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Thought for the Day: The Torah Wants You to Maintain Your Dignity

Chazal (Brachos 19b) have quite a discussion about this verse (Mishlei 21:30):
'אין חכמה ואין תבונה ואין עצה לנגד ה

Which translates as: There is no wisdom and no understanding and no advice against HaShem. It basically means that sometimes you just have to do it, no matter how strange it seems. The discussion begins with noting that if someone discovers that he he wearing שעטנז -- real, live, Torah prohibited mixture of wool and linen -- then he must immediately remove it. If all his clothing are שעטנז, then he has to remove all of it immediately. But what about if he is in the middle of Times Square at noon on the Sunday of Labor Day Weekend? The Gemara answers, 'אין חכמה ואין תבונה ואין עצה לנגד ה; which here translates, roughly (but accurately) as: What part of "remove all שעטנז immediately did you not understand?"

The Gemara is stunned and makes several -- doomed to failure, of course -- attempts to refute that halacha. Note well: all those, so to speak, "failed" attempts, are actually the most fun and efficient way to delineate the parameters of the halacha. I urge you to take a look.

That's not why we are here today. I was bothered by one of the examples brought for proof. Not the proof, but the way I (mis)read the intent of the halacha. The case is returning a lost object. The source for that halacha is D'varim 22:1: You shall not see the ox of your brother or ... and hide yourself from them; you shall certainly return ... Since the Torah gives a list of the kinds of lost objects from which you may not hide yourself, Chazal learn that there are, in fact, situations in which you are allowed -- and, in fact, even should -- hide yourself. One such category is "not according to his honor." Beneath his dignity? To do a mitzvah from the Torah? To spend time do the Will of G-d?! That's beneath your dignity?!

Ok, so I looked at Rashi to for some understanding:

אין האבידה חשובה לפי כבודו להשיבה

Pretty literally: it is beneath him to return such an unimportant object.

Well, that didn't make things any better, now did it? Fortunately, I don't learn alone at home. I learn in a beis medrash. Moreover, the yeshiva that also resides in that building is on break/summer camp. Evenmoreover, a long time friend and talmid chacham, R' Henoch Plotnik was there and had no chavrsa. I took the opportunity to explain my distress. I even said that the other two cases make sense to me. A kohein who sees a lots object in a graveyard, which is he anyway not permitted to enter. Or an object that will cost more to return than its total value, so the owner (who will have to pay the expenses of the finder) will lose out.

R' Plotnik's face lit up with his famous smile as he explained. The Gemara is saying something completely different. The Gemara is exploring the boundaries of the halacha. The mitzvah of returning a lost object simply does not apply to a kohein who sees a lost object in a graveyard. It is not that returning the object is less of a mitzvah than refraining from becoming tamei; the mitzvah just doesn't apply. It is not that the owner will lose out if the cost of return is too high; it is that there is no mitzvah to return the object at all if the cost is too high. It is not that it is beneath the dignity of this individual to do a mitzvah; rather that retrieving and returning the object in its current state -- a pencil under a truck in the mud, for example -- is not worth the dignity of this Jew; so there is no mitzvah.

Ah. The Torah is telling us that human dignity is so precious to HaShem that He said, "Returning that object is not My Will; keeping your dignity is My Will."

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