Middah Week One: Hesed-Nedivut- ayin haTov
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Learn the Sources – Kavod /Dignity/Honor/Respect
- For Further Study – Kavod /Dignity/Honor/Respect
- Aretha
- Bryant H. McGill When you are content to be simply yourself and dont compare or compete, everybody will respect you. Lao Tzu
- Stockwell Day Respect is what we owe; love, what we give. Philip James Bailey
- Philo Kabbalot (Practices—Choose one)
- Cheshbon HaNefesh (taking an accounting of your soul-work)
Kavod – Respect/Honor 
SH’VAT January 21—February 19 Who is honorable? One who honors all others. Pirkei Avot 4:1 MANY OF US act as if we were born with a clipboard and have been assigned the task of evaluating everyone we meet. I see this tendency in myself, and maybe you can recognize it in yourself as well. You walk into a room and immediately scan the crowd, taking in everyone who is there, and putting them all through an instant evaluation. It can get pretty ugly, and few of us would likely ever verbalize the sorts of things we routinely run through in our minds as we mentally dress down other people. “She wore that?” “Just look at that dumb face!” “Loud!” “Such a slouch. Stand up straight, why don’t you?” “She smokes?” I’ll stop and let you continue. What sorts of things do you say (only to yourself, of course) when that judgmental frame of mind has a grip on you, and you are moving through life as if someone appointed you to be a judge whose job it is to assess whether or not people measure up? Let me ask, can you detect even a hint of honor in that attitude? Honor not for what people have done, or how they do it, but in recognition of the simple fact that we are all human, which means invested with a soul and possessing enormous gifts not of our own making? And further, what is the outcome of that judgmental attitude? Does it ever lead to anything positive, or is it the root of feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction in everyone around us? The Honor of a Person 1 The rabbis in the Talmud open up this subject for us by sketching a hypothetical scenario. It’s the evening of the festival of Purim and you are walking to synagogue to hear the traditional reading of the Megillah (“scroll”), the Book of Esther. Along the way, you have the misfortune to come across a corpse lying in the road. Jewish law obligates us to give a dead body a proper burial, no matter whether it is a Jew or a non-Jew or a stranger or a criminal. But burying a body takes time, and if you stop to fulfill this commandment, you will surely be unable to fulfill that other commandment, to hear the Megillah reading. What to do? Do you stop to bury the body or continue on to synagogue? The answer in the Talmud is that you should bury the body. The reason given is that the honor due to a human being is so great that it suspends even a negative precept of the Torah. What the rabbis are trying to teach us here is that every human being—even a dead one—is due honor. Now if the obligation to honor the humanity that resides even in a corpse is so compelling, imagine how much more we should honor a living person. Tradition puts such emphasis on honoring others that the sages tell us that the calamitous destruction of the Second Temple was brought on by the baseless hatred that existed among people of the time… Honor, respect, and dignity are due to each and every human being not because of the greatness of their achievements or how they have behaved, but because they are home to a soul that is inherently holy. Nobody created their own soul; everybody has been gifted with a rarefied essence. This is a teaching of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, a forerunner of the Mussar movement, who explains that one should honor all people simply because they are the handiwork of God.
We need tradition to draw our attention to this deep reality because it isn’t readily evident to us. Our eye easily falls on the flaws in the trappings. That’s like focusing on the gift-wrap and ignoring the present within. Imagine someone sent you a painting by Picasso or Chagall, and all you could see was the dirty, tattered packaging in your hands? So why do we do it? Why do we set up standards against which to gauge others and then spend so much of our mental energy appraising how people are measuring up? I’d be surprised if anyone ever did that other than as an externalization of the standards against which we judge ourselves. And because we are anxious about how we ourselves are stacking up, we judge others. When we find them wanting, we appear better and greater to ourselves. Whether we admit it or not, most of us want honor and feel we are not getting it, certainly not in the measure we feel to be our due. So the factor that drives us to be so critical of others is nothing other than our own search for honor, especially in our own eyes. There is a profound and sad reality in this. Many people just don’t love themselves enough and in the right way. In the Mussar work, we are always looking for soul-traits that we can elevate and improve, and that means we are awake to our imperfections, but even that self-awareness and effort ought to happen in an atmosphere of self-honor.
The Mussar teachers are insistent that you make a very clear distinction between the honor you ought to give to all souls—including your own deep inner being—and the desire of your hungry ego to slurp up every bit of honor it can possibly get its greedy hands on. They warn us stridently about this tendency of the ego, and Rabbi Salanter relates it to a general Mussar principle: a person “must endeavor to acquire within his soul each character trait and its opposite… Honor is the perfect example of this need for “a trait and its opposite,” about which he says, “For example, to flee from honor is a precious quality. As the Sages state: “The desire for honor removes a man from the world.” However, the reverse is true concerning others, as the Sages said: “Who is honored? He who honors others.”
Do not seek honor for yourself, but go out of your way to honor others. The real concern here is the place of ego in your life. Not seeking honor for yourself reflects humility; so too does honoring others. Committing your life to ego-based honor is not even wise because, when given free rein, the ego’s desire for honor is never satisfied, and a life devoted to seeking honor will pass as a life unfulfilled. Rabbi Salanter cites the sages’ warning to “flee from honor.” Yet in their wildest dreams they never could have imagined the extent to which our modern culture would elevate personal honor and send us off on an endless and misguided search for pedestals onto which to hoist ourselves. Their warning stands for us now more than ever, since people didn’t have magazines called Self and Us to lead them astray in nineteenth-century Lithuania. So severe are the effects of pursuing our own ego gratification that the sages warn us (as Rabbi Salanter quotes) that honor is one of the factors that “drive a person out of this world.” Does that mean actual death, or living a life that is not suited to this world? Either way, pursuing honor surely is not the way of the soul. As for the other side of the equation, far from honoring others, who hasn’t participated, or even delighted, in the public shaming of another person? While the tradition calls on us to honor others, it also warns with emphatic hyperbole to ensure we get the message: “Better had a man thrown himself into a fiery furnace than publicly put his neighbor to shame.” Yet too often we do just that. Equally off the mark is our tendency to rue another person’s good fortune instead of celebrating with them. “The other person’s elevation must rouse us to joy,” says Rabbi Meir Chodosh. “We must remember that his elevation and honor do not take anything away from us.” He is alerting us to the root issue, which is the craving of our egos. “In this way,” he goes on, “we will become freed from thinking about ourselves and will see only [someone else who is doing well], and we will be glad.” In the Mussar tradition, this is called developing an ayin tovah, a good eye.
Tikkun Middot Project Curriculum Learn the Sources – Kavod/Dignity/Honor/Respect The term “Kavod/כבוד” can be translated as “respect,” “dignity,” or “honor.” To begin our exploration of the meaning of this term let’s look at two quotes from Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe’s introduction to the middah of Kavod in his Aley Shor II: “The word “Kavod” is from the Hebrew root כבד (which means weighty or heavy). The diametric opposite is the word “Klala”(curse) which comes from the Hebrew root קל (light). When I relate to someone with due seriousness I honor him, and if I treat him lightly it is as if I curse him.” “…Kavod is external behavior mandated by and appropriate to a reality of inner holiness. Behold, you have within you a Tzelem Elokim Kadosh (holy divine image) – this requires you to treat yourself with a certain level of self-respect…” How do these ideas find expression or not in the following statements about Kavod in Pirkei Avot, chapter 4: "Rabbi Elazar HaKapar says: Three things drive a person from the world - jealousy, base desires and kavod." "Ben Zoma says…Who is honorable? One who honors all others." What does it mean to be driven from the world? For a further examination of the inner dimension of Kavod, see the ideas of the following two 20th century thinkers: R. Shalom Noach Barzofsky (The Slonimer Rebbe). This excerpt is a commentary on the quote above from Pirke Avot 4:1: 4 When the Mishnah asks, “Who is dignified?” it does not mean, “Who is made dignified by other people,” as is the common understanding. What value is there in being dependent on other people giving you dignity? Rather, “Who is dignified? One who gives dignity to all people” is teaching that the gaze of one person to another is like glancing in the mirror – if his face is dirty he will see in the mirror a dirty face. So it is the same when a person looks at the other – the amount that he is pure and refined internally, so he will look more generously upon the other and see good attributes. On the other hand, if he is infected with bad attributes and behaviors, so he will see bad attributes in everyone else. Therefore, the truly dignified person is the one who treats all people with dignity, who appreciates all people. This behavior is the true sign that he is dignified himself. Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook - Middot Harayah: Kavod 4 The more lacking one is in inner perfection, the more nature will seek to gain perfection on an outer level. It is only in a state of low-level spirituality that there will be aroused in a person a desire to glorify himself before others, both with the virtues he possesses and with others he does not possess. It is therefore important for a person to enhance his level of inner perfection, and his self-assessment in relation to others shall always be in the proper measure. What do you think “inner perfection” means? What experience do you have with the relationship between self-kavod and giving kavod to others? 5 For Further Study – Kavod/Dignity/Honor/Respect The following Biblical, Talmudic, Medieval and Modern sources explore different facets of Kavod. Source 1: The following Biblical, Talmudic and Modern sources explore Human Uniqueness: And God said, “Let us make the human being in our image and likeness. (Genesis 1:26) Humans were created unique, to teach that anyone who destroys a life it is as if he destroyed an entire world. And anyone who sustains a life it is as if he sustained an entire world. Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 23a, Chapter 4, Mishna 9 We must recognize and know that the mitzvah to imitate God is not an impossible decree …to become different than we are; rather, this great mitzvah befits us, especially once God has revealed this great love by informing us that we were created in God’s image. The Divinity within us obligates us to become whom we really are in potential, whom we were created to be - to release the potential within each of us and become people who truly reflect God's image. A Talk by Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt'l, the "Alter of Slobodka" (1849-1927). Translated by Rabbi Nosson Scherman, from the Greatness Within Website Questions:
Source 2: Pirkei Avot 4:3 He (Ben Azzai) used to say: Do not be scornful of any person and do not be disdainful of anything, for you have no person without his hour and no thing without its place.” Questions:
6 Source 3: Pirkei Avot 4:18 Rabbi Elazar ben Shamua said: Let the honor or your student be as dear to you as your own; the honor of your colleague as the reverence for your teacher; and the reverence for your teacher as the reverence of heaven.” Questions:
Source 4: Talmud Bavli Kiddushin 31b10 Our sages taught: What is Kavod [for parents]? … to feed them, give them drink, dress them, cover them and accompany them. Questions:
Possible Focus phrases: “…Kavod is external behavior mandated by and appropriate to a reality of inner holiness.” R. Shlomo Wolbe [Ben Zoma said]: Who is honorable? One who honors all others. Pirkei Avot 4:1 He (Ben Azzai) used to say: Do not be scornful of any person and do not be disdainful of anything, for you have no person without his hour and no thing without its place. Pirkei Avot 4:3 “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me…” When asked why the song is so successful, Aretha explained, "Everyone wants to be respected." I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. Jackie Robinson 7 One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say. Bryant H. McGill When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. Lao Tzu This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Dwight D. Eisenhower As all human beings are, in my view, creatures of God's design, we must respect all other human beings. That does not mean I have to agree with their choices or agree with their opinions, but indeed I respect them as human beings. Stockwell Day Respect is what we owe; love, what we give. Philip James Bailey The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him. William Lyon Phelps Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. Abraham Joshua Heschel Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_respect.html#ki8ixpDCMXiARam0.99 Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. Philo Kabbalot (Practices—Choose one):
Cheshbon HaNefesh (taking an accounting of your soul-work):
8 How are your efforts to seek praise and recognition rational or irrational?  
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