'Tis the Season of Unboxing Videos! - Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair

[Music] one of the most fascinating new phenomena of the Internet is the YouTube unboxing video now for the uninitiated an unboxing video is quite simply a video of someone unwrapping or unboxing a new acquisition now I can understand why someone might want to post such a video it's a kind of showing off but why would someone want to watch it why would someone want to sit glued to the screen watching jimmy unboxing his new iphone 10 every sliver of cellophane crackling with delight and expectation why would our pupils dilate watching Phillipe extract his fake Chinese Rolex from the innards of a red plastic toy fire engine what's the pleasure in watching someone else unwrapping something that we ourselves will never have any pleasure from in the yet these videos are hugely popular the most popular has not stopped over 850 million views Robbie Elio Destler writes in his classic essay on kindness that the two root motivations of the human personality are the desire to give and the desire to take the desire to give is the root of all good in the world when we give we become as godly as man can ever be the power to take on the other hand is the root of all evil in the world Iger tis 'm wars infidelity theft all evil finds its root in the desire to take but what's really interesting about the desire to take is that it's not about the thing itself we all know the feeling the obsession to possess a new whatever it is a a watch a car a necklace and whenever we think about the object of our desire our whole body becomes suffused with the warm fuzzies but what happens when we finally get the object of our obsession well it's very nice but it didn't actually give us the feeling we thought we were gonna have it doesn't really hit the spot why Rob ideally explains that the desire to take is nothing to do with the object itself it's about the act of taking it's about making something mind that's not mine it's about moving something beyond the perimeter of my possession inside it and that's why once that object of desire moves within that perimeter of possession it loses that intoxicating aroma it wasn't the thing I wanted it was the feeling of the desire to take so if you think about it the desire to take can never be satisfied for as soon as the object of desire becomes the object of possession it loses its appeal it takes its place in the junk room of past trophies and eyesore to the next and the next and the next and the next the desire to take is the green-eyed monster the mocks the food it preys upon maybe unboxing videos show the truth of what Rabbi Destler was saying but the moment of acquisition is so sweet so rooted in the desire to take that even watching someone in the act of acquisition gives pleasure to around 850 million SPECT [Music] [Applause]