Throughout its history, humanity has had the instinct to substitute the essential for the superfluous. Sometimes when we sensually capture something, the impact is so intense and powerful that it makes us feel that we have reached the background of the matter, that we have accessed the essence.

This tendency to confuse label with content is so universal that it is one of the main biases that expert marketers use to sell their products.

A few months ago, in all the centers and events of Menora , we decided to serve the beverage bottles without their labels. Each drink is recognizable by the shape of the container and the color of the liquid, but we removed the label.

We wanted to transmit that labels don’t make content, but we discovered a very interesting side effect: beverage consumption dropped sharply.

If there are two bottles exactly the same, one with a label and one without a label, people take the labeled one and consume it quickly, but the one without the label often remains intact.

This is fascinating: in the face of exactly the same content, most people get carried away by appearances and consume the one with the most colorful and eye-catching packaging.

Biblical Source

In chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis, the Torah narrates the creation of the human being and the exit from the Garden of Eden, a consequence of having eatenfrom the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In Genesis 3: 6, commenting on the reasons for that action, the verse mentions: “The woman saw that the tree was pleasant to eat and it was tempting to the eyes and desirable to discern, she took of its fruit and ate. He also gave it to her husband , and he ate ”.

The message

The great mistake of humanity was and is to be carried away by what is pleasant to eat, tempting for the eyes and desirable to discern. What superficially seems to be true. What attracts us by appearance, regardless of its content.

This is the lesson that the Torah brings us, and what I remember with the episode of the unlabeled bottles: labels can be misleading, and people have to find strategies so that the instinct to follow appearances does not make them leave which is intrinsically true, good and noble aside.