Q:
What is the meaning of leitzanus?
A:
Good question. Leitzanus means anybody who makes important things seem unimportant. That’s a letz. A letz says, “Don’t go overboard. Don’t make such a big fuss about it. It’s true to some extent but you’re overdoing it.”
A letz takes good people and makes them into monkeys. He says, “He looks like a monkey, he looks like an elephant, he looks like a giraffe.” A letz looks at people and he doesn’t say that, but in his mind people are comical to him.
People are important! A letz can laugh even at the tzaddik. Although he doesn’t laugh openly, but in his heart he’s thinking, “The tzaddik looks queer to me, he looks funny to me.” Ohohoho that’s a letz.
You have to look at a tzaddik with yiras hakovod. You have to look at your fellow Jew with the greatest respect. Every mitzvah is very important, every Jewish minhag is very important. Every Jewish face is very important.
And therefore, the letz is the one who takes what’s important and tries to make it unimportant.
(November 1995)
