5 million for shabbos?

I usually veer away from that reflective meaningful type stuff that some other bloggers like to post about but I'll make an exception today.

In my composition class yesterday we did an impromptu exercise in which we grouped together in pairs and one person in each pair was named the "pen holder". The pen holder's job, besides holding the pen, was to not let the other person convince him to give it to him. The pen holder was supposed to pretend that this pen was his most cherished object and not want to give it to the other person.

I was the pen holder in my pair. The dialogue going back and forth was a bit ridiculous. I claimed that my great-grandfather gave me the pen and made me swear to him not to lend it away. My partner countered with arguments such as, "If your great-grandfather made you swear to jump off a bridge would you do that too?" and "You shouldn't listen to your great-grandfather he was douche-bag in not allowing you to lend it out." We went back and forth with ridiculous arguments, attempted guilt trips, and death threats. Finally, he told me that he needed the pen to go sign a paper at the bank to receive 15 million dollars and told me if I lent him the pen he would give me 5 million. I agreed and handed over the pen.

After handing over the pen, I wondered why I agreed to be bribed. I recognized clearly that it was because I knew I was lying to myself the whole time about the significance of the pen and, therefore, when offered - even though pretend - 5 million dollars, I readily gave it up. I think there is a lesson to be learned here which is one I don't think we often think about. There are a lot of beliefs and values in our life that we say are important, but we should wonder when pressed, when we would have something to gain by giving them up, if we would. I think a big part of what will happen is how much we really believe in what we say we believe in. We may, for example, say that learning Torah is really important to us, but is it really? Are we maybe just echoing what we've heard, sort of hoping that we may come to actually value it like we say we do, but honestly not fully believing it's that important? That may seem fine now and I may be able to tell myself that's what I believe, but will I still be displaying that's what I believe in when I stand to gain something, say 5 million dollars? I think many religious Jews, if offered to gain 5 million dollars by violating shabbos for a month, would turn the offer down. But I don't know if that would necessarily be because of how they feel about the holiness of shabbos. I think it would have to do with needs for social acceptance and because we feel it would be wrong because that's what we were taught. But when we really want the 5 million dollars, we will eventually start to ask ourselves why we go through all the bother to keep shabbos; suddenly, those other reasons we used to keep shabbos don't do the trick. Ultimately, the problem was that although the person claimed that shabbos was important to them, and even acted in a way that demonstrated this, they didn't really believe what they claimed and that's why they were able to think the way they did.

Think about this. Open up a word document and write why Torah learning is important to you, why shabbos is important to you. Do you really really believe what you're writing down? Think about it.

We can't be afraid or embarrassed to ask the basic questions, the fundamental questions we're supposed to have moved past and know the answers to. We have to and we need to. The reasons for doing mitzvos when we were five will not work when knowing why we are doing them starts to matter to us because they've become a burden or they've simply been more of a struggle. But we're embarrassed to ask these questions because we're afraid of appearing not as frum as we want others to think of us. But we also have to be honest with ourselves and realize that the truth, truth itself as a value, is important to us and that if we want to fulfil our lofty, but accomplishable, goal of becoming men and women of truth, maybe we can find a way to sacrifice our ego for the greater good. If we don't then we are just liars, living a life of lying, and its end is not comforting or peaceful. If you want answers to these questions, the questions you may have or that I have raised about why some things are important, you should ask them; many more people have these questions too and would even benefit from you sharing them out loud, however you choose, so those who will not ask the questions will be able to get the answers anyway, because many people are looking for them. Please, think about it.

Comments are welcome.