Love and Justice
The story is told of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetah. He was one of our great sages. He believed his learning had been a gift to him from his teachers, and he wanted to make it a gift to his students. So, he never charged them for their lessons, but instead earned his livelihood by making deliveries. One day, out of gratitude for all he did for them, his students bought him a donkey from an Arab in the marketplace. The rabbi was very grateful and moved by the thoughtfulness of his students. Upon examining the donkey, he found a small pouch tied around its neck. He opened the pouch, and out fell a large diamond.
"How wonderful," said his students. "Now our rabbi will no longer be poor."
"But this diamond does not belong to me," said Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach. "It belongs to the man who sold you the donkey."
His students began to argue with their teacher. "The Arab sold us the whole donkey," they said. "It was attached to the animal when we bought it, and so, according to the law, you need not return it."
"Of what use is my learning if I do not act in the right way?" said Rabbi Simon Ben Shetach. He took the diamond and returned it to the Arab. When he did so, the Arab exclaimed, "Blessed be the G-d of Shimon Ben Shetach".
The question that I have about this story is this – what is it supposed to teach us? Isn't it obvious that the students of Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach are wrong? Isn't it obvious that they ought to return the diamond to its rightful owner? Where is the tension in this story? What is so special about this story that it has been preserved in our tradition for 2000 years? Here's what I think. The story wants us to ask this question -- Would the students have argued that they did not have to return the diamond if they had bought the donkey from a fellow student? If they had bought the donkey from a neighbor living next door, would they have argued that they did not have to return it? If they had bought the donkey from a member of their synagogue, would even one of them have argued that we need not return it because it came attached to the animal they bought? Of course not. The only reason they made the argument that they should keep the diamond is that they thought that since they bought it from an Arab, they could keep it. They probably made the assumption, that if the shoe were on the other foot, the Arab would not have returned the valuable item to them, so they were justified in devising a rationale, or finding a law, that would let them keep it. Since they bought the donkey from someone who was "other than us", they argued that they did not have to return it. There's "us" and then there's "them". There is one set of rules for how we relate to one another, and there is another set of rules for how we relate to "them". With "us" we do the reasonable thing, and return the diamond which we have not paid for and therefore don't deserve to keep. You don't have to be a moral giant to know this. But with "them" the story teaches about our temptation to find a rationale that justifies our keeping the diamond, something that would be unthinkable if it had been a transaction with one of our own kind.
That's why Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach's action is so extra-ordinary. Simeon ben Shetach is teaching us that there is no "us" and "them" when it comes to acting justly. There is no special kind of justice that we put into place when it comes to dealing with Jews, and another standard of justice when it comes to dealing with others. There is not one standard of justice for men and another standard for women, one standard for blacks and another standard for whites, one standard for the rich and one standard for the poor, one standard for gays and another standard for straights. There is not one justice for those who we consider our friends, and another for those who we consider our enemies. Our concept of justice derives from G-d, and G-d's justice applies to everybody, equally, without regard to race, or religion, nationality, gender or sexual orientation, or whether we like them or whether they like us! That is why the Arab, when Simeon ben Shetach returned the diamond, did not say, "G-d bless you, Simeon ben Shetach." He said, "Blessed be the G-d of Simeon ben Shetach." He didn't praise the rabbi, he praised the G-d of the rabbi. He knew that it was the belief in a moral G-d whose justice transcends all of the ways we divide the world up that caused the rabbi to return the jewel to him.
The social critic John Ruskin wrote, "If we do justice to our brother, even though we may not like him, we will come to love him; but if we do injustice to him because we do not love him, we shall come to hate him." It is a challenge for us, as individuals and as a nation, to deal justly with those who we do not like. Yet, as the story shows, this is the path toward love and true reconciliation, for who cannot help but love the Arab who says, "Blessed be the G-d of Simeon ben Shetach."
Shabbat shalom
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