Bribes

25 Shevat 5782

“You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe will blind the clear sighted and corrupt words that are right.” (Shemos 23:8)

Rabbi Zusha of Anipoli brings in his Maayanah Shel Torah, “An impoverished widow once came to the beit din (courthouse) of the great sage Rabbi Yehoshua Kutner. Weeping bitter tears, she begged him to summon to the court a man she accused of having wronged her.

Rabbi Yehoshua summoned the man to appear before the court, but referred the case to another rabbi, refusing to preside over it himself. ‘The Torah forbids the taking of bribes,’ he explained. ‘Do you think that a bribe is only a gift of money? Tears can also be a bribe that ‘blinds the clear-sighted’—especially the tears of a poor widow.’”

No matter what form the bribe takes, no matter how righteous the individual, it still blinds his eyes to the truth and causes him to forget Hashem’s just precepts.

“For at any time and moment, a person is capable and free to rid himself of the spirit of folly and the forgetfulness” (Lessons in Tanya, Likutei Amarim, beginning of Chapter 25)

The Alter Rebbe explains that a Jew can only come to sin if a spirit of folly and forgetfulness overcomes him. This spirit comes by way of the yetzer hara, who “bribes” the individual with pleasant words, enticing him to sin by reassuring him that this sin will not separate him from Hashem. In truth, every sin, no matter how small, causes a momentary separation from Hashem, which constitutes a plunge from the highest highs to lowest lows, as explained in yesterday’s Tanya.

“Never will I forget Your precepts, for through them You have sustained me.” (Tehillim 119:93)

The more a person meditates on the fact that in every moment and in every place, Hashem sustains him with life-force, and any deviance from Hashem’s will immediately causes this life force to be derived from the kelipot and sitra achara instead, which are called “vomit and filth,” the easier it will be for him to remember Hashem’s precepts at all times, causing additional vitality to be drawn, exclusively from the side of light and holiness.