The Subtle Trap of Financial Dishonesty | Parashat Yitro

Thou shall not engage in lewd or immoral activities. Thou shall not steal.”(Perek 20, posuk 13.)

The Rambam states that these are the biggest temptations of the yetzer horah and in any given community there are bound to be offenders on both counts.

The Rambam goes on to say that although committing immoral acts is a bigger enticement, stealing and dishonesty is far more common. He does not explain this phenomenon..

I would like to offer an explanation. Committing lewd acts cannot be rationalized. Those who do so know that they are sinning and in the aftermath are usually consumed by guilt. As such, G-D fearing people, knowing the severity of the sin, will generally overcome their temptation.

On the other hand, stealing begs for rationalization. Most people that steal do not see themselves as thieves, but rather as rectifying an injustice. Take for example business partners where theft among them is rife. One partner may feel justified in stealing from the business because he feels that he does most of the work and deserves more money. Or an employee may feel he is underpaid and is therefore justified to steal from his employer.

Some stories are complicated and a Talmid Chochom who is proficient in monetary laws, (choshen mishpat) may use his expertise to determine that he is in the right. As an astonishing instance of this we can look at the Shach. He initiated a din Torah against someone. Since the Shach was famous and respected in his town, he feared that the judge would rule in his favor regardless. He therefore took the case to a different town where he could be anonymous. Subsequently, the judge ruled against the Shach basing his decision on an idea that was written by the Shach in his own sefer!

The Shach would tell this story many times over to emphasize how powerful one’s own self interest can be. When it came to his own actions, he entirely forgot what he himself had written. We see that it is not too difficult to justify one's behavior when it comes to financial matters.

There is a well known story, true or untrue, involving a carton of milk in a public yeshiva refrigerator. The bochurim routinely kept their private food in this refrigerator. One bochur would keep his carton of milk there on a regular basis. The other boys would help themselves to it.  He would write on it, “thou shall not steal,’ but to no avail. He would add, “stealing is a big sin, I am makpid!”  The crime continued. Finally he wrote, “cholov akum!”  Immediately the pilfering stopped. These same tzadikim who would not go near milk that was not cholov Yisroel, had obviously found a way to rationalize taking what did not belong to them.

Someone, in speaking to Rav Aharon Leib Steinman, ztal, mentioned the “reshoim in gehenom”. Rav Aharon Leib took issue with him and exclaimed, “Do you think there are only reshoim in gehenom? There are plenty of tzadikim in gehenom as well!” There are tzadikim in every area of yidishkeit, but slip up in monetary matters.Those tzadikim end up in gehenom.

That is why the Rambam says that although money is not the biggest temptation, the most common transgressions are in areas that relate to money. In this arena even righteous people tend to rationalize their misdeeds.