Rav Yechezkel Abramsky was once approached by a talmid chacham who was preparing to enter into a business deal, but was concerned that the deal might be deceitful. He shared all the relevant details with the rav, and Rav Yechezkel told him that while the deal technically could not be considered dishonest, he still felt that it was not appropriate for the questioner.
“It may not be dishonest, but it’s not honest either,” the gadol explained. “You are a talmid chacham, and it’s not worth it for you to cloud your mind. If you do not have integrity in business, your learning will also lose that quality!” (In Their Shadow, Vol. III).
In today’s world, it is particularly difficult to identify what is true and yashar. Many of the values and principles espoused by contemporary society are, in fact, distortions of objective truth. This makes true happiness a very elusive goal. In this chaos and confusion, the Torah is our only guide to true yashrus.
The Torah commands us, “You shall do what is good and just in the eyes of Hashem, your G-d.” True yashrus means doing what Hashem considers to be right, which may not necessarily be what is “right” according to our feeble human intellects. Only by delving into the Torah can we achieve recognition of what is truly right and what Hashem wants.
In fact, this is one of the main purposes of Torah study: to enable us to develop into true yesharim, who think and live in accordance with the yashrus of Hashem.
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
