Dear all,
I read an article recently about a person whose frequent flyer program had failed to deduct 50,000 miles from his account for an award ticket.
“These big corporations cheat us so often,” he wrote.”I deserve this. Besides, they will never catch it.”
His post reminded me of a teaching from the Talmud: Rava taught, “When a person dies and is brought in for his final judgement he is asked: were you ethical in your business dealings?” (Shabbat 31a).
What does this mean for us?
When we receive change at the grocery,
When we take an excess amount of free samples at the bakery,
When we notice a bank error in our favor,
When we find money on the ground, …
The opportunity exists in any given moment in time to make an ethical decision.
And while the business owner may never know, that’s not the point.
WE know. It’s not about them. It’s about us! It’s about living a life of goodness.
Doing the right thing, even when no one is watching, is the cornerstone of integrity. So when the bank error is in our favor, we may, in reality, be the ones who lose when we don’t do the right thing!
With love and shalom,
Rabbi Zach Shapiro
A change in perspective can shift the focus of our day – and even our lives. We have an opportunity to harness “a moment in time,” allowing our souls to be both grounded and lifted. This blog shows how the simplest of daily experiences can become the most meaningful of life’s blessings. All it takes is a moment in time.
Rabbi Zach Shapiro is the Spiritual Leader of Temple Akiba of Culver City, a Reform Jewish Congregation in California. He earned his B.A. in Spanish from Colby College in 1992, and his M.A.H.L. from HUC-JIR in 1996. He was ordained from HUC-JIR – Cincinnati, in 1997. He was appointed to the HUC-JIR Board of Governors in 2018.
