Rabbi's Musings

Some useful advice for these days of discord:

In the Talmud we find a famous debate between the rabbis concerning how one should rebuke another.   All of them agree however that, when confronted with someone's unjust behavior, we are obligated to criticize them.  The issue centers on not if we rebuke them but how we rebuke them.  Rebuking someone may be necessary, but shaming them in public is not.  For in addressing a minor wrong we in fact are committing a major one.  Therefore, the decision to criticize, as well as how to do it, should be considered very carefully. 

When it comes to deciding whether or not to offer criticism, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin offers the following advice.  First, we should ask ourselves how offering the criticism makes us feel.  Does it give us pleasure or pain?  If a part of us relishes the idea of rebuking the person, we probably shouldn't do it.  But if we truly don't want to offer the criticism and yet feel morally obligated to do so, then chances are we are doing the right thing.

It's also important that our criticism be non-threatening and useful to the person.  The medieval philosopher Maimonides puts it like this: "He who rebukes another…should administer the rebuke in private, speak to the offender gently and tenderly, and point out that he is only speaking for the wrongdoer's own good…."   I personally have also found that, when admonishing someone, it's important to avoid judgmental words like "bad" or "unprofessional" that immediately put someone on the defensive.  

In general criticism should never be used to push people down while raising us up.  Such words should never be said in haste, nor without humanity.  And never should our goal be to make the other person feel bad.  Think about how much more civil life would be if we remembered to always care about the person whom we are addressing.

Indeed, when it comes to civility, the sacrifices we make and the sensitivity we observe all boil down to one golden rule: remember the divinity in each other.  This is our greatest challenge and our greatest hope.  In an age of increasing violence in our entertainment and everyday speech, not to mention the vicious personal attacks in politics, civility means restoring a sense of awe for all human beings.  This approach is reflected in a common synonym for civility, the word courtesy.  This word actually comes from the word court.  And as the name implies, when it comes to "courtesy" we are supposed to treat someone else like royalty.   We are to be as considerate of others as if they were genuine nobility.  Imagine how much more civility we would have if we treated one another in this way.  Not only would our behavior improve.  We might even affect the behavior of others.

This lesson is reflected in the stage version of The Man of La Mancha, the story of Don Quixote.  The play features a waitress and prostitute named Aldonza.  When Don Quixote sees her, he refuses to treat her as a prostitute.  Instead, he calls her "my Lady."  He actually gives her a new name, Dulcinea.  Even after she is raped, and Don Quixote finds her hysterical and disheveled, he says compassionately, "My Lady, Dulcinea, Oh, my Lady, my Lady."

"Don't call me a lady," she cries.  "O God, don't call me a lady.  Can't you see me for what I am?  I was born in a ditch by a mother who left me there naked and cold-- too hungry to cry….Don't call me a lady.  I'm only Aldonza.  I'm nothing at all."

As she runs into the night, Don Quixote calls out, "But you are my Lady."

At the end of the play, the Man of La Mancha is dying alone, despised and rejected.  To his deathbed comes a Spanish queen with a mantilla of lace.  Quietly she kneels beside him and prays.  He opens his weak eyes and says, "Who are you?"

"My Lord, don't you remember?  You gave me a new name; you called me Dulcinea.  I am your lady." 

Don Quixote refused to treat Aldonza with anything less than royal respect.  And so this is what she became.  Likewise, if we treat others as noble people, as people with souls, then we are being civil and courteous, and just maybe we are helping them to grow into civil and courteous people, and we'll be making a more humane society for us all.

This is not always easy, of course.  If someone cuts us off in traffic, I can think of a more gratifying response than pleasantly waving to them.  It's also more enjoyable to yell at an incompetent sales person instead of patiently smiling at them.  But when we act with civility despite our more natural instincts, we are giving ourselves a gift.  For although in the short term showing our anger may feel wonderful, down the road we will most likely feel bad for our behavior and we will have contributed to the growing incivility around us.  

To help us be more civil, and therefore observe the mitzvah of derech eretz, I recommend we keep in our minds the declaration of the great Rabbi Akiva.  "The most important teaching in the Torah," he observed, "is that God created us in the divine image."  Every act we commit and attitude we possess depends on whether or not we believe these crucial words.  They tell us that every human being deserves some basic dignity because of the divine spark inside of them.  These words tell us that to be cruel to them, even in some small way, is to be cruel to God.  These words remind us that true civility is about recognizing the divinity within us all.