Insidious Ads

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This ad hurts us more than we think.

About once a month, the Wall Street Journal publishes a glossy magazine to accompany its weekend paper. Ostensibly about “travel” or “watches” or “food” or “creativity”, the publication is fully of ads for high-priced products. Most of the magazine seems to be devoted to exciting our appetites and convincing us to buy something we don’t need, didn’t want before we saw the ad and probably can’t afford. Why do I even flip through it?

Our sages taught that “Envy, appetite and the desire for honor take a man out of this world.” They make us crazy. They distort our actions. They confuse our priorities. They hurt our marriages and other important relationships. So why do we allow ourselves to indulge?

All of these negative qualities can be activated by a simple advertisement – we are envious of the models or of our friends who can afford those clothes, cars, vacations etc. Our appetites are aroused as we decide that the above referenced items are must-haves for our own (previously full and satisfying) lives. And the race for honor is reflected in our desire to be noticed, to wear something that will catch someone’s eye, to take a trip that will light up our Facebook page, to stay in one of those luxury hotels that the WSJ’s readers supposedly frequent.

And all this energy becomes at least a distraction, at worst a catalyst for unethical behavior. Time and resources that would be better spent helping others is focused on acquiring things for ourselves – not just the shopping but the maneuvering of finances, the work hours necessary to earn the income and so on. At worst, we will cut corners and manipulate our accounts in order to pay for items that are really unaffordable.

It’s irrational. It takes us out of this world. We recently completed the holiday of Sukkot when we live outside in a simple hut and reflect on our tenuous hold on the material world. We focus on the gift of our basic needs and try to detach from our possessions. We want to take some of these lessons with us back into our homes.

But we’re bombarded with ads telling us that we’re not satisfied, we’re not happy without these things, that despite Sukkot’s lesson to the contrary, we need more. We need to find a way to stay focused on the spiritual pleasures that supersede the physical ones.

Even if we avoid the mall (don’t tell my daughters yet!) and ignore the billboards, the catalogs and that WSJ magazine show up at our doors. “I’m just going to briefly flip through them,” I tell myself. “It’s my relaxation.” But it’s destructive and our desires are aroused oh so easily.

So, for now, I’m walking all that wasteful color print right to the recycling bin where it belong – before I look, before I fall prey, before I find more things I need. It won’t be easy (and I still have an old list of “I wants”) but it’s a starting place.

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