Rabbi David Kaplan - Philosophy of Mitzvot: Do Not Cheat

the last one we did was right to not torment people verbally um and uh we said that includes parents wives and children and anybody uh and this is probably one one of the harder mixes to uh one of the harder misses to keep is to not say the wrong things to the wrong people or to the right people at the wrong time the wrong people at the wrong time oh yeah it's that just the mouth runs that's why the gower says why the mouth has a double covering you got a layer of teeth and a layer of lips in order to think twice before you speak that's the the that's the rule that the one one should think twice before is i actually met a man one person that i knew a good friend of mine who was nifter but he uh he had this annoying habit of not answering immediately when you spoke to him he actually thought before he spoke which is just a very very rare commodity so you know in life in general just just think before you speak right somebody once said a um a closed mouth gathers no feet never heard that never heard a closed mouth yeah there's no feet that means you know if you uh you know there was a foot extraction yeah the foot extraction machine that they could use there's this one woman a woman was pregnant in her seventh month and she had a child who was had some sort of visible genetic defect that she was walking with was about two years old three years old she was pregnant on her seventh month and some woman stopped around the street and said well aren't you worried that the next one's going to be like this one so this woman to her credit said to her uh well you know whatever our colors were who gives me you know that's for the best you know but you understand that somebody let this first woman out of her cage and you know and you can actually go around you could hurt people like that you could you and all it takes is one word one word you could ruin make people's day it says the posix says life and death is in the hand of a tongue you could literally change a person's day especially females with the right word or a wrong word you say the right timed word your wife you come home your wife say had a bad day all you got to say is one thing you know wow the house looks so clean right you change your whole life you do just one one positive thing one negative thing and it could ruin it and that's that's a rule in life in general especially women who are very very subject to either flattery uh or criticism right and uh if you think they're not that just means you're not married uh they are very subject to flattery they're very subject to criticism and and uh uh um in general a person has to be extra careful not to uh not not not that would do just to keep their mouth keep their mouth under wraps i heard about a couple once went to visit a guy goes to visit this terrible story i love it guy goes to uh a couple goes to visit their friend so it's you know bill comes to the house with his new wife and tom is there you know he's the host and they're sitting there at the table and they're talking and tom's wife excuses herself to go upstairs to check on the baby and she calls down tom can you help me up here so tom goes upstairs and his wife says to him what happened to bill and how did he pick such a loser and she wears too much lipstick she doesn't stop talking for a minute she only thinks about herself she just got you know and she just for about 10 minutes she just really cleans up okay she feels better they go back downstairs and there's silence there's an uncomfortable silence in the living room the only sound is the crackling sound of the infant monitor which they had left on the dining room table yeah now exactly well i meant i meant selfish in a good way you know you know exactly exactly how do you how do you get out you understand and they're the mo the mouth is a the mouth is a very very dangerous weapon there's a woman when i was growing up there's a woman used to come to the house my younger brother recalled her jaws remember the movie jaws that he called her jaws because she she almost reminded me of one of those i see those little toy teeth that keep going to chattering teeth on the table my brother referred to her as joss so so that that that's the the that's the medicine the next bits is to not cheat a convert in money matters okay and again the torah always speaks in terms of converts because converts are converts are more vulnerable because they do not have a support system oh by the way just interestingly enough did you ever hear of did you ever hear of uh avraham ben avram the the the righteous convert of vilna of ramban of ram the gert zedek there was a man named avraham he is i forgot his first name but he was a very high came from a very high ranking family in the catholic church and one day he got interested in judaism and somehow he came across the vilna gone going to vilna and they got involved in the guy decide he wants to convert to judaism now the church put him to the uh the the the catholic church in the 18th century wasn't too happy about high-ranking catholics converting to judaism and they made him an offer they'll give him they were ready to bribe him and give him everything to set and the other and he said no he wants to become jewish then the carriage eventually they turned sour and they said they you know he became a fugitive they were going to kill him so uh um he ran away and he was hiding and he was hiding in a small school in a small town now there's little kids who came in little jewish kids came in and they kept tormenting him you're just a wannabe and you're not really jewish you know this that yeah this is after his conversion he never answered one day he said something he had enough and he finally lashed out at the kids so one of the kids came home to the father his father and his father showed up in the show said i'm going to teach you a lesson you're never going to forget the father informed them to the catholic church and they they they captured him so when they had him he was at the uh they took him out to burn him at the stake and you know in those days when they burnt to just some anyway when they birthed the jew at the stake the jews all bolted themselves up in their homes because they could easily lead the pogrom you know once once things get loose now according to a documented legend even the book that is a famous book on the life of the villenegon but even in the book it says it's not confirmed but the book mentions that according to legend as he was walking to the uh pyre to be burnt to death and they kept giving him a choice they said you know it's not too late he said no no i'd rather you know i'd rather uh i i'd rather die as a jew than liv live with falsehood so as he was walking there he passed the window of the villenegon and he said to the villain on the one hand the talmud says that a person should run to do a mitzvah if they have an opportunity to him it's a hurry up to do the mitzvah on the other hand it says a person should try to prolong his life as much as possible so should i walk quickly to my execution in order to run to do the mitzvah of dying out of hashem or sanctifying god's name or should i walk slowly in order to prolong my life as much as possible so the vilnigan apparently told him that since this is a mitzvah that does not come up that often you should walk quickly to the uh to the pyre and he was uh he was burnt to death he was he was burnt to death so at the um that the way he that ended up getting the way the reason they found him is because they uh he was informed on because the guy had started tormenting him that's what it could lead to that's how careful that's why the torah talks in terms of in terms of converts to his credit when he was on the uh when they were about to when they're about to execute him so one the monks were making fun of him so one of the monks said to him uh listen you know uh we're killing you in this world but you'll get even with us in the world to come so he changed his name to havram abram he said to the monk look i want to tell you something you know imagine a kid is on the beach and he builds a sand castle another kid comes over and he smashes his sand castle the kid swears he's going to get revenge imagine 20 years pass and he sees that kid do you think he's thinking about revenge for that sand castle which is so insignificant so many years ago he says in the world of truth he says you could burn my body my soul will be in the world of truth and in the world of truth i'll have so many more the last thing i'm thinking about is getting even with you he said and i will not rest and plead and i will not rest in the world of truth i will complete and beg in the world of truth that that jew who informed on me i will not stop pleading until i managed to get him out of gehenum that's what he said so when he was he was burnt to death and then they did they buried his uh uh they they collected his ashes and his ashes were buried in the cemetery in vilna and then in the 1950s the russians decided to build a gym or a highway or something right through a jewish cemetery as well as a great place for highways and so they exhumed the body of the vilnigon which was still intact 180 years later he died in 17 1797 this is 1950 his body was still very heavy so they exhumed the vilnigon's body and the ashes of ram benevolent they couldn't move down to everybody in cemetery and they moved them into a separate uh and they're in the same they're apparently in the same uh what's it called uh what's it called the two of them are in the same categories that was a broadband that's where that's where this could lead to okay now the next mitzvah is to not cheat a convert in money matters now it applies to all jews but again uh uh converts are are more vulnerable now this gentleman we have to spend a little time on because you know they make a joke it's not a funny joke but they say you know it's one of the thinnest books ever written one of the thinnest books ever written is jewish business ethics yeah you know along with italian war heroes uh uh german humor uh in english cuisine uh you know these are these are among the thinnest books ever written so so uh uh you know it's unfortunate that jews have that jews have been labeled a certain way when it comes but i want to tell you something when somebody's called a shrewd businessman chances are he's doing something oh he's a shrewd businessman chad sorry he's doing something inappropriate that's what a shrewd businessman means it means that you're not on the up and up and the is that you have to be completely on the up and up when it comes to business uh for one thing you're not allowed to create any sort of false impression so for example let's say you're selling your car you got a used car the halacha is you cannot paint your car to make it look less used than it is you could paint it to make it look nice but then you have to tell me that this is 14 years old you can't paint it and just so show here you want to buy a used car and let me look at the car and think oh wow this looks like about a five-year-old car and then sell it to be under those impressions you can't do that you have to let me know if you painted it then you have to let me know that this is a 14 year old car you are not allowed to do anything that creates a false impression number one number two uh you're not allowed for example if you're selling fruit at a supermarket you are not allowed to put the good fruit on top and the little bin the bad fruit at the bottom so that a customer comes over and says hey wow you know just loads up the fruit because he sees the good fruit you're allowed to tell me that there is faulty fruit here right you that you'd have to tell me you're not allowed to polish fruit to make it look better than it is you could polish fruit and tell me this is grade b we polish it to make it look like grade a that you could do you can't do anything at any way at any level that involves any sort of deception and the rule of thumb and these things is that if you're hesitant to tell me about it then you shouldn't be doing it so that's like dying fish as well like tiny fish what's that dying fish red like a lot of people like make fish redder than it is they do yeah the pink salmon is not naturally pink like that no no no no i know hot dogs are hot dogs they put in what do you call it and salami they make red and a lot of things they do see they're they're they're the truth of the matter even milk i just read even milk in the united states they put something in the milk to make it look whiter give it a white or white right the fda is now examining it they make it like the they make the milk look whiter ketchup is obviously that ketchup is a is a is a white pulp until they put in red in order to make it look like they say we think that it's so good they use some really good right red tomatoes here you know but they didn't use no red i mean they may use red tomatoes it comes out white till they put in the food coloring so there it depends what customer what people are used to you understand so you're like fish for you one one example would be if you put in water you have to say how much what the water content is you know sometimes they weight it down in water they'll tell you like if you buy a pound of meat upon the frozen meat what you could expect the water content to be that you'd have to be told you sometimes they used to used to water down the milk there's a famous story about a rabbi calls in the milk man and he says uh herschel you know the local milkman says herschel uh what percentage of water do you use to water down the milk shrap i hop i don't water either herschel or so listen there's a look a woman came to me today and she's cooking meat for her family and some milk spilled into the meat now i have to determine if there are 60 parts meat to milk but that's only to milk not to the water that's added to the milk and therefore her meat depends on eutonic herschel come on just tell me what percentage you water it down because we both know you water it down say okay right by 26 percent all right so yeah you know you know we all know but push came to shove so now now we now you got to tell me so that's th that's how long anything the rule is anything that you are hesitant to talk about generally it's wrong remember we once spoke about this instead when it comes to the immediate the midst of stealing are you allowed to sneak in are you allowed to bring a guest into the health club with you oh yeah they like when we bring in guests right you know well just ask them a card says it's not transferable sometimes membership cards not transfer while my cousin is visiting in any way i'd almost never use it and i pay them a lot of money yeah just ask them you can't make the rules as you go along they make the rules not you make the rules and so when it comes to to to business you have to be very very uh yeah you have to be very very what about now part of the just keep in mind you know when it comes to money you ever heard the word keseph the word kessaf you know where what what the three letters stand for the word kessaf is money oh it's a silver silver is really cast off but kasif is made up of three letters there's a huff the letter huff in hebrew okay which stands for the palm it's a cuff my hand is a cuff okay maybe that's why because it could curl it like that a pay is a mouth right the final letter and a samach is round which represents the head so you have three letters here you have the hand the mouth that means action speech and thought make up the word money because in speech action and thought we are very focused on money money has a very strong pull for us in speech thought and action we're focused on money and even more that the word kessef comes from the hebrew word desire we have a yearning it means yearning when love on if you remember the story in the torah when yaakov avina wanted to go home loven says to yakovino i see you yearn to go back to your father's home. and the word in hebrew for yearning is from the root kessaf that's what it means zahav which is gold breaks into two arabic words you know what it is this have give me that's what zahav is so kessifen's love that's that's a natural desire people have you know story about the lawyer there's a guy gets a call from the jewish united fund the guy says to him on the phone you know mr bernstein uh our records show that you're earning upwards of seven hundred thousand dollars a year and you haven't made a donation this year to the jnf so bernstein said samia do your records also show you that i have a mother and an old age home do your records also show you they have a brother's a disabled vietnam war vet your records also show you that i have a sister who's a widow with four kids and if they can't get a dime out of me what makes you think you will so you know you know people there is a very very strong attachment to money iowa people people are very very uh very much attached to money uh uh and and you know there's a there's another story what do you call it uh remember golinski the the rebel yanks they also tell a story about a lawyer who was lying in a hospital bed looking at a bible and he's on the way out he doesn't have too much time left they said to them you know wow you look like wow a lawyer with the bible i didn't know you're so religious he says i'm not i'm just looking for some loopholes the so there's a famous story about a guy there's a famous story about a guy who um decided he wants to rob a bank problem is when you rob a bank you know a security guy is this that and the other so the guy that comes up with a brilliant idea he dresses him up himself up in a place he gets a police uniform nobody bothers with cops he gets a police uniform goes walking in sees the security card says morning to the security guard walks right past him goes up to the counter and he gets to the country pulls out a gun and he says okay lady start filling up the bag everything empty the drawer into the bag so she's here on there she got instructions you got to fill up the bag okay and he's watching her fill the bag just then he feels another gun he feels a gun in his gut and he turns around some guy wearing t-shirt and jeans there's always what's going on my hands up puts his hands with his gun and he says i'm an undercover cop you know i'm an undercover cop but i got you all right so he pulls out of handcuffs and he cuffs himself to the guys let's go off to the police station they start walking outside and as they're walking down towards the police station guy comes walking towards him it turns out to be the upstairs neighbor of this undercover cop and he looks at it goes oh you know there's his neighbor with the t-shirt and jeans being let off by a policeman with to do with the handcuff i can't believe it i mean this guy was the nicest guy nice family you know you never know with people see just i always say you never know the guy looks it says no no no bernie you know this isn't what you think it is i'm i'm a policeman i never told you that because it's undercover this guy was robbing the bank now the robber knows he's going to jail but he figures listen i'm going to jail i may as well take him down with me because you're going to believe him you're moving this guy look at him and look at me who's the robber who's the cop over here the guy says no bernie bernie don't believe me i'm talking about this and bernie don't know what to believe right finally he he's like oh okay if you say so you can see the skeptical she says well i'll prove it to you there's only one way to prove who's the cop and who's the robber the proof is who's got the key to the handcuffs he pulls out he says i got the key to the handcuffs that means i'm leading him he's not leading me right in life we are being led around one other thing that leads us around is money right it's called the evil inclination and it's a strong one my father tried drilling into my thick skull growing up that that when it comes he always said to me when it comes to monday are two aspects of life there's how people behave and how people behave around money is it it's a completely different completely different set of rules you know you could be a person and you're a person around money and it's just a completely different set of rules so uh the torah's teaching you over here when it comes there's a big temptation when you're a businessman you want to make a sale you want to you're not allowed to you're not allowed to cheat people to be very careful in money matters okay any questions on that anybody of course okay