Q:
How do you make a distinction between a healthy degree of wanting kavod and caring what other people think of you, versus redifas hakavod, wanting to be honored, in a way that’s unhealthy?
A:
Now this actually was touched on before. If you buy a car, but you never learn how to drive it, the car is a lethal instrument — it’s a good way to commit suicide. You don’t drive a car unless you have driving lessons. And therefore, although we are now presented with a great gift and that’s the middah of kavod, the desire that people should think well of us, we cannot go out immediately and practice it. It’s a car. You have to learn how to utilize it. And those are the driving rules on life’s highway. That’s the Torah. You must learn how to behave in order to achieve your goal.
Now, if you’re going to try to utilize the desire for glory by trying to knock other people down, building yourself only by playing down other people, then you’re not using the right method for succeeding with kavod. Any kind of good middah, if it’s recommended as a means of succeeding, must be utilized according to the rules of the Torah. Without knowing how to become successful by means of trying to gain the approval of people, then you certainly are going to try to gain approval by doing silly things.
Here’s a man in a shul; I remember there was a man in a shul once many years ago who tried to become conspicuous by being a joker, by playing pranks, by making himself silly. What did he gain by that? He gained a bad name and Hakodosh Boruch Hu certainly didn’t approve of somebody who is making kalos rosh in the beis haknesses.
He wanted to be conspicuous. It’s like a child who wants to be conspicuous. He does it in the wrong ways. You have to learn how to be conspicuous. A child wants kavod, let him say to his parents, “Can I bring something to the table for you?” That’ll knock his mother over! He says on Shabbos, “Let me serve the table”; a little boy, a little girl — that’ll knock his parents over. Right away, he won out with them. He’s successful.
Here’s a husband sitting at the table. Instead of saying, “Chanala, could you bring me a glass of water? Could you bring me the glass of juice? Can you bring me another spoon,” he gets up himself and he does it. Not because he wants to do it — he wants his wife to think well of him. Oh, that man is a smart man. He learned how to practice the middah of looking for a good name. He gets up himself. He goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. His wife thinks, “Ah, that’s a decent fellow.”
And so, any good thing that you hear is only a theory, but in practice you must learn the Torah rules how to apply that good thing in order to utilize it successfully.
June 1989
