Your child damages a neighbor’s property, you feel responsible.

But that can mean two distinct things.  Either, simply, that as the child’s parent you consider yourself where the buck stops.

Or it may mean something deeper.  If the boy didn’t just accidentally hit a ball through the Jones’ picture window but rather aimed a rock at it – and had been influenced in his disregard for the property of others by some remarks you made – you should feel responsible in much more than the buck-stopping sense.

The Jewish concept of “arvus,” – the “interdependence” of all Jews – is sometimes understood as akin to the first, simple, sense of responsibility.  Jews are to regard other Jews as family, and therefore to feel responsible for one another.

But, the celebrated Jewish thinker Rabbi E.E. Dessler teaches, Jews are responsible for one another in the word’s deeper sense too.  When a Jew does something good, it reflects the entire Jewish people’s goodness.  And the converse is no less true.  Thus, when Achan, one man, misappropriated spoils after the first battle of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, the siege of Jericho, it is described as the sin of the entire people (Joshua, 7:1).  Explains Rabbi Dessler: Had the people as a whole been sufficiently sensitive to the Divine commandment to shun the city’s spoils, Achan would never have been able to commit his sin.

The much publicized arrests last month of several Jews, amid a larger group, on a variety of financial charges caused all sensitive Jews acute embarrassment.  But the vivid image of Jews – religious ones, no less – being carted off by federal agents needs to do something more than embarrass us.  It needs to spur us.

Not because we have any right to assume the worst about the accused; we don’t.  And if in fact there were violations of the law, we don’t know the circumstances, the motivations of the accused or even if they were aware of the pertinent laws (which might not make a difference to a trial judge but should to the rest of us).  Trial by Tabloid is not Jewish jurisprudence.

But the images themselves must make us think.  In particular about other, confirmed, cases of Jews – including religiously observant ones – who have in fact engaged in “white collar” crime.  Not to mention several identifiably Jewish, if not particularly religious, Jews who have even achieved broad notoriety for their societal sins.

And so, the deeper concept of arvus leaves us to ponder the possibility that some less blatant and less outrageous – but still sinful – actions of other Jews, ourselves perhaps included, may have, little by little, provided a matrix on which greater sins subsequently came to grow.

Every child who received a Jewish education knows that even a small coin placed in a pushke, or charity box, is the fulfillment of a mitzvah, the commandment to give charity.  It should be equally apparent, especially to all us grown-up children, that the misappropriation of even a similarly small amount of money is a sin.

And so Jews, whoever and wherever they are, who cut corners for financial gain – who underreport their income or avoid taxes illegally or are less than fully honest in their business dealings – contribute thereby to the thievery-matrix.  And they bear responsibility, in however small the ways, for larger crimes committed by their fellows.

What is more, even those of us who are innocent of any financial indiscretions might also be unwitting contributors to the critical criminal mass.  Because things other than money can also be “stolen.”

The Torah speaks, for example, about two forms of oppressive practices (ona’ah): financial (as in overcharging) and personal (as in causing pain to others with words).  The Talmud also calls the act of misleading another person “stealing knowledge” (g’neivas da’as); and considers it “robbery” to not return another’s greeting.  Halachic decisors, moreover, note the forbiddance to “steal sleep” – to wake someone unnecessarily or to keep him up when he wants to retire.

So even those of us whose financial ledgers are in order would do well to introspect.  Are we sufficiently careful not to use words in hurtful ways, entirely meticulous in advice we offer, fully responsive to the good will of others, truly cautious about not disturbing their peace?  If not, then we are – in a subtle but real way – part of the perp-walk picture ourselves.

Yom Kippur approaches.  Jews the world over will repeatedly recite two confessional prayers, “Ashamnu” and “Al Chet Shechatanu.”  Both, oddly, are in the first person plural.  It is a collective “we” who have sinned.  As the commentaries explain, that is because, among Jews, even sins of which the individual supplicant may be personally innocent, implicate us all.

© 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran

The weeks before a presidential election provide spiritual fodder for the week between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Throughout political campaigns, candidates and their handlers are keenly aware of the great toll a simple gaffe or misjudgment can take.  Four years ago, Howard Dean, the then-governor of Vermont (today Democratic National Committee chairman) was a credible candidate for the Democratic nomination for President.

But he crashed and burned, according to many because of what came to be dubbed his “I Have a Scream” speech.  After an unexpectedly weak showing in the Iowa caucus, Dr. Dean declared his undeterred determination to forge on, in a rousing address that culminated in a vocalization somewhere between a Zulu war cry and a locomotive horn.  That single moment’s decision to let loose in that way at that juncture spelled the end of the doctor’s road to the highest office in the land.

There have been other such moments for presidential candidates: Edmund Muskie’s tears of pain, Gary Hart’s infelicitous mugging for his “Monkey Business” snapshot, Michael Dukakis’s donning of an ill-fitting combat helmet.  Each unguarded moment, deservedly or not, brought a national campaign to a screeching halt.

Every one of us, too, in our personal lives, comes face to face at times with opportunities of our own that, wrongly handled, can lead to places we don’t want to go.

And we are vying for something infinitely more important than a mere nomination for President.  We’re in the running, after all, for the achievement of worth, racing to achieve meaning in our lives.

In the bustle and haste of everyday existence, it is alarmingly easy to forget that decisions we make, sometimes almost unthinkingly, can be crucial; that seemingly insignificant forks in the roads of our lives can lead either to achievement and holiness, or, G-d forbid, to setbacks, even ruin.

Every single decision we make, of course, is important.  Each day of our lives presents occasions for choices, chances to seize meaningful things – a mitzvah, a heartfelt prayer, an act of charity – or to forgo them.  Every opportunity to be morose or angry is a chance to hurt others, and ourselves – and likewise a chance to do neither, and achieve something priceless.

But there are also particularly momentous opportunities, when we are presented with roads that diverge in entirely different directions.  The Talmud teaches that “one can acquire his universe” – the one that counts: the world-to-come – or “destroy” it “in a single moment.”

Potentially transformative decisions are more common to our lives than we may realize.  When we make a decision about, say, where to live or what synagogue to attend – not to mention more obviously critical decisions like whom to marry or how to raise and educate our children – we are defining our futures, and others’.  And it is of great importance that we recognize the import of our decisions, and accord them the gravity they are due.

We can even, through sheer determination, create our own critical moments.  Consider the Talmudic case of the “conditional husband.”

In Jewish law, a marriage is effected by the proposal of a man to a woman – the declaration of the woman’s kiddushin, or “specialness” to her husband, followed by the acceptance by the woman of a coin or item of worth from her suitor.  If the declaration is made on the condition that an assertion is true, the marriage is valid only if the assertion indeed is.  Thus, if a man betroths a woman on the condition that he owns a car, or still has his own teeth, unless he does, they aren’t married.

What if a man offers a woman a coin or item and makes the kiddushin-declaration “on the condition that I am a tzaddik,” a “totally righteous person”?  The Talmud informs us that even if the man in question has no such flawless reputation the marriage must be assumed to be valid (and only a divorce can dissolve it).

Why?  Because, the Talmud explains, the man “may have contemplated repentance” just before his proposal.

That determined choice of a moment, in other words, if sincere, would have transformed the man completely, placed him on an entirely new life-road.  The lesson is obvious: Each of us can transform himself or herself – at any point we choose – through sheer, sincere will.

This season of the Jewish year, our tradition teaches, is particularly fertile for making choices, for embarking on new roads.  All we need are the sensitivity and wisdom to be open to crucial opportunities, and the determination to craft some of our own – to make choices that will change our lives and futures for the holier.

© 2008 Rabbi Avi Shafran