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IT LOOKS GOOD
We are all aware that looks can be quite deceiving. When the Torah describes for us the concept of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, it refers to it as being most desirous and pleasant in the eyes of our mother Eve. As we all know, this became the source of human mortality and the bitter sin that led to expulsion from Paradise.
So, the lesson should be obvious that not everything that looks good is good. Yet it is within the nature of human beings to judge people, events and life generally based on superficial looks and proposed ideas. We believe that if it looks and sounds good, its authenticity is validated,
This is the basis for all social theories and societal engineering that has overtaken much of world over the past few centuries. The ideas and predictions became almost irresistible though they turned out to be failures, with the cost of tens of millions of lives. It looked good and it sounded good, but it ended up being the bitter fruits of the Garden of Eden. It is amazing how gullible human beings are and it is even more amazing how the intelligent and smart ones, those who inhabit the world of academia, are the most gullible and foolish humans when it comes to realizing that not everything is as it appears.
The Western world, having taken an undigestible bite from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, is now racing to transform society in order to achieve what currently is believed to be good. Because equality in achievement is so desirous and appealing, the smart ones do not look at the real facts of life or the results of the programs they have initiated and enforced.
It should be obvious by now that teaching sixth and seventh grade students all about sexual preferences has only led to the great degeneration of human society, not only in the moral sense but simply in the practical sense as well. It has legitimized promiscuity, minimized the importance of marriage and family and sanctified the killing of millions of unborn fetuses. Because of this misguided educational blunder, the cost of a government that supplies the welfare to the victims of this type of education has soared. All of us, whether we wish to learn or not, are forced to support this scheme that looks so good and sounds so reasonable…. but has turned out to be so disastrous. And the same can be said for many of the social programs introduced in Western society over the past half-century that promised paradise but produced only disappointment, problems, crime and generational dependency.
The commercial world is built upon making things look good and attractive. It influences us to buy things that we don’t need and to engage in behavior in order to impress others about whom we really don’t care. It creates such a false world that it is hard for us to discover our true self within such a society of media propaganda, advertising bombardment and continued social engineering.
But at the end of the day, we come to realize that all of this really does not matter in the long run. It is the inner person, the still small voice within us that stubbornly refuses to be silenced, that really determines what we are and what we have. We must be wary of the fruits of the tree of knowledge. Technology is wondrous and has made our physical lives easier and more comfortable. However, it is not the solution to any of the problems that beset human beings individually or as a society. Without true moral foundations upon which to view societal initiatives, all of history teaches us that disaster and disappointment lurk in the wings. We are bidden in the Torah to avoid following the temptations of the world that our eyes reveal to us. Not everything that looks good is good and all decisions, both personal and national in Jewish society, must be balanced by the reality and results that they will engender.
Shabbat shalom
Berel Wein
