Parashas Beshalach
Shabbos Shira
13 Shevat 5769
February 7, 2009
Daf Yomi: Bava Kama 41
Guest Author:
Rabbi Dr. Boaz Tomsky
Associate Member
Young Israel Council of Rabbis
We are currently in the midst of an economic recession, one in which numerous hard-working Americans who enjoyed the capital gains of their past investments have seen their portfolios plummet. Now it is Treasury Bills, despite yielding near zero percent, that have become the silos and storage houses that mirror the times of Yosef HaTzaddik during their seven years of plenty. As a finance professor, I am often asked advise on how to react to this economic downturn, and more specifically, how one should react to the enormous capital losses that so many have endured. The proper appproach as to what one should do is found in this week’s Parsha.
Beshalach opens with hope and promise, the Bnei Yisrael are freed from the bondage of Pharaoh and Mitzrayim. But Pharaoh has a change of heart and pursues the Bnei Yisrael Then Pharaoh poses a peculiar question: “Mah Zos Asinu Ki Shilachnu Es Yisrael Mei’avdeinu” – “What is this that we have done that we have sent away Israel from serving us?” (Exodus 14:5). If I were present at the time, I would have had a valid response to Pharaoh’s question: the ten plagues! His country was completely wiped out, totally decimated. Who knows what would have occurred if the Jewish nation were forced to stay in Egypt any longer than they already were! What kind of question was Pharaoh asking? Everyone knew he had no choice but to have let them go!
Furthermore, imagine that you were an Egyptian soldier. You witness before your eyes perhaps the most amazing and awesome miracle in the history of mankind, Kriat Yam Suf-the splitting of the sea. What would you do? Would you run into this split sea and endanger your very life or would you stop for a moment and realize that you could easily drown and not put yourself into harms way? What were these soldiers thinking?
To compound the difficulty, Rashi cites the Michilta to explain the motivation of the Mitzrim and Pharaoh in changing their minds. The reason was the money that they lent to the Bnei Yisrael. The Egyptians chased after the Jewish people with the sole intention of getting their money back. Why does Rashi feel compelled to say that the retrieval of their money was the primary motivation? Isn’t the logical reason because they wanted their slaves back? After all, one could only imagine the loss of such a productive workforce. That is certainly more valuable than the jewelry that was given to them! Why, then, does Rashi claim that their motivation was the money they gave the Bnei Yisrael?
Rabbi Yochanan Zweig, shlita, explains that there are two ways in which a person can lose money in the open market. One individual makes a sound business decision and suffered losses due to unforeseen circumstances beyond his control. Another person loses the same amount of money but due to a silly, miscalculated and under researched business decision. When a person loses money due to unforeseen circumstances, he could simply write it off and move onto bigger and better things, since his losses do not reflect poor decision making. But when a person loses money due to a silly business decision, it is much harder to let go of that mistake. His ego has been tainted and bruised, making it more difficult to admit to such a lack of foresight. To undo this negative feeling, people don’t let go of their mistakes. Instead, they continue to pour additional moneys into their initial foolish investments to justify their previous careless decisions. This is called, “throwing good money after bad” and occurs often in the business world, especially now, in the current economic downturn and drop in the stock market. Many people with this motivation chose to average down.
Averaging down is buying more shares of a stock after it has sunk, which, in turn, lowers your average price per share. For example, you bought 100 shares at $2.00, the stock sinks to $1.00, and you buy 100 more. Now you have 200 shares of stock at an average price of $1.50. This has the perception of being beneficial in that the price needs to increase only 50%, rather than 100% to break even.
However, averaging down is often just throwing good money after bad, and rarely works to the advantage of the investor. Your fresh money may be better spent investing in an entirely new stock altogether, as you can then pick from a pool of thousands, rather than putting more money into a sinking ship. But we don’t think this way because of our bruised ego.
This was the mindset of the Mitzrim and of Pharaoh himself. The Torah states, “And HaShem gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians and they granted their request, so they emptied Egypt” (Exodus 12:36). Rashi comments that the Egyptians gave their Jewish neighbors even more than they requested. When the Bnei Yisrael requested one piece of jewelry or one coin, they were given two. Since the Egyptians gave even more than they were asked for, they felt enraged at what they now perceived to be poor decision making. They chased the Jews to undo this negative feeling that they had about themselves. The Egyptians knew they had no choice but to let the Jewish people go. It was their foolishness of giving away money that haunted them to the point that they were even willing to place themselves into harms way so as in order to undo this negative feeling within them.
The great philosopher Cicero (106-43 BCE) once said, “Any man can make mistakes, but only a fool persists in his error.” I often wonder if we would have behaved any better. Would we have run into the seas as the Egyptians did? I believe many of us would have. We often get so caught up in the moment that we lose sight of the consequences of our actions. We are so concerned about the way we perceive ourselves that we don’t want to believe that we made a mistake. So we cover it up and our mistakes just keep growing until we are completely out of control. Let us learn from this Parsha and try not only to minimize our mistakes, but more importantly, as none of us are perfect, let us own up to those mistakes and not try to cover them up. Let us never throw good money after bad.
Good Shabbos!
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