What about the vision of his father Yaakov Avinu saved Yosef HaTzaddik from sinning with Potiphar’s wife? It cannot have been the recognition of the seriousness of the aveirah involved because Yosef already knew that. Rather my friend Rabbi Aharon Lopiansky explains Yosef connected to that quality of Yaakov in which he resembled his father more than any of his brothers — the middah of emes.

Emes means inter alia never attaching oneself to anything that does not belong to one. To do so is to betray one’s essence and dilute oneself. Even after he has decided to leave Lavan whom he had greatly enriched through his efforts Yaakov insists “Do not give me anything …” (Bereishis 30:31). Prior to his final parting from Lavan Yaakov describes at length how he took nothing from Lavan to which the latter could have had the slightest claim. He deducted from his wages even sheep or goats killed by wild animals for which he bore no responsibility. But the same Yaakov crossed the River Yabbok to retrieve small vessels for even those were dear to him since he had earned them through his own efforts without the slightest trace of theft.

Similarly Yosef realized that every man requires a wife to complete his essential self — “male and female He created them” (Bereishis 1:27). By definition any woman married to another could not be his completion. Thus Yosef emphasizes to Potiphar’s wife that she alone of all that belongs to Potiphar has not been entrusted to his care. Because she cannot belong to him any attachment to her can only result in the diminution of his self. And that the middah of emes he inherited from his father could not permit.

One of our educational imperatives is to develop in our children the understanding that attachment to those things that one has not earned stunts our growth and prevents us from reaching our full potential. As Chazal say “An adult who is reliant upon his father’s table is called a minor.” All forms of cheating and fraud which are unfortunately not unknown in our community derive from a failure to appreciate that partaking of what one has not earned is an act of self-destruction. Only “he who hates presents will live” (Mishlei 15:27) — i.e. will maximize his fullest potential.

One place where we can see this process of self-destruction before our eyes is with respect to those who grow accustomed to borrowing. Many young couples fall into this trap and fail to appreciate where the habit of living beyond one’s means leads. Not for naught does Rabi Shimon consider anticipating the consequences of one’s actions the most important middah to develop and borrowing without knowing how one will repay to be the opposite.

I have witnessed people of great merit destroyed by borrowing money they had no idea how they would repay. Life becomes an endless cycle of borrowing from one gemach to pay another. Rav Aharon Leib Steinman shlita warned in a pre-Yamim Noraim drashah at Yeshivas Mir that the habit is tantamount to actual theft. Sometimes those capable of positively influencing others with their Torah sacrifice that ability by borrowing from those whom they could have influenced and thus reversing the role of rebbi and talmid. That failure to fulfill one’s mission is also a form of self-destruction.

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The big news of last week’s WikiLeaks as far as Israel is concerned was not that virtually the entire Arab world is united by its terror of a nuclear Iran and that the United States’ principal Arab allies were pushing the United States to act — even militarily — already in 2008. That has long been clear to those who follow such matters closely.

Rather the big news is that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton knew these facts and yet continued to insist on the exact opposite. At his first joint press conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in May 2009 President Obama pointedly and explicitly disputed Netanyahu’s argument that Israel-Palestinian peace would be far more likely if Iran were cut down to size and no longer in a position to continually stir the pot through its financing of terrorism against Israel and radical Islamic groups throughout the Middle East.

Au contraire said President Obama: “To the extent that we can make peace ... between the Palestinians and the Israelis then I actually think it strengthens our hand in the international community in dealing with a potential Iranian threat.” Since then the president has repeatedly stressed that only movement on the Palestinian-Israeli front will cause Arab states to join a broad alliance against Iran.

We now know however that Obama knew or should have known that his theory of linkage was fatally flawed and that the Arabs could not have cared less about Palestine. Already in 2008 King Abdullah told General David Petraeus that the United States should “cut off the head of the [Iranian] snake.” And the Arab leaders of Bahrain Abu Dhabi Jordan and Egypt all weighed in to the same effect throughout 2009. They wanted Iran neutralized. Period.

So why did the Obama administration pretend otherwise? Either the president was too infatuated by his own theory to be swayed by the facts. Or more likely he sees justice as lying with the Palestinians and is determined to push their cause using every tool at his disposal to pressure Israel including pretending he can do nothing about Iran until Israel offers more concessions to the Palestinians.

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In the real world there is no such thing as a controlled scientific experiment. It is impossible to roll the clock back and try a different approach and see how the results differ. Nor can comparisons between public policy in one state or country and another establish the superiority of one policy or another: There are inevitably too many variables involved in any such comparison. I am old enough to remember a spate of books celebrating the Japanese economic model and predicting that it would one day eclipse the American system — published just as Japan was about to enter into its “lost decade” from which it has never recovered.

Thus it is no surprise to find a great variety of opinion among leading economists on the proper response to the current economic doldrums in which most Western countries find themselves. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby recently brought a sampling of Nobel Prize winning economists who argue that the United States needs another dose of stimulus and Nobel Prize winning economists who argue that even the first stimulus did nothing.

Those debates were on full display at the recent G-20 gathering where President Obama found himself nearly alone in his call for a new infusion of government stimulus. The rest of the major economic powers have headed in the other direction and told the president so in the clearest possible language.

So far the Europeans seem to be having the best of the argument. American economic growth has been slower and unemployment steeper than in the 16-nation Eurozone. The United States responded to the 2008 economic meltdown with a stimulus package worth 6% of GDP while Germany contented itself with a much smaller stimulus worth only 1.5% of its GDP. Nearly two years later the US economy remains essentially stagnant at 2% annual growth and unemployment has climbed since passage of the $786 billion stimulus bill; Germany’s economy is roaring along at 9% annual growth and it has reduced unemployment to 7.5% the lowest rate in eighteen years.

The differences between the American and German economies are many and thus comparisons are difficult. But Amity Shlaes senior fellow in economic history at the Council of Foreign Relations offers an interesting comparison between two northeastern states Maine and New Hampshire. At the end of World War II Maine had the larger economy and population and per-capita income in the two states was nearly identical. Neither state had an income tax or sales tax. The percentage of income that came from government was nearly 2% higher for New Hampshire residents than Maine residents — 18.4% versus 16.6%.

In 1951 the two states began to diverge in their tax policies when Maine imposed a sales tax. Today Maine citizens pay 12.6% of their personal income on state and local taxes the sixth-highest rate in the United States; New Hampshire residents pay 8.1% the second lowest.

What has been the impact on the two states? New Hampshire has passed Maine in population. It’s per-capita income of $42831 ranks eighth in the United States while Maine’s languishes at $36745. Unemployment in New Hampshire is 5.8%; Maine 8.1%. The impact of recessions in Maine has consistently been more severe than in New Hampshire. And finally the percentage of personal income received from the government is 32.9% in Maine but only 24% in New Hampshire. The lesson Shlaes draws is that the more the government collects to expand the government the poorer the citizenry and the better their chances of being unemployed.

The most widely watched comparison between states of recent vintage is that between California and Texas America’s two most populous states. The two could hardly present a sharper contrast.

California once viewed as an economic paradise has been reduced to issuing IOUs for its debt. In 2009 it rung up a deficit of $26 billion and will be hard-pressed to reduce that amount as long as it remains thrall to the country’s most powerful public employee unions. Its state income tax is the second highest in the country. California voters just rejected a referendum that would have pushed off implementation of a law requiring drastic reductions in carbon emissions until the unemployment rate declines sharply (prompting Dennis Prager to quip that the only difference between California and the Titanic was that the crew of the Titanic tried to avoid the iceberg). Four years running California has been voted the least hospitable business climate in the country by Chief Executive magazine.

Jobs and people are fleeing California for low-tax low regulation Texas. (Texas has no state income tax.) According to the Economist 100000 more Americans leave California than come there to live each year. From 2008–9 143 000 Americans moved to Texas resulting in four additional congressmen based on the latest census data. California’s unemployment rate is two points above the national average; Texas’s below.

Worst of all Texas is providing better services with lower taxes. Its school test results are better than California’s with a demographically similar population and while California’s highways are buckling Texas is building new ones between its major urban centers.