Levi Brackman’s blog

The markets have been very volatile lately and according to most experts the United States has entered a recession. All of this uncertainty and financial difficulties is a result of the credit crises that was sparked by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. On Monday of this week everything came to a head with the collapse of Bear Stearns, one of the world’s largest global investment banks.

It was bought by JP Morgan Chase in a stock swap worth $2 a share. Bearing in mind that its stocks were worth $172 a share in January 2007 this was a humongous downfall of a massive financial institution. Needless to say many people on Wall Street lost money and many companies went into crises mode.

But while everyone is focusing on the banks and financial institutions that are in trouble because of the credit crunch, few are focusing on the people that are getting hurt. Many people got into a three- or five- year ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) and when their mortgage adjusted to a higher rate, they could no longer afford payments and their homes went into foreclosure. As more homes were taken back by the banks the housing market in many areas started to fall. People who borrowed one hundred percent for their home immediately started to have negative equity issues. With nothing to lose many have walked away from their homes, leaving the banks with further loses and their mortgage-backed securities significantly devalued.

It Take Two To Tango

Clearly it takes two to tango and this credit mess is the combined fault of both the banks and borrowers—they were both deceptive with each other. Borrowers were able to get home loans without having to prove their income; many therefore deceived the lenders regarding their real salaries. Lenders for their part were offering people with bad credit interest-only loans for above-market interest rates that seemed manageable at the time of the transaction. In many cases they were not, however, up-front about what would happen when the rate adjusted. Any reasonable outsider was able to see that this deception would come crashing down at some point, to everyone’s detriment.

Indeed this is what has been happening over the last eight months or so.  Banks no longer trust people and there is virtually no such thing as a no-doc-loan anymore—if you want a loan you have to prove your income. Banks don’t even trust their fellow banks anymore.

The Torah Predicts a Crises

It is fascinating that all of this has come to a climax on Monday of this week. Jews have a custom to study the week’s Torah portion according to the way it has been divided for the day of the week. Tradition has it that within each daily portion there are elements that relate directly to the happenings of that particular day in any given era.

On Monday we studied the laws that pertain to the asham, the guilt offering that was brought up on the Alter in the Temple by a person who had sinned. There are numerous reasons why a person would bring a guilt offering. One of them is for dishonesty. The Torah says in the end of last week’s portion (Leviticus, 5:21–26), “If a person sins … by falsely denying to his fellow concerning a deposit, or money given in hand, or an object taken by robbery, or he withheld funds from his fellow …  [he] shall then bring his guilt offering to the L-rd: an unblemished ram from the flock with the [same] value, for a guilt offering, to the kohen.”

Bear Stearns as a Guilt Offering

On Monday of this week—the day Bear Stearns finally fell—we read more about  the offering that a dishonest person must bring to gain atonement (Leviticus, 7:1-4),  “And this is the law of the guilt offering. It is a holy of holies … And the kohen shall cause them to [go up in] smoke on the altar as a fire offering to the Lord. It is a guilt offering.”

It seems clear to me that the fall of the mighty Bear Stearns and the shaky US economy and the volatility in the markets is a result of dishonesty that has taken place over the last few years and Bear Stearns was the sacrifice offered as a result of this. In fact many experts have said that the liquidity crisis is a direct result of a lack of trust between banks.

If the economy is to recover, all of us—financial institutions, Wall Street professionals, and regular people alike—must take the Torah’s advice to heart and there must be a collective repentance and atonement for the dishonesty of the past. Let us hope that Bear Stearns is the only sacrifice needed for this atonement to take effect permanently.

From the story in the Torah of Moses sending spies to scout out the Land of Israel before it was to be conquered by the Israelites we find immense insight that guides us to self mastery. This is how the Torah relates it: “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Send out for yourself men who will scout the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.” The great medieval Torah commentator Rashi writes that the words “send [spies] for yourself” betrays the fact that the idea to send spies originated from the Israelites rather than from G-d Himself. G-d responded to this idea by saying that if Moses wanted to, he could send spies but it was not a divinely mandated action.

As we know from the Torah the spies Moses sent came back with a negative report which put back the conquering of the Land of Israel by forty years. After an additional forty years of wondering in the desert and after the death of Moses, his successor Joshua was ready to lead the Israelites into battle to conquer the Land of Canaan. This time, however, G-d commanded Joshua to send spies into the land of Canaan but with a different purview. Whilst Moses asked his spies to scout the entire Land of Canaan Joshua’s spies were only mandated to spy out the city of Jericho.

The Kabbalists read intense symbolism into this story. They say that Jericho symbolizes the human capacity to think, speak and act whereas the entire Land of Canaan includes our abilities to have feelings, emotions and desires. According to the Kabbalists we humans are unable to control our feelings, emotions and innate desires but we are able to have dominance other our thoughts, speech and actions. In other words there are things that make us angry, depressed or happy and we cannot control those feelings. In addition all healthy human beings have an innate desire to eat or have intimate relations. These emotions and desires are not something that we can outgrow or dispense with—they are a part of our inborn humanity.

Our thoughts, speech and actions, conversely, can be changed. We have choice over which thought to entertain or which words to say and the actions we take. We may have no choice when we feel angry but we do have the ability not to entertain angry thoughts. The desire to speak in an inappropriate manner may surface involuntarily, but the decision to actually say the words is our own. We may have the desire to eat like a glutton, but we can choose to eat in moderation instead.

G-d commanded us to keep a watch over our inner Jericho—our thoughts speech and actions It is through contently watching over them that we reach self-mastery. We should try and control our feelings, emotions and desires but success is not guaranteed nor divinely mandated. Thus the rest of our inner Land of Canaan does not need to be constantly scouted and scrutinized to the same extent.

Within these Kabbalistic insights is the framework for our inner work that leads us to self-mastery. In order for us to be able to focus our energies in a fully productive manner we must be cognizant of the areas of our psyche which we are not able to control.

There is no obligation to focus our energies trying to change our desires, feelings or emotions nor should we get prostrated when we are unable to do so. Instead we must focus our inner work on ensuring that we have full control over the thoughts we entertain in our mind, the words that we utter and the actions we undertake. If we are able to have complete command over those, we will have reached the highest level of self mastery most human beings can ever achieve. Give it a try and the difference it will make to your life will be immense.

Hi and welcome to my new website and blog.

This website has been designed with my new book, “Jewish Wisdom for Business Success” in mind.The website still has an archive of all of my writing and it has a forum. However, we also have a brand new newsletter for those who are interested especially in receiving inspiring messages based on ideas found in the book that will help you achieved success and fulfillment in all that you do.

Please feel free to look around the site and to sign up to the newsletter.

I will be updating this blog every few days.

Enjoy

Levi