There is a wise saying.
What is worse: A clock that is (unbeknownst to you) thirty minutes late, or a clock that has stopped working?
Instinctively one may say that an inaccurate clock is better than no clock.
At least there is some keeping of time.
How about if you were in the airport departure hall, on your way to board your flight and you stopped to shop at duty free because your inaccurate watch told you that you still had thirty minutes till the gate is closed.
I am certain you would then tell me that a broken watch would have been better.
At least you would have known to ask someone for the time.
You would not have been lulled into thinking that you had time to shop when in fact you didn’t.
This is one way to understand the ‘allergy’ that the Torah has to the existence of non-exact weights or measuring tools in your house.
Even if you didn’t steal anything yet by having those inaccurate weights, just owning them is prohibited by the Torah.
Cheating on weights and measurements is even more abhorrent in the Torah’s eyes than classing stealing.
When someone takes something that doesn’t belong to him unlawfully, it is a clear-cut act of immorality.
One who engages in theft chooses to overlook his better moral sense and greedily steal from his fellow.
There is no way to whitewash this in your mind or in the mind of the society around us.
No so when one has slightly inaccurate weights or measuring tools. It presents itself more respectably.
And that is what makes it so shocking.
The whole notion of a measuring tool is to enable and provide a fair and honest transaction.
Taking that very tool and hiding behind it to cheat, is sly, sneaky and duplicitous.
A judge dressed in robes who uses his courtroom to render unfair judgements is more immoral in a more despicable way than an armed bandit.
A broken clock is clearly not a tool that can be relied on to tell time.
An inaccurate clock can misleadingly lead people to believe that they know what the time is.
Click here for more teachings about honesty in weights and measures.
There is a joke that brings out this point well. It is a cruel punchline but most important to hear and absorb.
Yankel, a Yiddish speaking immigrant walked into a restaurant in the days when the Lower-East- Side was the Yiddish speaking part of New York. It was a Chinese restaurant and to his amazement the Asian waiters were speaking fluent Yiddish. Yankel asked the owner incredulously, ‘wow how did you teach the waiters Yiddish?
To which the owner replied ‘Shh… they think they are learning English’.
Thank G-d it’s only a joke. Because if it was real, it would be horribly deceitful on the side of the employer.
Upon further reflection it is not such a joke and tragically many people engage in this deceit. Knowingly or unknowingly.
During the communist times in Russia, one’s child would be indoctrinated by the teachers of communism. To the extent that the parents who sent their kids to school with one set of truths, could find those very children turning against their parents with their new set of immoral values.
How careful we must be when we propose to teach the truth of Judaism that it actually remains genuinely and honestly a representation of the instructions of G-d.
The Torah is Divine.
All twenty-four books of the ‘original’ ‘testament’ are G-d’s word.
The ‘Oral Law’ as laid out in the Talmud and codified in Rambam and Shulchan Aruch are the only and sole interpretation of G-d’s words that define the Jewish religion.
We need to be so vigilant that Jewish doesn’t get altered G-d forbid to be JEW’ish like ‘blueish’ or ‘sweetish’ as in an approximation.
It is critical that we remember and affirm that the Torah, written and oral, is not changeable.
Otherwise, it’s like providing our students and children a set of values that profess to be truth but that are actually a distortion of the truth.
The Torah promises that if we stick to our values, with true measurements and weights, with honesty and integrity, G-d has joy and delight in the people whom He redeemed from Egypt.
Let us embrace authenticity, honesty and integrity in our relationship with G-d and with our fellow.
During these tumultuous times, our prayers are more fervent than ever.
HASHEM, please bring the Redemption, the promised utopian secure, peaceful and love-filled days of collectively ‘knowing’ and serving G-d joyfully and eternally.
WE WANT MASHIACH NOW.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Kantor