RaYBaSH’s Ponderings of the Perkei Avot
Chapter 5:13
By: Yehudah ben Shomeyr
“There are four
types of people: One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours
is mine" is a boor. One who says "What is mine is mine, and what is
yours is yours" -- this is a median characteristic; others say that this
is the character of a Sodomite. One who says, "What is mine is yours, and
what is yours is yours" is a chassid
(pious person). And one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours
is mine" is wicked.”
This is why I love
the Perkei Avot, most of it is so self explanatory and you need not be a rocket
scientist to figure it out. We can walk though out an average day and encounter
every type of person described above, but may we all be loving and selfless as
the third person who is described as a chassid.
What’s Mine is Mine and What’s Yours is Mine!
DISCLAIMER:
This article is not meant to support or protest any particular franchise or
product, certain franchises and products are used as an example to bring about
a point.
I am dumbfounded
and disgusted by the sheer idiocy and lunacy of recent televisions commercials
made under the guise of “bringing families together”, but all the while
promoting selfishness and family disfunctionality.
WAL-MART:
Advertising liquid crystal TV’s and how that it supposed to bring families
together. Sure enter the TV world and ignore everyone sitting beside you as you
get wrapped up in the story unfolding on the tube and not talk to the family
members setting beside you from 30 minutes to two hours, yeah that describes
family oneness doesn’t it!? Yeah right!
DODGE CRAVAN: This
commercial shows every family member ignoring one another and preoccupied with
their own activity, phone, internet, video games etc. Then Mom pulls up and
says: “Let’s take a ride in the new Dodge caravan.” The family groans, huffs
and puffs as they roll their eyes in disgusted protest, only to resume similar
activities in the van, Dad turns on the Sirus Satellite Radio, one kid plays a
video game the other watched TV, still doing separate activities although their
bodies are in the same vehicle and they call this family togetherness!?
Commercials meant
to be funny, but showing an irritating and disturbing trend and exposes a grain
of truth. For example:
BEST BUY: We find
Mother and son groping their Best Buy gifts that are found beneath the
Christmas tree, when Dad pops in the foyer and says, “Let’s go see Grandma and
then we will come back and open the presents, I promise.” They all load up and
drive to Grandma’s and they stop in front of her house, while Grandma is
standing at the front door waiting for them to come in. They roll down the
windows of the vehicle and wave and say “Merry Christmas Grandma!”. The windows
are rolled up and the mother proclaims, “I think we are done here.” and they
zoom home to open their Best Buy gifts.
VERIZON WIRELESS:
A father appearing as if he is being thoughtful in getting everyone a phone
proclaiming because they are his “number 1”. Although we quickly see he has an
ulterior motive; he was saving the best for himself, “Numero Uno” as he calls
himself as he walks away with the Verizon phone tech crew without his family
knowing it.
Countless
commercials that are made to be humorous, yet display our selfishness and shows
we are happy as long as we get what ever material possession is being
advertised no matter is others are left out, have to do without or get hurt in
the process.
What have we as a
“civilized and social” people have come to? What can we make of this
subconscious commercial commentary on Western culture? It’s as if we have
become a divided world of self absorbed individuals all looking out for
ourselves.
The reality
competition type shows are furthering the selfishness and over self importance
of ones self, with the philosophy of looking out for number one. The stratagem
in these games is, “by any means necessary”, lie, cheat, steal, betray,
compromise ones standards, make everything morally relative, even so far as to
bring about human degradation, suffering and desensitization all for the sake
of winning, becoming number one.
Everyone has a
price and will do anything from strip buck naked on camera before a TV
audience, drink cow urine or eat pig anus if the dead presidents in the brief
case is just enough. These type of shows not only dehumanizes the competition,
but ones own self as well. One becomes a mindless automaton for the sake of
fame and fortune. Heck, A practicing Jew would never make it past the first
episode of Big Brother, Survivor or Fear Factor!
And what about
these “family restaurants” which has low lights so we can barely see each
others faces, music low overhead and a TV in every corner of the establishment
to keep us from conversing with the party we came with as well as keep us from
our own thoughts!?
i-pods, i-phones
with video, music, internet and gaming capabilities and a myriad of other
devices that keep us preoccupied practically every waking moment, and seeing as
some people sleep with the TV or ear buds on, we can say even practically every
sleeping moment too!
Are we so afraid
of being intimate with one another, or even ourselves that we must be
distracted at almost every moment? Are we inundating ourselves, bombarding and
numbing our senses so as to avoid moral responsibilities ands the nagging
universal, spiritual and philosophical questions that scare us and keep us up
at night:
“Who am I?”
“Why am I here,
why do I exist?”
“What is the
meaning of life?”
“What is there
after death? Is there an afterlife? Where will I go when I die?”
Huh, what!? Sorry,
didn’t hear you… I was listening to my i-pod…
Shalom,
--Yehudah ben
Shomeyr
