The New York Times just published a glowing discussion titled “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?” —a textbook case of the exact sin the Torah calls chamas.
In Parshas Noach (Bereishit 6:11), the world was “filled with chamas” (וַתִּמָּלֵא הָאָרֶץ חָמָס). Rashi and the Midrashim explain this wasn’t grand-scale robbery or violence. It was petty theft — people stealing tiny amounts less than a peruta, the smallest coin, amounts too trivial for any court to enforce. Everyone took just a little. No single act seemed criminal. But together it destroyed the moral fabric of society. The Midrash records God’s rebuke to the Dor HaMabul: “I gave you everything, and it still wasn’t enough.”
That is precisely what the April 22, 2026 NYT Opinions podcast is normalizing.
Three affluent cultural figures — Nadja Spiegelman (NYT Opinion culture editor), Jia Tolentino (New Yorker writer), and Hasan Piker (wealthy political streamer) — spend the episode coining and defending “microlooting”: stealing small items from big corporations like Whole Foods. Tolentino casually admits she repeatedly stole lemons. Piker declares himself “pro stealing from big corporations” because “they steal quite a bit more from their own workers” and shrinkage is already “factored in.” Spiegelman probes whether it’s justified political protest since “the rich don’t play by the rules.”
This is modern chamas in real time: small, low-consequence thefts justified by resentment toward the wealthy. The same dynamic that filled the earth before the Flood.
They even contrast it with “microaggressions,” exposing the full inversion: intersectional morality obsesses over tiny perceived slights while excusing actual micro-theft when the target is a corporation. The 7 Noahide Laws — binding on all humanity — explicitly forbid theft. Period. Yet today’s discourse treats property rights as optional when the “right” people are doing the stealing.
Bonus echo: Chamas (חמס) sounds like Hamas (חמאס). And one of the panelists is Hasan Piker — a vocal supporter of causes aligned with that group. The New York Times is now platforming Dor HaMabul behavior and giving prime space to voices that have shilled for Hamas.
When elites romanticize breaking the most basic moral law because “the system is unfair,” they are repeating the exact pattern that once brought the Flood. The Torah diagnosed it 3,300+ years ago. The NYT just gave us the 2026 exhibit.
Pro Chamas = Pro Hamas.
Intersectionality.
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