Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
The research that we've done on dishonesty is about the fact that when we are [engaged] in a behavior, we can go down a slippery slope. We don't pay as much attention to our ethics, to how we want to be...With religious reminders...if something takes us from our own perspective, and gives us a mirror, we can stop, slow down, and look at ourselves from an external perspective and re-evaluate our actions.
A one-on-one Torah study with Dan Ariely. In this session, he shares pieces of his Jewish journey and applies his research findings about dishonesty and ethics to a Talmudic tale about harlotry and ritual fringes (tzitzit). He sees in this text a teaching about how rituals and intentional engagement with religious items, rather than habits, can help us become the people we want to be.
This sheet includes memorable quotes from our study session with Dan Ariely. We encourage you to add these quotes to your own Sefaria sheets by clicking them and selecting “Add to Sheet” in the resource panel (instructions here)!
Dan Ariely is a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and a founding member of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. He is the author of the bestsellers Predictably Irrational, The Upside of Irrationality, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, Dollars and Sense and Amazing Decisions -- as well as the TED Book Payoff: The Hidden Logic that Shapes Our Motivations. He is also co-creator of the film documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies. Through his research and his (often amusing and unorthodox) experiments, he questions the forces that influence human behavior and the irrational ways in which we often all behave.
תניא א"ר נתן אין לך כל מצוה קלה שכתובה בתורה שאין מתן שכרה בעה"ז ולעה"ב איני יודע כמה צא ולמד ממצות ציצית
מעשה באדם אחד שהיה זהיר במצות ציצית שמע שיש זונה בכרכי הים שנוטלת ד' מאות זהובים בשכרה שיגר לה ארבע מאות זהובים וקבע לה זמן כשהגיע זמנו
בא וישב על הפתח
נכנסה שפחתה ואמרה לה אותו אדם ששיגר ליך ד' מאות זהובים בא וישב על הפתח
אמרה היא יכנס
נכנס
הציעה לו ז' מטות שש של כסף ואחת של זהב ובין כל אחת ואחת סולם של כסף ועליונה של זהב
עלתה וישבה על גבי עליונה כשהיא ערומה ואף הוא עלה לישב ערום כנגדה
באו ד' ציציותיו וטפחו לו על פניו
נשמט וישב לו ע"ג קרקע
ואף היא נשמטה וישבה ע"ג קרקע
אמרה לו גפה של רומי שאיני מניחתך עד שתאמר לי מה מום ראית בי
אמר לה העבודה שלא ראיתי אשה יפה כמותך אלא מצוה אחת ציונו ה' אלהינו וציצית שמה
וכתיב בה (במדבר טו, מא) אני ה' אלהיכם שתי פעמים אני הוא שעתיד ליפרע ואני הוא שעתיד לשלם שכר
עכשיו נדמו עלי כד' עדים
אמרה לו איני מניחך עד שתאמר לי מה שמך ומה שם עירך ומה שם רבך ומה שם מדרשך שאתה למד בו תורה
כתב ונתן בידה עמדה וחילקה כל נכסיה שליש למלכות ושליש לעניים ושליש נטלה בידה חוץ מאותן מצעות
ובאת לבית מדרשו של ר' חייא
אמרה לו רבי צוה עלי ויעשוני גיורת
אמר לה בתי שמא עיניך נתת באחד מן התלמידים
הוציאה כתב מידה ונתנה לו
אמר לה לכי זכי במקחך
אותן מצעות שהציעה לו באיסור הציעה לו בהיתר זה מתן שכרו בעה"ז ולעה"ב איני יודע כמה
It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Natan says: There is no mitzva, however minor, that is written in the Torah, for which there is no reward given in this world; and in the World-to-Come I do not know how much reward is given. Go and learn from the following incident concerning the mitzva of ritual fringes. There was an incident involving a certain man who was diligent about the mitzva of ritual fringes. This man heard that there was a prostitute in one of the cities overseas who took four hundred gold coins as her payment. He sent her four hundred gold coins and fixed a time to meet with her. When his time came, he came and sat at the entrance to her house. The maidservant of that prostitute entered and said to her: That man who sent you four hundred gold coins came and sat at the entrance. She said: Let him enter. He entered. She arranged seven beds for him, six of silver and one of gold. Between each and every one of them there was a ladder made of silver, and the top bed was the one that was made of gold. She went up and sat naked on the top bed, and he too went up in order to sit naked facing her. In the meantime, his four ritual fringes came and slapped him on his face. He dropped down and sat himself on the ground, and she also dropped down and sat on the ground. She said to him: I take an oath by the gappa of Rome that I will not allow you to go until you tell me what defect you saw in me. He said to her: I take an oath by the Temple service that I never saw a woman as beautiful as you. But there is one mitzva that the Lord, our God, commanded us, and its name is ritual fringes, and in the passage where it is commanded, it is written twice: “I am the Lord your God” (Numbers 15:41). The doubling of this phrase indicates: I am the one who will punish those who transgress My mitzvot, and I am the one who will reward those who fulfill them. Now, said the man, the four sets of ritual fringes appeared to me as if they were four witnesses who will testify against me. She said to him: I will not allow you to go until you tell me: What is your name, and what is the name of your city, and what is the name of your teacher, and what is the name of the study hall in which you studied Torah? He wrote the information and placed it in her hand. She arose and divided all of her property, giving one-third as a bribe to the government, one-third to the poor, and she took one-third with her in her possession, in addition to those beds of gold and silver. She came to the study hall of Rabbi Ḥiyya and said to him: My teacher, instruct your students concerning me and have them make me a convert. Rabbi Ḥiyya said to her: My daughter, perhaps you set your sights on one of the students and that is why you want to convert? She took the note the student had given her from her hand and gave it to Rabbi Ḥiyya. He said to her: Go take possession of your purchase. Those beds that she had arranged for him in a prohibited fashion, she now arranged for him in a permitted fashion. The Gemara completes its point about the reward of mitzvot and points out how this story illustrates the concept: This is the reward given to him in this world, and with regard to the World-to-Come, I do not know how much reward he will be given.
וְשָׁפַט֙ בֵּ֣ין הַגּוֹיִ֔ם וְהוֹכִ֖יחַ לְעַמִּ֣ים רַבִּ֑ים וְכִתְּת֨וּ חַרְבוֹתָ֜ם לְאִתִּ֗ים וַחֲנִיתֽוֹתֵיהֶם֙ לְמַזְמֵר֔וֹת לֹא־יִשָּׂ֨א ג֤וֹי אֶל־גּוֹי֙ חֶ֔רֶב וְלֹא־יִלְמְד֥וּ ע֖וֹד מִלְחָמָֽה׃ (פ)
Thus He will judge among the nations And arbitrate for the many peoples, And they shall beat their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks: Nation shall not take up Sword against nation; They shall never again know war.
Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
Shabbat is a surprising [commandment] because it looks like we want to make progress in life, and all of a sudden, Jewish thought tells you to slow down and take a day off. It fits a lot of social psychology and cognitive psychology research about the impact of taking a break on our ability to think and act better.
Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
Shabbat is an interesting thing because if you think about how relevant Shabbat was two thousand years ago, it was a relevant and useful mechanism, but its importance has actually increased over time because now, when we get distracted by our phones multiple times an hour, the importance of taking some time off actually increases more than than it used to be. I'm trying to figure out this relationship between Jewish wisdom and modern life, what kind of lessons we can learn, and the mechanisms we should come back to and implement in our lives.
Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
So, the tzitzit (ritual fringes) is a reminder. And Judaism is full of reminders. If you think about the kippah, mezuzah, tzitzit -- they're all reminders and what reminders are supposed to do from a psychological perspective is to not allow us to be in the moment and not think about the long-term consequences of our actions; they are supposed to stop us. And what's really nice about this [text] is that it's the taking off of the tzitzit and the fact that they touch his face that was such a reminder because if something is just in the background and you don't pay attention to it, it's going to be less effective, but if something in the picture changes in some way, then it is more effective.
Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
If you go into a room and the room has the code of ethics printed somewhere, how often are you going to think about the code of ethics? Not that often. It's the interactions with it. So, for example, when we studied a university code of ethics, if you just sign it, people forget. If you have to copy the code of ethics, people remember more. If you have to write your own and put more thinking into it, then it's even more impactful. The story here is that not all religious symbols are created equal. The question is: when do they penetrate your mind? And the religious symbols that penetrate our mind and remind us about our ethical standards are ones we interact with.
Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
An interesting distinction here is between habits and rituals. Habits are usually things we don't think about. It's the way of nature to get us to do all kinds of things - drive and listen to the radio - without paying attention...we do them in a routinized way, we don't spend effort, we don't pay attention. They're not in our consciousness to the same degree...Rituals are different. Rituals are ways to direct more attention, rather than less attention. Think about the ritual of drinking fancy wine...you take a glass, you swirl it, you look at it in the light, you sip, you smell. That takes much more attention. If you sat next to your laptop and you drank a very nice wine from a very nice glass, but you didn't pay attention to it, you wouldn't get the same value and joy and and meaning out of it...There are some things you don't want to do as as habits. You want to do [them] as rituals because you want people to pay extra attention. When it comes to ethics, you want rituals and not habits. If you have habits, you will just keep on doing what you've done before without thinking too deeply on it. If you have rituals, it means your cognitive system is occupied by it. You're thinking longer, you're focused more, and there's a good chance that you will not deviate from your own standard of behavior.
Dan Ariely, Sefaria Torah Talks
How connected is the meaning to the item [the bed sheets in the Talmudic story]?...The question is: can you just reframe something and [ascribe] a different meaning to it? Is this [particular item] something that's supposed to be negative, or is it just the meaning [that's] negative and you can transition it? It's optimistic from this perspective that you can take something that was a tool not for positive things and you can make it into a tool for positive things, stripping out the negative meaning it had. So"ve-chitetu charbotam le-itim" (And they shall beat their swords into plowshares)...There's basically redemption. It's not a bad thing by itself. It's just the meaning that we give it.