Ask 3 Times

Was reading a story about forgiveness from my friend Abdulla. In his story, he referenced the Jewish tradition contained in the Shulchan Aruch, which is basically the code of Jewish Law.  From what I’ve read, Jewish ideas about forgiveness are in line with how I view forgiveness as a Humanist.

Specifically, if you do harm to someone, you must seek forgiveness from that person. God cannot forgive you for a harm you have done to a fellow human. Only the harmed person can forgive you.  Amen to that. The only way to restore your relationship with the person you harmed is to seek their forgiveness.

Here’s where it gets really good. If someone genuinely seeks your forgiveness, according to Jewish law, you must not withhold it.  This is important because, forgiving someone means letting go of the hurt. It doesn’t excuse the hurt or harm, it just means you aren’t going to dwell on it anymore and you and the person who hurt you can move forward with your lives.

Here’s what I think is the best part. If you genuinely seek forgiveness from someone but are refused three times you may consider your duty done, and you may forgive yourself. In other words don’t spend the rest of your life feeling guilty. If you genuinely tried to make amends but were refused, you have done all that you can and you have the right to move on with your life and to put the episode behind you even if the person you harmed does not.

I'm too lazy to cheat

Was discussing teaching ethics to kids today on Whole Living with Terri Trescpicio - which is a Martha Stewart Radio program (and yes, I did just gratuitously name drop). Anyway, one of the topics was cheating, why not cheat?  My answer is that I don't cheat because I am too lazy to cheat.

I realize that might seem counter intuitive, but seriously, that's my reason.  First, the only person you really hurt by cheating in school is yourself.  Your teachers don't really care and are not hurt by it. Your parents aren't hurt, though they may be disappointed in you.  It really does turn out that the only person affected by your cheating is you.

Ok - so why isn't it a good idea to cheat if the only person affected is you?  Well, let me tell you a little story.  I was a level 1 student in high school.  One time I had to make up a test I had missed during the level 3 class.  I was shocked.  Those kids put more effort into cheating than I put into studying. So, right off the bat, the lazy person inside me was wondering why they were willing to work so hard to cheat, but not willing to work less hard to just, you know, study. Because, the lazy route to good grades, really is studying.

The 2nd thing that struck me was that for all the time and energy they put in, which was again, was significantly more than it would take to just read the friggin book, it didn't actually help them get better grades.  Their grades, with the cheating, were still crappy, which is why they were still in level 3.

Rationally, what they were doing doesn't make any sense.  They were working harder for bad results. They could have worked less hard and gotten better results just by deciding to learn the material instead of trying to cheat. So, not only did they not learn the material, they worked harder to not learn the material and their grades were still crappy. The mind boggles.

When you think about whether to cheat or not, take the lazy route and just read the darned book.