Bernard Axelrad Scholarship Fund

Where, oh where are you, Jeremiah, when we need you! About 2600 years ago, the Prophet Jeremiah railed against the moral backsliding of the ancient Israelites. He is needed now more than ever to lead us out of our moral quagmire.

If yet another striking confirmation of our moral decline was needed, the recent headlines about widely respected trader Boyd Jeffries' consent to plead guilty to two felony counts of securities law violations provided it.

How about this illustration of treading the 'fine line,' as one of his dumbfounded admirers said, "I always thought he was a straight shooter — aggressive but on this side of the law."

Jeffries himself supplied the best example of a missing moral compass, in addressing his employees in a letter of resignation:

"Something went wrong in our value systems and it is vital that we all learn from my mistakes and those of others." (Both quotes, Los Angeles Times, March 20; emphasis added.)

Even Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman John Shad has misgivings about having his agency define 'insider trading' because

"... once you get one [a definition], it doesn't take sophisticated minds long to figure out where the edges are...";

and, another SEC Commissioner concurs:

"I'm afraid we'll define ourselves into a box." (The Wall Street Journal, March 2).

It's not only the politicians and the Wall Street "gang" and the lawyers who are guilty of a lack of righteousness and probity. I pick on the lawyers because, as one of them, I know how adept they are at delineating the fine line of legality without a concomitant concern for the spirit and purpose of the law. But, the decline of moral decency and high ethical standards is evident throughout society.

Witness doctors who charge exorbitant fees and yet spend a scarce minute discussing an ailment with the patient, relying largely on tests and laboratory results, and who practice 'defensive' medicine rather than caring medicine.

Accountants are so busy safeguarding themselves by following standard rote audit procedures and issuing self-serving disclaimers on the scope of their work, that they fail, all too frequently, to protect the public who rely on their financial statements. The situation reeks with a built-in conflict of interest: the accountant, hired and paid by his client, is ostensibly policing that client from over-stating his financial condition to the detriment of creditors, stockholders and investors.

The learned professions, including those in the sciences and academia, are not impervious to the blandishments of money. Professors and chemists are enticed by lucrative consulting agreements into testifying favorably for drug, insurance and other companies with little regard for the social and ethical implications that are involved.

Recent sanctions imposed on Southern Methodist University for serious and repeated infractions regarding improper payments to student athletes hardly scratch the surface of a deep-seated problem. Our universities are guilty of the most colossal form of hypocrisy in recruiting and then exploiting college athletes.

The colleges receive millions (in gate admissions and from TV) for displaying their athletes at work, and yet the performers are prohibited from being paid under the rules. It's a shameful situation which exists only with the connivance of the august faculties and administrators of our most prestigious institutions of higher learning.

Thus, do many of our most reputable professions and institutions operate on the 'right side of the law,' but hardly in a virtuous and righteous manner.

Gradually yet inexorably we are subjugating our lives to tremendous technical advances and excluding people: We have become a data processing society with the advent of highly sophisticated computers which can store in a tiny space the most voluminous information about each one of us. Video cassette recorders preclude the need to go out to the movies or theater. Everywhere we find 24-hour money-dispensing machines without a teller in sight.

All of these lead to less and less human contact and more and more alienation, and I wonder whether it's all worth it.

Our former need for mutual assistance engendered an altruistic ardor for social justice which is being displaced by greed, social irresponsibility, the compulsion to "succeed" and a self-centered "me" society, where competing rather than helping is the norm.

Change may take longer than 40 years in Sinai

The recent spate of headlined wrongdoers in government and business is symptomatic of a pervasive malaise infecting society at large. As we become inured to the peccadillos of our leaders, we tend to lower our own standards in frustration and retaliation. We feel helpless and that, in turn, breeds apathy.

Our youth, innocent at birth, are exposed regularly to their elders' unprincipled behavior and cynically adopt these lower standards as their paradigm. Thus the spiral of moral decline continues and we become more misanthropic, more materialistic, more alienated and, alas, more discontent.

There are no simple solutions and it will take a long time to accomplish any noticeable change in our moral climate (perhaps longer than the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the Sinai Desert after leaving Egypt and before entering the Promised Land). Yet any reversal of the present trend and movement toward becoming a more just and benevolent people must start somewhere.

Some initial steps come to mind.

First, it is axiomatic that it all begins at the family hearth, while the children are still young. Parents — not only by their words but more importantly by their actions — can and should inculcate moral and ethical values in their offspring. A word of caution: It will not work for parents to mouth righteous verities while their actions belie their words — such as Papa returning from work with tales of how he duped customers and Mama refusing a helping hand to a needy neighbor.

One of my most vivid and durable childhood memories is of a friend stealing some pencils from the neighborhood 5-and-10-cent store when we were about 7 or 8. Somehow his father found out about it and, grabbing his son by the ear, with the pencils in hand, marched the two blocks to the store. There, my wayward little friend, tearful and fearful, was required to admit his transgression to the manager while returning the "loot" with an apology before the cold stares of clerk and customers.

It was mortifying, harsh, dramatic certainly — but effective. Not only did my friend never repeat the act, but it had a lasting effect on me.

Secondly, religious training of our young provides a moral underpinning at an easily influenced period in their lives. I was very much affected by learning in Hebrew School about the moral and ethical precepts in the Scriptures, and was attracted to the social ideals which governed the everyday transactions and existence of the ancient Hebrews.

For me, during the impressionable period of 6-13, to learn of the biblical admonition to feed your servant and the stranger in your midst before yourself, and to forego harvesting ten percent of your crops so that the poor could take it anonymously and without embarrassment, was a most positive and stabilizing factor in my own ethical growth. I've never since had much difficulty in distinguishing 'right from wrong.'

A third suggestion is that we curb our preoccupation with wealth and possessions.

We are a most sybaritic and possession oriented people. The wealth and property we accumulate (and flaunt) become the measure of how smart, accomplished and successful we are. In turn, the quest for more and more money dissolves moral restraints and there is no end once you embark on that road.

As Ivan Boesky said when asked about his obsessive money making, "It's a sickness I have, in the face of which I am helpless." (The Wall Street Journal, March 4). Money was his life's report card.

Fourth, it would behoove us to mete out stiffer jail sentences to white-collar criminals. The present tendency of judges is to go rather easy, with light sentences to be served in more desirable penitentiaries for white-collar culprits. I would be harder on them than on the ordinary criminal who usually comes from a deprived background. There is less excuse for the more affluent and better educated to commit crimes and, as leaders in government and business, they have a higher responsibility to society to be role models beyond reproach.

If we can't teach them morality, perhaps the fear of substantial punishment will act as a deterrent.

We must decide who we are and for what we stand

Fifth, insist that people bear responsibility for their actions, whatever the extenuating explanation. We should not confuse motivation with responsibility, or compassion with accountability. Neither zealots for whom the end justifies the means nor the disadvantaged and un-tutored should be relieved of blame. To require liability for one's actions is to develop a sense of both self and society. To their credit, most of the Wall Street guilty — like Boesky, Siegel and Jeffries — did assume full responsibility for their actions, even if belatedly.

Sixth, I would place more women in responsible positions, both in government and in business. Noticeably there were no women who made the recent headlines as wrongdoers. Perhaps, as child bearers and nurturers, they have a more refined moral sense and are not as easily led astray by the temptations of wealth and power.

Finally (and this is the most controversial, I know), we need to level to some extent (I don't advocate socialism) the great disparity in wealth between the "haves" and the "have nots." Just as the individual should be responsible for his misdeeds, government likewise should be held accountable for injustice, unfairness and inequity in how society functions.

There is something inherently 'wrong' when some of us live in ornate mansions while others are homeless in the streets and alleys; where some suffer from malnutrition while others wallow in gluttony; and, where some of our elderly, sick and mentally ill are sadly abandoned to their own meager resources in a land of plenty.

We should rectify egregious inequity, not only for altruistic and humane reasons but also because a society which is not conscionable, compassionate and caring will also not be enduring. The lessons of history make this predictable.

As Passover approaches, it is quite fitting that we reflect about ourselves and our society in comparison to Egypt at the time of the Haggadah. The land of Pharaoh at that time was a wise and wealthy country, most advanced in the arts and crafts and especially in their colossal and awe-inspiring architecture. But the real test of a nation's lasting quality goes far beyond such attainments.

Without a moral core and without justice (as one gathers from reading the Haggadah and the difficulty that was encountered in freeing the Israelites from their bondage), ancient Egypt went the way of the Babylonian, Greek and Roman empires, into oblivion. It remains a notable lesson of Passover: That absent virtue, moral principle and righteousness, a civilization will not endure no matter how impressive its material and technical accomplishments.

Each one of us must decide who we are and for what we stand. As a wise man once said, "If you don't stand for something, you're apt to fall for anything."