This past week I learned a piece in Or haTzafun (Shemos #30 “ההשתתפות שבין אדם לחבירו”) which focuses on the insidious nature of bribery, and from there, negi’os in general.

The examples the Alter of Slabodka gives include that of amora’im refusing to hear a case after refusing a kindness from one of the litigants. Adn of not letting the king sit on the Beis Din that decides leap months because he may need earlier taxes and be biased toward not having a leap month, or may want to stall on making annual payments. And this is a man who took a Sefer Torah with him at all times! We are even including the author of Tehillim!

The Alter was highlighting the problem of negi’os, of ulterior motives we may have and not even be consciously aware of that shape our decisions. All while we convince ourselves we are being purely objective. And if this is true of the greats, how much more so do we need to be on the alert. It is indeed an insidious problem.

But I was thinking… It could be that tzadiqim are more vulnerable to bribery. Because bribery as a motivator has another element.

Think about the themes of Rav Shimon Shop’s introduction to Shaarei Yosher (and thus of my book based on that introduction, Widen Your Tent). The measure of a soul is the number of people with whom you have an emotional connection.

The entire “I” of a coarse and lowly person is restricted only to his substance and body. Above him is someone who feels that his “I” is a synthesis of body and soul. And above him is someone who can include in his “I” all of his household and family. Someone who walks according to the way of the Torah, his “I” includes the whole Jewish people, since in truth every Jewish person is only like a limb of the body of the nation of Israel. And there are more levels in this of a person who is whole, who can connect his soul to feel that all of the world and worlds are his “I”, and he himself is only one small limb in all of creation. Then, his self-love helps him love all of the Jewish people and all of creation.

A tzadiq is thus someone who developed a talent to establish feelings of empathy, connection and responsibility to others.

This means that a tzadiq is more likely to identify with another person with less cause.

So that even being offered a favor that they reject is already creating an identification that could tug an amora‘s heart. He will more readily have negi’os to help someone else who reached out to him than I would.