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| Rabbi Marc Angel (Jewish Star) |
In essence Rabbi Angel asks the following question: How is it possible that so many Orthodox Jews can be dishonest? If Orthodoxy means following Halacha, how can anyone steal anything from anybody? How can there be all manner of fraud, bribery, and corruption if Jews are supposed to be the paragons of virtue the Torah commands us to be? As Rabbi Angel notes the Torah tells us to…
…do what is good and right in the eyes of God; maintain honest weights and balances in your businesses; keep far from falsehood. Crimes against “the other” sooner or later become public knowledge leading to shameful desecration of God’s name and the degradation of Torah.
His answers are somewhat complex but right on the money. The fact that rituals are so scrupulously observed by the very same Jews that are caught with their hands in the cookie jar is attributable to several factors.
That said, Rabbi Angel believes as I do that most Orthodox Jews are scrupulously honest. But at the same time it does not surprise us when one of us gets caught doing something unscrupulous. As an example of this attitude he cites a sermon delivered by Lincoln Square Rabbi Shaul Robinson wherein he asked the following rhetorical questions:
(W)ouldn’t it be wonderful if people could say that a business venture was absolutely proper because Orthodox Jews are running it? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the surest way to attest to the trustworthiness of a business was to say that it was operated by Orthodox Jews?
The Shul broke out into spontaneous laughter.
How sad is that! How sad it was when the New York Times reported a while back about a wide-ranging federal corruption investigation – identifying 2 businessmen from Boro Park, (presumably Orthodox) involved in a bribery scandal – alleging they ‘provided financial favors to people in power in order to advance their own business dealings’. Guilty of a crime or not - at best they were involved in shady behavior unbecoming of an Orthodox Jew. And how sad is the following:
Recent news stories have reported on investigations of yeshivot that have manipulated millions of dollars of grants to teach general studies—but then do not teach these subjects as required. Other stories have surfaced of financial mismanagement by rabbis who have used their discretionary funds in improper or illegal ways. Yet other stories have reported on Orthodox Jews accused of bribery or bilking investors of their money. A current scandal involves Orthodox businessmen who "paid for access" to the Mayor of New York City.
To what can this kind of behavior be attributed? Rabbi Angel suggests many of the things I have alluded to. As recently as yesterday. There is an unwritten sense of superiority over others among some of us that has somehow been absorbed from our surroundings. Not that it is explicitly taught. Although in some cases it might be. But the sense is that we religious Jews are an inherently superior people that entitles us to do things that might otherwise be seen as wrong. Being ethical depends who you are talking about. That attitude stems from the constant reinforcement by parents, teachers, rabbis, that ethical behavior is relative and need not be universally applied. What is important is ritual behavior. A religious Jew has always been defined as someone that observes Shabbos. If one will argue that ethics are in fact being taught as a universally applied good - it isn’t being absorbed.
The idea that we are innately superior to others devolves into dehumanizing other people. Which can manifest itself in various differing levels of degradation. While Rabbi Angel notes that dehumanization is not extreme in the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jewry, there is a fair amount of moderate forms of it.
There are some that use the following rationalization to justify their behavior:
(T)he Holocaust proves that non-Jews hate us, so we don’t have to be nice or fair in dealings with non-Jews; stealing from non-Jews or non-Orthodox Jews puts more money in the hands of good (i.e. Orthodox) Jews, and less money in the hands of people who are not Torah-true; cheating the government for the sake of strengthening yeshivot or other Orthodox institutions serves to advance Torah, and advancing Torah is the ideal goal for us.
There are 2 competing ideologies about the inherent nature of the Jew. One of which actually states that Jews are an innately superior people. Which is why God chose us as His people. That view is reflected in a book like Torat HaMelekh written by an extremist Religious Zionist rabbi in Israel. A book many people saw as racist! His supremacist views cast others in an inferior light. It is not much of a leap to say they should be treated accordingly. That any money we steal will be put to far better use.
But then there is the view of the Rambam. Quoting Professor Menachem Kellner, Rabbi Angel says the following:
Gam Hem Keruyim Adam: haNokhri beEinei haRambam (They too are called human: Maimonides’ views on non-Jews). He makes it amply clear that Maimonides rejected the notion that Jews are ontologically different from and superior to non-Jews. The Rambam maintains the classic Jewish teachings that stress the common humanity of all people.
In our world today, I believe it is important to consider any superiority we may have as God’s chosen people to be based on our Torah observance. Our patriarchs earned from God that we - their offspring be His chosen people. We are thereby gifted as Jews to be born with a portion in the world to come for our souls. Which we can lose if we do not follow God’s Torah. But even though they are not the chosen of God, non Jews have a soul too. One that can earn a place in the world to come if they are righteous. We are all created in the image of God. And we should treat all of humanity as if we actually believed that.