By Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum

I was extremely impressed at what I saw when I bought some lox and pickles at a local delicatessen in Boro Park (Cheese D’Lox). I noticed that the salesman was very careful to zero the scale. Zeroing the scale means that after one puts some paper or a container on the scale, one presses a button that adjusts the scale to zero. This way one is not charged for the piece of paper or container put on the scale, but only for the food one puts on it. When ordering pickles, he first weighed the pickles themselves and only later did he add the pickle juice to it. I’ve gone into many stores and have noticed very few of them being so very careful.

The Torah (see Rashi in Parshas Ki Teizei) tells us that on account of not being careful with weights and measures we cause our archenemy Amolek to attack us. Most of my friends in the business world tell me that it is full of fraud and dishonesty.

When I recently went into a local electronics store, I noticed that the clerk was trying to play the "bait and switch" game on one of the customers who had come in to buy a camera. To his great dismay, the customer had obviously done his homework and didn’t fall for the game.

When my son saw an advertisement for a computer that sounded too cheap to be true, I told him that I’m sure that when he gets to the store they’ll tell him that the item was just sold out and they’ll try to sell him something else. So he called the store from a street telephone to find out if the item was in stock. They of course said that it was. A few minutes later we walked into the store and tried to buy it, but they claimed that they had just sold the last one and tried to sell us a different one. This is a very common business practice, as anyone in the real world knows.

When a friend of mine once applied for a job in a camera store, he was told that he could not sell any of the things at the advertised price and his job was to "bait and switch." He was far too honest to play this game, so he went elsewhere.

Few yeshivos prepare their students for what happens in real life, and they are in for a real culture shock when they get out there. Making a living is not easy and competition can get very intense. Only those who are truly G-d fearing will be able to survive in the jungle of dishonesty that surrounds us.

When I recently went to buy a computer program in a supposedly frum computer store, he tried to sell me a pirated copy at a quarter of the price even though I never even haggled with him over the price. When I saw a teacher making a copy of a copyrighted coloring book without the slightest shame, I couldn’t help but worry at what was really being taught in the classroom. The copying of copyrighted tapes has become so common that it’s done without the slightest hesitation or shame. Even though these tapes are sold "on condition" that they not be duplicated, only a handful of people seem to care. Even though the din clearly states that one is required to fulfill the conditions of an agreement, one can be sure that the buyer will find a hundred loopholes in the din. (Note: Even poskim that permit the duplication of tapes, prohibit it when sold "on condition that it may not be duplicated.") Electronic theft has become a major problem in today’s times and there is little we seem to be doing about it. Had someone found a way to duplicate a loaf of bread, every bakery would be out of business in an instant.

We all know that even though the generation of the Mabul was guilty of transgressing the three cardinal sins, the straw that broke the camel’s back was "gezel" - stealing. Nowadays when unfortunately Arafat and his band of terrorists seem to be getting the upper hand and misfortunes and tragedies have become a common occurrence, we must do everything in our power to silence the prosecuting angels. Perhaps, if rabbonim and rebbayim would conduct an intensive campaign to explain to people the severity of the din and its implications, people would take it more seriously. Perhaps if we zero our scales down here on earth, then only our good deeds will be weighed on the Heavenly scale up Above!