“…for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise, and perverts the words of the righteous (in judgement).” (Devarim 16:19)

I grew up with the following story: The Shach (Shabbasai ben Meir HaKohen 1621–1662) had a din Torah with another man, and even though the Shach was a great talmid chacham, he felt it was only right to go to Beis Din. The other man said that he didn’t want to go to Beis Din in the same city as the Shach lived in, because everyone knew that the Shach was a big Tzadik and will assume he is in the right. Therefore, they agreed to go to a far-away community where the people didn’t know who the Shach was. Each side presented their case. When they came back the next day, the Shach was surprised that he lost the case. He asked the dayan what was the source for his ruling, and was told that there was a new sefer on Choshen Mishpat called the Sifsei Kohen. In the sefer, there was a case that was almost identical. Based on that case, he ruled against the Shach. The Dayan had no idea that he was speaking with the author of the Sifsei Kohen! The Shach said he now understood the above verse – that even talmidei chachamim can be blinded by money.

There is another idea, which I believe is important to share regarding this verse. I recall that when I was a young student there was a dayan who started to lose his eyesight.  Someone said to me that the reason he is losing his eyesight is obvious: It says in the verse that a person who accepts a bribe will lose his sight! I did not accept his explanation (as it was lashon hora or most probably moetzee shem Ra), but it bothered me that someone would talk like that.

Just recently I saw that there was a student of the Arizal who was a dayan.  While he would accept money for ruling on Choshen Mishpat questions, he did so in a way that was completely permissible according to halacha. Nevertheless, he eventually lost his sight, causing rumors to spread that his blindness was due to accepting bribes. At a certain point he went to shul, and in front of the entire congregation said, “I am going to pray to Hashem that I get my sight back in order to show that I never took a bribe or anything similar” and in fact he got back his vision on the spot. After this episode, he would sign his name with the prescript, “Hashem, who made for me a miracle”. One can learn from here that just because he did something which people could have mistaken for bribery, was enough of a reason to be punished.

I would like to use this idea for something relevant to many of us. I am often asked questions about financial matters, where the technical answer is, “It is permissible”. But it falls into the category of what my rebbe used to describe as “it smells fishy”. This is because it was closely related to something which was forbidden. Therefore, even though permissible, I advise people not to do it. My Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Halberstam (1932–2006), would often ask people who came to him with halachic questions, “Do you eat only glatt kosher?” When they confidently replied, “Yes, we only eat glatt”, he would gently respond, “This may be allowed—but it’s not glatt.” The lesson that I would take from the talmid of the Arizal is that in financial matters, it is not enough that something is technically permissible, it has to have no taint or smell of anything improper.

As we are getting ready for Rosh Hashanah, and we will stand before Hashem to be judged, He will look at how we view at other people’s moneys and at how careful we are not to even rub against the line of scrimmage.

May we merit to have nothing on our record which even resembles bribery in our financial dealings.