Organizational psychologist Adam Grant the subject of an admiring profile by Susan Dominus in the March 27 New York Times Magazine is the youngest tenured and highest-rated professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. The 31-year-old prof. seems too good to be true: He almost never shoos a student out of his office answers 200 e-mails — most requests for help — a day and almost never turns down a request that will take five minutes or less. Yet he insists that his astounding generosity is also the source of his phenomenal productivity and has the studies to prove it.

The central insight animating Grant’s work is that “the greatest untapped source of motivation is a sense of service to others.” He came to this insight as a Harvard freshman selling advertising for student-produced “Let’s Go” travel guides. He was a miserable salesman until one day a fellow student working in the office mentioned how important the job was to paying for her education. A flash went off in Grant’s head that advertising revenue to keep the business going made a big difference to his coworkers. He immediately became a tiger of a salesman and sold the largest advertising package in the company’s history.

Since that eureka moment Grant has confirmed his own personal insight in numerous fascinating experiments. As a graduate student at theUniversityofMichigan he ran an experiment at a university call center. One of the primary purposes of the call center was to raise money for student scholarships. Grant arranged for the call center workers to hear a fellow student speak about how his scholarship had changed his life. Within a month the amount of time call center workers spent on the phone increased 142 percent and their revenue 171 percent. In another version of the experiment revenues went up 400 percent.

Another Grant experiment involved two different signs by a hospital soap dispenser: One sign urged doctors and nurses to wash frequently to prevent becoming sick; the other urged washing to prevent patients from being infected. Doctors and nurses used 45 percent more soap at dispensers adjacent to the second sign.

Grant found that workers at Borders who contributed to an employee beneficiary fund for employees in need with Borders matching the employee contributions expressed “gratitude to the company for the opportunity to affirm a valued aspect of their identities [and consequently] developed a stronger affective commitment to the company.”

RAV NOACH WEINBERG’S inspirational techniques at Aish HaTorah could serve as a case study for Adam Grant. The latter always finds himself reverting to a quotation from the 19^th century psychologist William James: “The greatest use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” And Rav Noach’s first question to newcomers to Aish HaTorah was often: “What are you living for?”

Without an answer to that question he told students one is nothing more than a zombie.

He used to tell an incredibly powerful true story about a young man named Avraham Kordish who was left a quadriplegic when a bullet severed his spinal cord. As he lay on the ground he realized that he would never be able to move freely as he had until then. But then another thought occurred to him: “Until this moment I never once asked myself what is the purpose of all my running around.” Next he realized that but for having lost his mobility he might never have asked himself that question.

That led him to a startling insight: Not having any idea of the purpose of one’s life is far worse than not being able to move unaided. And once he came to that recognition it followed that being shot was actually a blessing. For without it he would never have sought to know the purpose of his life.

The key to finding out what one is living for Rav Noach would say is knowing what one would be willing to die for. The purpose of one’s life must be something greater than that life itself something one would be willing to risk one’s life for.

Many Aish HaTorah talmidim remember with bemusement that Rav Noach had them committed to “fighting for the Jewish People” or “combating assimilation” even before they were sure that they believed in G-d. Rav Noach’s great gift to them was first to provide them with a sense of mission of something worth sacrificing for. Ironically the more he demanded of his talmidim — both individually and collectively — the more committed they became. Like the Borders workers whose loyalty to the company grew as a consequence of the company facilitating their altruistic impulses Aish talmidim frequently expressed their gratitude to Aish HaTorah for allowing them to be part of a mission of cosmic importance.

The New Balak

Last week I actually found myself experiencing a flash of sympathy for all the Anat Hoffmans Uri Regevs New Israel Fund operatives and European Union countries who donate to a host of anti-Israel and antireligious nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). That moment came in the midst of a presentation on how far the tentacles of the left-wing and antireligious NGOs reach.

NGOs have reporters on their payroll and can plant stories in the media. If they organize a demonstration reporters in Israel’s news media outlets will be only too happy to report the demonstration as many times its actual size. If statistics are needed research studies can be ordered. These NGOs know how to plan and work together on big projects — the Durbanhate fest against Israel the Goldstone Report the alleged “hadarat nashim” inIsrael. Their leaders and public relations firms command large salaries for their strategic capabilities.

The chareidi community is totally overmatched. We have no strategic planning no meetings no reporters or researchers on our payroll. A bunch of complete schlimazels.

How frustrating it must be after all the planning massive infusions of money and clever public relations campaigns to see the chareidi community continue to grow and flourish.

Occasionally the frustration comes out. Many years ago I remember reading a veteran Zionist leader describe how he and his friend came to Palestine eager to shed their religious baggage only to find once they got here that some of the yeshivah benchwarmers from the old country had managed to metaphorically stow away in the ship’s steerage and were back on their yeshivah benches soon after arriving.

It occurred to me during last week’s Torah reading that Balak is really the first of the chevrah described above. He spent gobs of money to hire the world’s champion curser Bilaam who knew the precise moment of Hashem’s “anger.” The Torah describes in comic detail Balak’s mounting frustration as each of Bilaam’s curses against the Jewish People turned to a blessing.

On second thought I’m pretty sure that I’m not supposed to feel sorry for Balak.

Jeff Jacoby’s Other Trip to the Principal’s Office

I thoroughly enjoyed Eytan Kobre’s recent Mishpacha profile of Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby which contained a wonderful story about the way the gentle soft-spoken principal of the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland Rabbi Nachum Zev Dessler meted out punishments that both established limits and uplifted at the same time.

My only disappointment was the omission of another story involving young Jeff in the principal’s office which he wrote about in the Boston Globe in April 1999 after the Columbine Massacre in which 13 students were killed and two dozen wounded. The story not only contains a lesson relevant to each of us but also captures the impact of a thoughtful mechanech.

Jeff had falsely claimed that his parents gave permission for him to be excused from some school activity and the school found out about it. Here’s how he describes what happened next:

The assistant principal [Rabbi Yosef Meisels] came to my classroom interrupting the lesson that was in progress. He wrote a biblical quotation on the blackboard: “From false words keep thyself distant.” He asked the class what the words meant and made a point of calling on me for the answer. When he finished this impromptu exercise on the gravity of lying he summoned me to his office. Only then did I find out that my deception had been exposed. He took out a book from the office safe turned to a clean page and wrote down my lie. I had to sign the page date it; the book went back into the safe.

Needless to say I was mortified. But I learned some important lessons that day. I learned that my lies could disgrace me that words are not easily erased and that the adults in my life noticed when I did something wrong.

Jacoby contrasted the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland with the schools attended by the Columbine killers whose “lives were filled with adults who never set limits never imposed rules never made it clear that certain kinds of behavior would not be tolerated.”