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Mutually Assured Destruction
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I once read in an economics book that the reason Jews are successful in the diamond trade, an industry where the merchandise is portable, difficult to trace, and extremely valuable, is because of their close-knit social structure. A group of self-selecting strangers, the type of group normally comprising industry players, must slowly over time establish systems of trust and punishment to prevent fraud. But if your client is married to the tochter fun shvigger’s shvester or the like, they won’t cheat you, because they have to face you at the seder. At least, it is significantly less likely. This system of social trust gives the religious Jews a competitive advantage.

A different name for the “system of social trust” is mutually assured destruction, a theoretically macabre but practically quite peaceful state of affairs you may also recognize from the Cold War or driving a car. In these outlandish situations, what keeps the actors in line is a powerful sense that steering out of one’s lane will instantly incur upon oneself at least as much pain as it will upon others.

Mutually assured destruction may seem a necessary evil of an imperfect world where love and trust do not prevail. Then we read the Midrash:

Bar Kappara said, the soul and the Torah are compared to a lamp. The soul, as is written, “The lamp of G–d is the soul of man.” And the Torah, as is written, “For a lamp is the commandment and the Torah, light.”

G-d says to man, “My lamp is in your hand, and your lamp is in my hand; you have my Torah and I have your soul. If you preserve my lamp, I shall preserve yours, and if you extinguish my lamp, I shall extinguish yours.”

Devarim Rabbah 4

This talk of extinguishing makes us anxious, and indeed, can even read as a threat. On the other hand, it is a very poor threat that points out we can extinguish His lamp…

Mutually assured destruction is, in fact, a form of closeness deeper than love, the way politeness and decorum are deeper than camaraderie. When the love and the camaraderie run out, protocol remains, regimentation to fill the gaps in our aptitude. Just as the wood of my shelf can hold hundreds of pounds of books with shocking inanimate strength, so do the orders and duties bear the weight of experiences that would crush our more “human” faculties.

If an ideal world and an ideal relationship with G-d (but I repeat myself) lacked any uncomfortable closeness, any mutually assured destruction, would it not be a shallower world than ours? It would surely be a victory to never have any talk of extinguishing the very light and life of our beloved, but a victory at what cost? Do we want to win on a technicality, because no one ever finds a reason to extinguish the flame? Or have we been placed in this world to learn to accept the terrible entwining of our being with G-d, beyond the level of choice? Is this not the positive outcome of stuff happens (and happens for no apparent reason)?

“Diamonds are forever” has become easy to mock in recent years in light of the dirty and manipulative industry devoted to making the gems desirable. But the slogan is a perversion, not an invention, and we throw the underlying truth away at our peril. We desperately need things that are valuable for no reason, valuable like family, valuable like G-dliness.

Mutually assured destruction is necessary to teach us trust. The Rebbe, too, was in the diamond business. He said about standing and greeting people for hours at Sunday dollars that “counting diamonds one doesn’t get tired.” Just as those religious Jews need trust because they trade in objects of inherent value easily lost, so does G-d, so do we. Trust is necessary in a world of scarce reasons and true souls, and the trust is born of entanglement. We carve letters out of our very flesh, placing shapes into ourselves that become our own form and so cannot be washed away without our own dissolving.

diamonds economics light meaning Midrash nihilism Torah


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