So What's Wrong with Cheating?

A question was asked to the blog: What is wrong with cheating?

I actually thought about this question for a while before I decided to respond. On its face, cheating, especially the more "benign" version that occurs on school-given exams, doesn't seem so terrible. As a matter of fact, one could even see cheating as a form of collaborating or helping. If we encourage group work in class, why not "group work" on exams or other situations where you are expected to do your own work? Who really cares if you cheat in elementary, middle or high school? It isn't going to hurt anyone...

But it does. And on so many levels.

First of all, cheating is theft. You are stealing from whoever is giving the exam, who is assuming that the work that has your name on it is, in fact, yours. In halacha, this is caled "g'neivat da'at". If you and your friend collude (agree) to cheat, you are both stealing from the examiner. You are both partners in crime. If you cheat off an unwilling classmate, not only are you stealing from the examiner, you are stealing from the other person. In American law, that is called intellectual property and lawsuits abound in this realm. It is theft, it is subject to prosecution, and, in this technological era, it is very serious business.

But on a deeper, more profound level, you are stealing from yourself and from the community as a whole. You are putting your name to something that you didn't do. You are taking credit for somthing that is not yours. You are lying to yourself, to your teacher and to everyone in your class. You are breaking a rule. Like them or not, rules are necessary to keep society functioning. There is a great children's book called "No Rules for Michael." Michael hates rules, so one day, his teacher decides that there should be no rules in the classroom or on the playground. At first, Michael is thrilled--he can take whatever he wants. But so can everyone else--he gets pushed off the swing, the tricycle, gets cut in line and ends up just as miserable as when there were rules. No one likes to be told 'that's the rule", especially when the rule doesn't work in your favor. But the rules that protect others also protect you. If you steal from someone else, then whey shoudln't they steal from you? That's what a society of "chamas" (like during Noach's time or Ninveh at the time of Yonah) is: a society where there is no respect for things (including spouses, property and lives) of anyone else.

I know, I know--cheating is not murder or adultery or even grand theft. Or is it? It has come out that Bernie Madoff starting cheating--and getting away with it--in high school. The Gemara talks about what happens when one does an aveira, even the most seemingly benign one: the first time you feel terrible, the second time you can rationalize and by the third time "na'aseh lo k'heter." So by the third time you cheat (or allow someone to cheat off you) it no longer seems like a big deal It no longer seems wrong. "Everybody does it." And until your spot on a team or in a college is taken by another cheater, it isn't. Until you are treated by a doctor or lawyer or other professional who has cheated through school, it isn't. Until you buy what you think is the "real deal" and then realize that it isn't, it doesn't matter.

Finally, this is what I tell my own children and my students: At the end of each day, the only one you have to answer to is yourself. You have to be at peace with the you in the mirror. If you can look at yourself in the mirror, look at who you are and what you've done that day, and can honestly say that you have done your best that day, then you can go to sleep content with yourself. If you feel that you haven't done your best, then you can strive to do better tomorrow. So if you can go to bed at night knowing that you have cheated, that you have taken credit for something that isn't yours, knowing that you'd be okay with having something of yours taken or taken credit for, then you can go to sleep.

If you can't, then strive to do better.

For the record, I have never cheated in my life. I can say that honestly. I make many, many mistakes every day and have made many, many, many over my life, but cheating is not one of them. I am proud of that.

Shabbat Shalom.

Mrs. Leah Herzog