Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Jacob Clayman Bar Mitzvah
April 19, 2002
A Difficult Mitzvah to Perform
Jacob chanted one of the most beautiful and important passages in our entire Torah. Leviticus 19 is known as the Holiness Code. I hope you recognized the words, because it is our Torah lesson for Yom Kippur afternoon. These are the words our tradition wanted to remain with us at the end of our solemn ten-day period of repentance, lessons to carry us through the New Year. The passage ends "love your neighbor as yourself."
The preceding verse includes what I consider to be one of the most difficult mitzvot to perform. Four Hebrew words – hochayach tocheeach et ameetecha – "you shall reprove your neighbor", "you shall surely rebuke your neighbor". It is a mitzvah to advise your neighbor when you see him or her doing something wrong. Even stronger, according to this passage, it is a commandment for all Jews to criticize their neighbors and to rebuke them when they see them doing evil. Rashi, the great biblical commentator, says: "If you think you have a justified complaint, do not brood over it but state it forthrightly; rebuke him but do not shame him publicly.
I am not sure that there is a better way to win enemies and not to influence people than to chastise them. This is a tough commandment to perform, yet the Torah says that whether we want to or not, we are obligated to do it. In fact, criticism is one of the main tasks of religion. The Torah is meant to be a means of raising people up to a higher level, and the way the Torah does this is by serving as our critic. The Torah focuses our attention on the distance between what we do and what we ought to do. Torah shows us our mistakes, our sins, our shortcomings and urges us to try harder. That is the job of religion and, like it or not, that is one job of the spiritual leader.
Rabbis have two tasks. One is to comfort the afflicted, and whoever does that is loved; the other task is to afflict the comfortable, and whoever does that is not loved. Some rabbis are better at comforting; some rabbis are better at chastising. But if a rabbi is to do his job with honesty and integrity, he has to do both. He has to raise the spirits of those who are weary and discouraged, and he has to confront, chastise and rebuke those who are arrogant and sinful. If he does either without the other, he is not fulfilling his task.
Yet that is much easier said than done. Criticizing your friend is probably the easiest, fastest and most efficient way to lose a friend that has every been invented. Starting your criticism with a phrase like "please don’t take this personally" or "I’m only saying this for your benefit" usually is of little help. And yet, as Jacob read, the Torah instructs us to give each other advice and, when necessary, criticism. So we ought to think together about whether we can do it and, if so, how best to do it.
If it is any consolation, it is not just this generation who finds it so difficult to criticize effectively – it has always been hard. The Talmudic Age was probably a time in which people were at least as pious as we are, and yet Rabbi Tarphon says in the Talmud: "I wonder if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to give chastisement in a right spirit." I can only imagine the frustration which is expressed in that statement. Rabbi Tarphon evidently tried his best to chastise people and struck out. And so he says in exasperation: "I wonder if anyone in this generation really knows how to chastise effectively, because I don’t.".
Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah comforts him by saying, "I wonder if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to accept chastisement in the right spirit." Rabbi Eleazar is saying: "Tarphon, it is not entirely your fault; it takes two to carry out the mitzvah – one who knows how to rebuke and one who knows how to accept rebuke. So don’t blame yourself if you fail in your efforts to give chastisement; it may not be entirely your fault.
I believe that both of these Talmudic teachers were right; very few people then or now are capable of receiving chastisement. And very few people then or now are capable of giving chastisement, because it only works when you give it out of love, when you criticize out of a desire to see the person grow, change and improve. Rebuke is effective only when you give it with no mixed motive.
One of the ways in which people communicate in our generation is through t-shirt and sweatshirt slogans. We are the equivalent of walking chalkboards. I once saw a youngster wearing a t-shirt which said "Upon advice of my attorney, my t-shirt bears no message at this time." A second said: "Free advice is worth what you pay for it." And another shirt sign declared: "Plain advice is free; the right answer will cost you plenty." The point of all three t-shirts is that nobody likes to be given advice.
President Harry Truman made one of my favorite comments about giving advice. He said: "I have found that the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it." A rabbi of blessed memory used to say that when people came to him for advice he would find out what advice they wanted to hear and give it to them, because that was the only advice they would listen to anyway.
You see, the reluctance to accept advice is inherent in human beings. It goes back far into the past. You know the story of the boy who wrote an essay on the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. He wrote: "Socrates was a man who went around town giving his advice and opinions, so they poisoned him." This youngster may have lacked a bit in historical accuracy, but I think he is right in his sense of how enthusiastically advice is often received.
So these are the problems — if I criticize someone, I seem to be setting myself up as better or wiser or holier than they are, and to be putting them down. Very few of us are able to overcome the initial reaction of becoming defensive or hostile or denying the criticism. So few of us are capable of appreciating criticism when it is given to us that it is no wonder that few of us are capable of giving criticism. And yet it is a mitzvah in the Torah and a fundamental need of human society because, otherwise, people will go on doing what they want to do with no checks, no limits, no change. So we need to figure out when and where and how to criticize and correct our family members and friends. Here is some advice, some guidelines for you and for me and for all those who want to carry out the commandment, which I consider one of the most essential and one of the most difficult commandments in the entire Torah — hochayach tocheeach et ameetecha – "you shall surely rebuke your neighbor".
First, consider the other person as a mirror. Just as when you look at a mirror it shows you as you are, with all your faults and all your good qualities, so it is when you look at another person. If you see faults in that person, it is because they also exist in you. Therefore you should realize that whatever faults you see in someone else are really reflections of faults which exist within yourself, and when you see them in him or her, bring them to his attention, but do so gently, sympathetically, and with an awareness that you have them too.
Secondly. You are allowed to criticize, but only on condition that you really, really care. Only on condition that it hurts you to see your friend doing something that is not right, and that it hurts you so much you have to speak out. Rabbi Harold Kushner pointed out that the fifth book of the Torah — Devarim — which means "words" – consists of the last words of Moses, our teacher, words with which he chastised, rebuked and criticized his people before he died.
Our sages made a pun. They say that the name of this book, Devarim, comes from the word "devorah" which means a "bee". Now what possible resemblance is there between the last words of Moses and a bee? The Sages said that just as when a bee stings someone it kills itself, so you are allowed to criticize your fellow human being as Moses did, only if it hurts you, really hurts you to do so. When Moses criticized the people, it hurt him; it hurt him so much that at the end of the book of Devarim Moses dies. That kind of criticism is sincere, and that kind of criticism will be heard.
A modern giant spoke similar words which have a special application to our time. Back in the 1970's, Golda Meir came to America and one of her stops was at a meeting of Jewish intellectuals. She walked into the room, took a seat, opened her purse, took out a cigarette and lit it. Then she set the ground rules. She said: "You can say anything you want, you can make any criticism of Israel that you care to, but on one condition – there is one word you cannot use and if you do I will walk out of here. The word is ‘YOU.’ If you say ‘we’, any criticism you want to make will be listened to. But if you say ‘YOU’ or ‘YOU Israelis’, I’m leaving."
What Golda Meir was saying to American Jews is that it is not fair for us to sit here in safety and dare to criticize what Israel does there, for it is they and their children whose lives are on the line. It is they and their children and grandchildren who pay if they make mistakes or do something wrong. Therefore, we only have the right to criticize them from afar if it really, really hurts us. If it hurts us so much that we cannot bear to hold back; otherwise, we should maintain a respectful, a reverent silence. For it is not fair to criticize them from here.
If you get your kicks out of putting somebody down, then it is no mitzvah. On the contrary, that’s a sin. But if it hurts you, if it really hurts you to chastize someone and you only do it because you love them and want them to be better than they are, then it is a mitzvah. That is how Moses chastised the Jewish People, like a bee feeling pain every time he rebuked them. And that is the way you and I have to learn to chastise and rebuke if we are to carry out this commandment.
Well, I have quoted a President of the United States, a Prime Minister of Israel and two Talmudic sages, so let me add advice in the name of an author I do not know. The person who published it says he got it from his grandmother who died many years ago and who never went to school. She wrote it on a piece of paper and entitled it "All the Advice You Ever Need to Have a Good Life." The man who wrote the article says he has kept his grandmother’s advice on a laminated card inside his wallet for many years. I want to share it with you -- "All the Advice You Ever Need to Have a Good Life."
Wash what is dirty,
water what is dry.
Heal what is wounded,
warm what is cold.
Guide what goes on the road,
and above all,
love the people who are the least lovable –
because they need it most.
What makes that advice so easy to take is that it is expressed with some humor and some whimsy and not head on. It does not make us become defensive or lead us to deny its truth, because it does not attack us frontally. We hear it or read it and smile. In fact, it is so short and so sweet that we are liable to miss its message, so let me say it just once more.
Wash what is dirty,
water what is dry.
Heal what is wounded,
warm what is cold.
Guide what goes on the road,
and above all,
love the people who are the least lovable –
because they need it most.
It is the last phrase that moves me most because, usually, when we meet unlovable people, people who strike out at us with hostility, our natural, normal reaction is to strike back at them. Sometimes we even strike out at them first. Or our reaction is to avoid them altogether. What good does any of this do?
The Chassidim tell the story of parents who came to the Ba’al Shem Tov and said to him: "Our child is unruly. Our child is disrespectful. Our child is pugnacious. What should we do?"
And the Ba’al Shem Tov gave them three words of advice – love him more.
I have always wondered about that story. What was the outcome of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s advice? Did it work? The story does not say; it ends there, so we do not know. My guess is that it probably worked, at least as well as any other strategy which they had tried.
Hochayach tocheeach et ameetecha. Our Torah tonight teaches us: "You shall surely rebuke your neighbor" and that if you do – and friends, only if you do – will you truly be loving your neighbor. May God help us in this task which is one of the most difficult, sensitive and most important commandments in all the Torah, and let us say: Amen.
This message is based on the writings of Rabbi Jack Riemer whose wise insights are always helpful.
