Would the Torah’s Levites guard your local drug store?
Yet another Duane Reade is set to close on the Upper East Side next month – part of a string of closures affecting big-box pharmacies grappling with rampant crime. The closure of at least five other big-box pharmacies in the neighborhood over the last year has stoked residents’ fears over organized shoplifting … An employee at the soon-to-be-shuttered Duane Reade location told East Side Feed that criminals are “stealing more than we’re selling.”
from a recent article in the New York Post
Going to CVS the other day reminded me of the Beit HaMikdash.
To the detriment of CVS. Or of its erstwhile shoppers.
I went to my local pharmacy for some shopping. First, a bottle of mouthwash; they were all out of reach, locked behind a plexiglass shield, part of a series that ran the length of the aisle; I had to press a button mounted on the shield to summon a key-laden CVS employee, and wait several minutes for him to unlock the mouthwash shelves and hand me some Listerine.
Then, some shampoo. Ditto. Also on secure shelves. Also waiting time while the key-bearer arrived. Face cream? Ditto. In many aisles I was flanked by plexiglass shields. Batteries? You need a “sales associate” to disengage them from their display case.
The clear message: look, but don’t touch! Certainly, don’t take!
It’s all intended to discourage thefts.
By informal count, at least 40 percent of the items in that CVS are now protected – from purloining hands – behind barriers that require an employee’s key for retrieval.
The list of protected items is virtually endless: laundry detergent, candy bars, dog food, shaving necessities … the list goes on. If you need it (or Fido needs it), it’s probably hard to get at. Because it’s probably bait for criminals.
In recent days, TV and radio stations have been reporting more about this phenomenon – and about (actual) shoppers unhappy reaction to it.
Why does this bring to mind the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temples in Jerusalem?
Because Beit HaMikdash I and II offered another, alternative paradigm of security. A model of a different level of security. Of security that had another, higher purpose.
The Torah’s source is Numbers 18:1-5: G-d said to Aaron, “You and your sons … shall guard the sanctuary and the altar …”
This commandment (number 388, in many countings), given to the High Priest in the wilderness, where the Tabernacle portable sanctuary was located, was extended by chazal to apply, in the future, to the designed-to-be-permanent Holy Temple in the Promised Land. The Torah mandates a steady protection for the Temple, manned by descendants of High Priest Aron, Moses’ brother. The Kohanim (inside) and Levites (outside) were to guard the Beit HaMikdash overnight.
According to the biblical account, the magnificent structures on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount housed countless treasures – the Ark of the Covenant, the Altar, precious gems and metals, impressively dyed cloths, finely carved wooden creations. Not to mention the other various klei kodesh [holy vessels], including the shards of the original luchot [Ten Commandments tablets], enumerated in the Torah.
The words of the Torah about the Temple were incorporated as an eventual commandment: “There is a positive mitzvah [mitzvat aseh] to guard the Temple … even though there is no fear of enemies or thieves … for the guarding is a sign of respect … “ (Mishneh Torah, The Chosen Temple 8:1)
According to various commentators, the presence of the Kohanim and the Levites was designed to protect the sanctity of G-d’s dwelling place and to prevent unauthorized, spiritually unclean individuals or those of non-priestly status, from setting foot inside, from walking into the spiritually pure venue – not to prevent theft, not to prevent people from walking out with stolen items.
This shmira, says Rambam, is “not … to protect against thieves or marauders.” Rather, the Temple was guarded “for its honor … and for its greatness,” as a sign of respect (Sefer HaMitzvot, Beit HaBechira, perek 11.)
“While God is certainly capable of watching the Temple Himself,” Rabbi Jack Abramowitz writes in a similar vein on ou.org, “it would be disrespectful for us to leave it unattended overnight.”
“The guards served to protect not the Temple itself, but rather the nation, who would incur capital punishment should they enter the domain designated exclusively for the Kohanim and Levi’im,” writes David Silverberg on the Maimonides Heritage Center website.
“Were the guarding to have been for the protection, it would have been fitting to entrust the responsibility to common people who were suited for such a task,” according to chabad.org, which based its writing on the opinions of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. “Since this mitzvah contributes to the honor of the Beis HaMikdash, it is proper that it be performed by persons of stature.”
By implication, G-d did not imagine that anyone would be chutzpahdik enough to take anything from the seat of kedusha. Apparently, the generations close to Matan Torah took the 8th Commandment seriously.
Halevai that this attitude prevailed today, that such G-dfearing awe and respect were the norm.
The difference:
The Temple: Nothing is guarded.
The pharmacy: Everything is guarded.
The message: we live in an era of entitlement, not respect.
There is no record in Jewish tradition that any objects were stolen from the Beit HaMikdash; the holy items remained there until the Second Temple was sacked, and destroyed, by the occupation Roman conquerers in 70 A.D., and much of the Jewish property was taken to Rome, where it supposedly remains under the control of the Vatican.
Some questions:
- Would CVS – or Duane Reade, or Rite Aid, or Walgreens, or Dollar General, or major businesses like Target – in biblical times need to install a network of anti-theft shields?
Arguably, no. In the generation that made the exodus from Egypt, there was more respect for other’s belongings. Although the Torah’s forbidding of stealing indicates that that crime was not unknown then.
- Who two millennia ago would think of robbing such a holy venue like the Temple?
Then, G-dwilling, no one. Today, less-holy locations are not exempt.
- Who today would presume to take what does not belong to them?
Lots of folks. It’s a rhetorical question that the CVS thieves are answering with their felonious behavior.
- Would the Levites serve a purpose by standing at the entrance of CVS?
Probably not – not if the contemporary security personnel, usually unarmed, do not dissuade the larceny-minded from pocketing things, admittedly of finite value, that are not rightfully theirs. Levites served a holy function; their presence would not counter the acts of people who act from decidedly unholy motivations.
The contents of a pharmacy, of course, are not comparable to those of the Beit HaMikdash. But the latter offers a template – do not think of absconding with that is not yours! – for the former.
In other words, Is anything safe?
Statistics say no.
Thefts have increased in recent years at drug stores and other popular businesses, a trend attributed in part to the crimes committed by the nation’s rising number of homeless people, and to the 2020 COVID pandemic, which brought an increase in out-of-work (i.e. suddenly poor) people and in those taking things to sell to other indigent individuals. Suddenly, items started disappearing from store shelves; fewer sale items, less income. In some stores, such items with handles are tethered to shelves by chains that also require a key to unlock. The net result, according to the New York Post: nearly ten percent of the city’s drug stores closed in 2024. And many stores have similarly cut back on self-checkout to deter shoplifting.
The new CEO of Walgreens revealed last year that a quarter of the pharmacy’s chains do not make money. Blame, to a large extent, theft.
Which makes a sad statement about the respect that many shoppers – aka shoplifters – have for other people’s, or corporations’, property.
My CVS is not unusual; I live in a low-crime neighborhood – the streets are safe, but apparently the merchandise sold in the pharmacy isn’t. Customers press the red-and-white buttons located throughout the store; to facilitate the constant summons, the CVS branch has hired someone whose fulltime job is to answer the calls, and open the display cases.
The background noise in the store is a chorus of ringing bells and announcements of “Customer service needed in aisle [fill in the blank].” Often followed by an announcement in Spanish.
This CVS is open 24/7, so after-hours thefts are not the crime de jour; the crimes take place when the store is (always) open.
The other day I noticed a change in the display of kosher chocolate bars in a neighborhood grocery I frequent. Instead of sitting in a hard-to-read-the-labels in a glass case, they were stacked on a more-accessible case. The change was for the sake of shoppers who are very particular about the food items they buy for Passover, the owner told me.
Why are the chocolate bars displayed in a more-difficult location the rest of the year?
Theft, the owner told me.
People would walk in, stow a bar under their armpit, and walk out.
This, in a low-crime neighborhood.
A growing number of pharmacies and department stores and other retail businesses have taken the same protective step to prevent what the retail business world refers to euphemistically as “inventory shrink” or “missing inventory” – items removed from stores by non-paying customers.
This, in addition to surveillance cameras. Or security dogs in front of some stores. A Rite Aid executive said the chain was considering ‘literally putting everything’ under lock and key.
Few of the stolen items are expensive. But they’re easily accessible to people with sticky fingers. And who’s watching? Security cameras are no deterrent. Neither are alarm systems or heightened outdoor lighting.
Hence, stores have had to institute the intrusive safety measure. If they don’t, their stock will disappear and their profit margin will further shrink.
A CVS spokesman called the lock-‘em-up procedure “a measure of last resort.”
Is this a sound business decision? Does the decrease in thefts justify the added salary of a full-time key-bearer? Or the ill will that the shields and the waiting time – for in-store shoppers or employees of delivery firms like DoorDash — engender among customers?
The stores’ bottom line offers a mixed answer.
Such anti-theft measures reportedly can cause sales to plummet. Who has patience to wait for the key bearer to show up?
Because of declining profits, employees lose their jobs. Stores close. The empty spaces become blights, easy targets for graffiti. Customers have to travel further to pick up their prescriptions, or other goods – if they choose to not shop on the internet.
“What was intended as a theft-prevention measure, ironically, has turned into a sales-prevention one” one business website stated. “Locking up items to deter shoplifting is pushing shoppers online,” declared an Axios headline; amazon.com has been a primary beneficiary of the stores’ new policy. “It’s backfired in almost every way,” Bloomberg News reported.
If the obtrusive plexiglass shields aren’t a strong enough statement about the prevalence of shameless consumer behavior, consider the missing cupcakes. A display of Hostess cupcakes in my CVS caught my eyes a few years ago; in a package designed for a pair of cupcakes was a lone one. I brought this to the attention of a CVS employee. This is not an unusual occurrence, she told me. “If someone is hungry, they take whatever they want.” Not the whole package of cupcakes, just the single one that would satiate the gonif’s hunger pangs.
The protective measures, and the need for them, are a tactile sign of a spiritual change in our time.
Judaism teaches the concept of yeridat hadorot, the decline in the spiritual level of generations in the millennia since G-d gave the Torah to the people who took part in the exodus from Egypt.
The plexiglass shields are a tactile sign of the decline. In society as a whole.
Were this generation alive in the time of the Holy Temples, maybe the Beit HaMikdash would require plexiglass shields.
If you want proof how far we have descended from the times of the Torah, you don’t have to read the Torah.
Just go to CVS.
