10 Things I’m Glad I Learned at Hebrew School (Part 2: 6-10)

Last week, I posted the first five of the ten 10 Hebrew school lessons I’ve been glad to take forward with me into my adult life.

Here are numbers 6-10.

6.”Do not appease your friend at the height of his anger; do not comfort him while his dead still lies before him.” (Shimon ben Eleazar, qtd. in Pirkei Avos 4:18)

I am not good at working with other people’s feelings. Unlike some, my first impulse isn’t to put myself in someone else’s shoes; it’s to get the job I want done. If I think someone is wrong, I want to correct them. If someone’s tears are getting in the way of the practical goal we’re trying to achieve, I want to make those tears stop for my own reasons, not for the sake of the crying person’s feelings.

I’d like to think I’ve grown enough that I’m better at making empathy my first choice. But there’s still one time when I actively have to think of this rabbinical phrase: when someone I care about is upset, and, based on the scenario, I can’t stand beside her in her rage or grief.

Rabbi Shimon ben Eleazer reminds me that I don’t have to immediately disagree when I can’t in good conscience take my friend’s side in a conflict. It’s not practical and not compassionate to deny others the reality of their emotions in the heat of the moment. Sympathy is not the same as agreement.

It’s not my business to make others feel the “right” thing, because there is no right feeling. There’s only right or wrong actions, and those can be discussed later, during the time for planning.

7. Concerning what [one] did not hear, [the wise person] says, “I did not hear” (Pirkei Avos 5:7)

The Red Green Show used to have a segment called “The Experts” about “…those three words men find so hard to say: I. Don’t. Know.” Well, newsflash, it’s not just men who have this problem. It can be really difficult to remember that admitting ignorance can be a sign of wisdom, not stupidity.

When someone asks me about a writer or thinker or artist that I’ve never heard of — especially when they toss off the reference in an off-hand of-course-everyone-knows-this voice — it can be difficult for me to acknowledge that, no, I don’t know that person’s work. It can be even more difficult when everyone is talking about something I have no idea about, and acknowledging ignorance means interrupting and asking for explanation.

Academia, nerdom, and the professional world are all places where it’s easy to feel that not knowing something makes you an imposter, or worse. But there is no list of fandoms you have to recognize, literature you must have read, or processes you need to have mastered to be a “real” member of the community deserving of respect. Anyone who treats you otherwise for asking is insecure in his or her own membership or knowledge.

8. Other people’s egos are as important as their physical wellbeing.

There’s a tradition in Judaism that humiliating someone is as bad as murdering him. Yes, you’ll see some rabbinical wordplay (see last week, item one) that equates blushing with shedding blood (Bava Metzia 58b), but the underlying principle is that humiliation kills off the person that other individual might have become.

Make someone feel shame for being herself, and you murder the confident person she might have been. Embarrass a student for not knowing the answer, and you chase away the joy that person takes in learning, killing the future scholar.

Even when doing good, one must not forget the human egos involved. For example, the great Torah scholar Maimonides taught that it’s better to give charity anonymously because that way, the recipient doesn’t feel beholden to the giver or, worse, feel shamed in his or her presence. Likewise, the best charity of all is helping a person become self-sufficient — not because, as some might have it, that this is an objectively better way to be, but because doing so allows the recipient to regain his or her self-worth.

9. Tikkun olam is everyone’s personal responsibility.

Tikkun olam is a Jewish principle that, roughly translated, means “repairing the world.” I think of it like that tip about cleaning up one thing each time you enter a room — if each person leaves every space they occupy a little better than they found it, everyone benefits. Of course, there are extraordinary people who whirlwind through an entire house and leave it spotless and organized, but even the small efforts contribute toward an improved world.

Tikkun olam isn’t about whose fault the mess is: on a larger scale, it doesn’t matter if you are personally responsible for institutionalized racism or climate change or conflict, just as it doesn’t matter if you’re the one who dropped a candy bar wrapper on the ground. If you care about the cleanliness of the places you live, if you care about how others experience that place, you pick it up yourself anyway.

10. The day-to-day is as important than the single grand gesture.

This is, perhaps, the most important lesson I’ve learned from Judaism, because the opposite is so present in our popular narratives and ways of talking about life.

Indeed, so much of the design of our lives suggests that people’s internal qualities can be evaluated or commodified through a single event — a test, a championship game. Our typical romance stories culminate in climactic moment in which the protagonists confess and act upon their love for each other, rather than illustrating a healthy, long-lasting relationship. Crime dramas concern themselves with the moment of identification and arrest rather than the long processes of justice, rehabilitations, and forgiveness. Harry Potter dies for his cause instead of living for it.

I’ve written about this before; I won’t bore you with it again. But like It’s a Wonderful Life, Judaism reminds us that the day-to-day is as necessary — perhaps more necessary — than the occasional high-stakes moment. The way we live our daily lives is the foundation of the world we live them in.