What Jewish ethics tell us about Deflategate
Posted By richards on January 28, 2015
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and owner Robert Kraft are all smiles after being the Indianapolis Colts, but will a Super Bowl victory be tainted by Deflategate? (Elsa/Getty Images)/JTA
Deflategate, the controversy surrounding the New England Patriots that has made national news, made its way to a Houston business conference led by a rabbi.
Rabbi Yossi Grossman, dean of theJewish Ethics Institute, on Monday transformed the football prattle into a high-minded look at ethics on the playing field in his bimonthly talk before some city businesspeople. To make his points, he cited the Exodus story, Talmud, the rabbinic authority Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, the Code of Jewish Law and prohibitions against theft of money and of mind.
Theft of mind means presenting ones credentials misleadingly, to the presenters benefit, Grossman said.
The question is, who was actually committing fraud here? Was it the quarterback, the coach, the owner? Grossman asked.
Discussions of right and wrong in sports typically tend toward on-field strategies: a baseball manager yanking a starter or a football coach opting for a field goal rather than a first down.
Rarely do ethical dilemmas enter the discourse, at least to the degree of Deflategate allegations that the Patriots had deflated footballs to gain a competitive advantage during their Jan. 18 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC championship game. Their 45-7 victory earned the Patriots a trip to the Super Bowl on Sunday against the defending NFL champion Seattle Seahawks.
The controversy appears to stretch toward the scandal summit that over the past decade has witnessed revelations of steroids prevalence in Major League Baseball and bicyclist Lance Armstrongs doping, to cite two extremes.
To Rabbi David Hoffman, who teaches a course on business ethics at New Yorks Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Western civilization and traditional Judaism codify ethical behavior, regardless of setting.
Rules governing truth telling, honesty and misrepresenting ourselves are as applicable in sports as they are in business or other aspects of human relationships, Hoffman said.
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