationalizations, and no more empty conversations with the people we love that is what is all about- it is according to the Rambam the process of removing the layers, of no longer pretending, of finally owning up to who we have become and to how far we have fallen. I want to share with you a story which appears in the biography of the former 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 special honey cookies. She knew they were a sure way to distract me and, most importantly, to stop my mouth when we had to 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 this war is all about.' But I can still recall exactly how those cookies tasted, and the memory of their sweetness comforts me in times of bitterness.

"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 there might 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 my office without an appointment, explaining that he wanted to ask the rabbi's forgiveness. I told my secretary to show him in, and he said, 'Hello, Lulek. I'm Mottel Kaminetzki. I was in hiding with you and your mother in Piotrkow, and I stole 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 we went into hiding, and the bag was sitting open next to me. At some point, Mottel couldn't resist; when we weren't looking, 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 dare chew it, for fear of making a sound ...."

Mottel Kaminsky didnt owe an apology, but he couldnt live with himself because he had harbored a lie. In order to breathe again, he needed to tell the truth there is nothing more redeeming to man than restoring the truth. There is nothing more healing to a fractured relationship than honesty. Let us bring life back to man! Let us begin to heal and love again! Let us feel pain, and let us be aware when we have hurt one another! And above all, when we hear the rousing call of the in just a few moments, let us restore the ,the true voice which lies within!

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