Mistaking Our Way to Ethical Behavior

By JEFFREY L. SEGLIN

A Code of Jewish Ethics: Volume I: You Shall Be Holy
By Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
559 pages. Bell Tower (Crown). $29.95.

“A mistake is an accident, while a sin is a choice.”

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin makes the observation well into the first volume of A Code of Jewish Ethics. It’s the first of his planned three-volume series in which he aims to restore ethics to its central role in Judaism. This first volume focuses on character development, while later ones will broaden to include interpersonal relationships and family, friendship, and community.

Rabbi Telushkin’s distinction between mistake and sin captures the undertone running throughout this volume: Ethical behavior requires thoughtful reflection on how to interact with others. An accident may be forgivable, a sin less so.

The 559 pages, including detailed table of contents and thorough index, are grounded in Jewish theology as well as a Yiddish proverb or two. (“A half-truth is a whole lie,” says the Yiddish proverb. Why? “[B]ecause an admixture of truth and lies makes the lies more credible,” says Rabbi Telushkin.)

But the book is not designed as one of those quick reads you can cozy up to in a comfortable chair, devour in one sitting, and expect immediate transformation into a changed, more ethical soul. And it may be a bit of a challenge for readers who haven’t brushed up on Leviticus lately. (This volume’s title, “You Shall Be Holy,” comes from Leviticus 19:2, and that rule-filled book of the Torah is revisited over and over again.)

Spending time with this first volume is akin to tapping into Rabbi Telushkin’s encyclopedic mind. Fortunately, it’s both an ample and organized mind, as evidenced by the logical breakdown of chapters, the bulk of which appear in the second part, in which basic virtues and vices are explicated. Everything from civility and forgiveness to anger and hatred are laid bare.

There are no surprises here. Lying is generally bad. But there’s Biblical evidence that lying to save someone else’s or you own life can be permissible, “even when doing so puts an innocent person at significant, though not moral, risk.” Rabbi Telushkin cites the story of Abraham, who feared that upon entering Egypt he would be killed so its people could take his beautiful wife, Sarah. “Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you,” Abraham says to Sarah in Genesis 12:12-13. Sarah doesn’t protest and goes on to tell the lie, “and even stands by it when the king takes her into his home.” Only after God lets loose with a plague on his house does the Egyptian king learn that Sarah is a married woman and, showing the good sense that any monarch would in the face of a plague, lets her go.

It’s also permissible to lie if we know we’re dealing with unscrupulous people, robbers, enemies during war, tax collectors who collect taxes that discriminate against Jews, and in a number of other circumstances upon which most reasonable people and the Bible would agree that a good lie is in order. But generally, sting operations such as those used by police or other officials to catch a criminal are frowned upon because they can “induce a person to do an evil act in which he might not have engaged had he not been tempted.” If the sting was set up to confirm credible reports that inappropriate behavior had been going on, then that’s kosher, too.

Trash-talking also crosses the ethical line. Generally, lashon hara (speaking ill of others) is unacceptable. The one permissible exception is when someone else “has a legitimate need to know something negative about another”—lashon hara le’toelet (speaking ill of others for a purpose).

It’s therefore not only acceptable, but ethically appropriate for us to be forthright when we are called about a former employee as a job reference. The information we offer must be specific, Rabbi Telushkin instructs, and not such free-floating blather as, “Trust me, you don’t want this guy working for you.” But if the guy was always late, dishonest, or incompetent at performing required tasks, we’re obligated to let the caller know.

Of course, most people when called about a former employee these days have been conditioned by human-resource departments and lawyers to give little useful information. The fear is that a former employee may sue if he doesn’t get a job because of a bad reference. While anyone can try to sue anyone for anything, if you are truthful in your description of the employee’s work and stick to the facts, your chances of losing a case are slim. Rabbi Telushkin doesn’t speak directly to this concern, but he does say that because a poor-performing former employee “is likely to cause damage to a future employer, she has the right to this information.” I like how he thinks. The truth can be a great legal shield.

While there are no surprises and a reader will generally find himself nodding in agreement as he works his way through the code, it would be foolish to believe that adhering to it is easy. Gut instinct does not always result in the most ethical choice since most of the choices we face daily are not between right and wrong (those we generally can figure out relatively easily), but between right and right. The challenge is to think through our choices and the ramifications of our actions to come up with the best, right choice. Simple, perhaps. But easy? Not by a long shot.

And that’s where Rabbi Telushkin comes in. In these pages, he’s our guide to sorting through those multiple right choices we’re likely to face. Remarkably, as a reader you don’t come away from reading the book feeling as if you’re the least ethical reprobate in the land. There’s no judgment of the reader going on here, simply a guided tour through difficult ethical choices based on sound Biblical precedent.

Rabbi Telushkin makes clear that while we can choose to behave ethically, making mistakes along the way is to be expected. But not to choose such a path would be a sin.