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When I was a Seminary student, the library was to be named after a generous donor named Ivan Boesky and his wife Seema. Boesky was a known philanthropist and his generosity to JTS was well into seven figures. And then a strange thing happened – Boesky was indicted for insider trading. One of the trustees addressed the entire student body on this matter, but suffice it to say that we were far more adept at understanding the nuances of the Talmud than the nuances of Wall Street trading rules.
Ultimately, the Seminary decided to remove Boesky’s name and refuse any future gifts from the family. It was decided that JTS should not benefit from ill-gotten funds, even in the service of training a new generation of rabbis, cantors and scholars. Other beneficiaries, including Princeton University, ultimately reached the same conclusion.
This dovetails with a striking statement in the tractate Sukkah. There we learn that one cannot fulfill his/her obligation with a stolen lulav. This is derived from the phrase in this morning’s Torah portion (Leviticus 23:40) which says that “you should take for yourselves on the first day the product of beautiful trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your G-d seven days” – that is, “from yourselves”, i.e., one which is rightfully yours. You can borrow another person’s lulav with permission, but you may not keep it for the holiday.
How was the one who tried this understood in rabbinic literature? The best explanation comes from the sixth century CE (Israel) midrash collection Pesikta d’Rav Kahana:
- To what is one who takes a stolen lulav compared to? To a thief [... who] one time stole everything a tax collector had with him. Eventually he was caught [...] the tax collector came to him to him and said, "Return the money to me, and I will defend you before the king”. The thief said, "I have nothing left from what I took except for a saddle." [...] The next day, the thief was brought before the king, and the king asked him if he had anyone to defend him. The thief says that the tax collector would. The tax collector said, “I was out collecting, and this thief took all of my money. The saddle still in his possession is proof that he stole it all.” All those present cried, “Woe to the one whose defense attorney becomes his prosecutor!” So too someone who takes a lulav to gain merit – if the lulav was stolen, it cries out to Hashem saying “I’m stolen property!” and the angels say, “Woe to the one whose defense attorney becomes his prosecutor!”
The lesson is simple – one must not allow the performance of a mitzvah to come on the heels of egregious sin.
- Rabbi Scott Hoffman
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