Mel Konner, whether you agree with him all the time or not (and you shouldn’t–not because he’s wrong but because you should never agree with anyone all the time), has a provocative and snarky post on some recent Orthodox Jewish criminals, whom he likens to the Sopranos. Now, I hope none of us have illusions that ankle-length black coats and  shtreimels in August automatically make you an ethical bloke, but trafficking in human organs is pretty low. I suppose when evolutionary psychologists claim that all of us have a murderer hidden in our genes they aren’t joking. And neither is Mel.

When you’re a stickler for the fence (no, not that kind of fence) around the Torah, when you shout Shabbes! Shabbes! at every little kid who rides a scooter into your neighborhood, when you yell at your wife that she might miss the candle-lighting time by a second, when even glatt kosher isn’t really good enough—well, haven’t you stored up so many points with the Almighty that you can ignore little mitzvahs like Thou shalt not steal?