Stolen Identity | Rabbi Aryeh Kerzner

Just recently in the news, there was a story about one of the most devastating and fascinating cases of identity theft in history. There was a fellow named William Donald Woods, who was just going about his daily life in 1988, working at a hot dog stand. And there was another guy, a co-worker, a guy named Matthew David Keirans, pickpocketed him, and this fellow Keirans stole his wallet, and in that, stole his identity. He stole his ID, he stole his social security number, and he posed as Woods to lead an extremely successful life. In fact, he got married based on this fraud, he had children based on this new persona, and he landed a very high-paying, 6-figure salary, as an I.T. at one of the most prominent hospitals in America, based on this persona. He succeeded for decades with this fraud, to the extent that because Woods wasn't successful, every time Woods tried to reclaim his identity, he got in trouble. And in fact, he sat in jail for more than a year, based on his claims of identity theft, and he was actually placed in a mental institution for a significant amount of time, as a result of this story. Just recently, finally, they realized that Woods was a victim and they incarcerated the perpetrator of this crime. R’ Yaakov Hillel recently said that as observant Jews, sometimes we’re the victim of an even more devastating and more scary identity theft than this case of Woods. You see, when we do Aveiros, we make mistakes, we make errors, the Yetzer Hara commits identity theft. He tries to convince us that those mistakes and those errors and those sins are a part of our identity, they're a part of our persona. But that's the biggest mistake you can make. Said R’ Yaakov Hillel, There's a very interesting difference between someone who learns, who we call a Ben Torah, and someone who commits repeatedly an Aveira, who we call a Ba’al Aveira. We don't call him a Ben Aveira. Why the difference? Well, says R’ Yaakov Hillel, the difference is simple. When you learn and you immerse yourself in the learning, where it becomes ingrained in your DNA, it becomes part of your persona, you're a Ben Torah, the son of the Torah. When you repeatedly make mistakes, when you sin, you're a Ba’al Aveira. At worst, you might be married to the Aveira. You could divorce it, you could sever the relationship. It's not a part of your DNA, it's not part of your identity. Well, said R’ Yaakov Hillel, if we truly internalize this idea, that we’re and no matter how low we fall, and how far we stumble, we're still pure and pristine, and the Aveira didn't embed itself in our persona, only then are we truly able to really grow in our Avodas Hashem and rise up again, rebuild and thrive.