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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
All right, Welcome back, everybody. Way number 36. Way number 36 is, U'mitrachek min ha-kavod, is to run away from honor. Stand up to society. Run away from honor. So there are a couple things when we talk about honor that are very important for us to acknowledge and to understand. The first is, we say about kavod, yehi kvod chavercha chaviv oleche kishalach, in Ethics
of Our Fathers, Chapter 2, Mishnah 10, it says, the honor of your fellow should be as important to you as your own. How much we are sensitive to our own honor, our own dignity. If someone else criticizes us in public, if someone hurts our feeling in public, we take very serious offense to it. Even more so if it's someone else. It says, chaviv olecha kishalach, like yours. Very interesting, the Ramah, when he talks about the responsibilities of a husband to
his wife, it says, ohavo kegufo u'mechabdo yoser megufo, to love her like yourself, but to honor and respect her more than yourself. Sometimes we say, you know what, it's okay, my honor, I'm ready to forgo my honor. No, you can't forgo your wife's honor. You cannot forgo your wife's honor. Okay, it's an important fundamental principle that if I had a story recently where there was a mother-in-law who I was caring for who had a little altercation with her daughter-in-law.
The mother-in-law wasn't right, 100% wasn't right, but neither was the daughter-in-law 100% right. Okay, so they're somewhere in the middle. I pulled the husband aside, I said to him, I said, I know you're not married for a very long time. I know that you know your mother for much longer a time, but you better be on your wife's side because that's your job. Your responsibility is to protect and defend your wife's honor.
That doesn't mean you have to be acting in a way that's disrespectful to your mother, but your responsibility as a married man is to stand up for your wife and to protect and defend her honor. Tonight I met him, and I asked him, so how did it go? He said, I stood by my wife's side and made sure that, and it's a very important thing, a husband's job is to not only honor his wife, but to honor her more than himself.
That means if you only have one pillow, who gets that pillow? If you only have one blanket, who gets that blanket? And if you only have one car, who gets that car? That's right. You guessed it. You have to make sure that you honor her more than you honor yourself. If there's only one can of Coke, give it to her. I try to talk to young guys when they get to the age of starting to date, and I talk
to them, I say, listen here, you stop thinking only about yourself. You have to start thinking in twos. Anytime you go someplace, and by the way, I tried to do this myself. I went to a restaurant, I was invited last minute to someone's birthday party at one of the kosher restaurants here, and before I left, I said, I need to get something for my wife. What do you have to go? Because I can't come home empty handed.
It's very important to make sure that we have the proper honor, respect, and dignity for our spouse. Yehi kvod talmidcha chaviv alecha kishalach. The Mishnah says even further, the honor of your students should be as important to you as your own. My rabbi of blessed memory, Rabbi Beryl Eisenstein, he was fire and brimstone, always ready to defend his student. And throughout my years of knowing him, I knew him for about 15 years until he passed away.
He would always do, he would go out of his way. And if there was a question that someone, if there was a job opportunity and I needed a reference, he wouldn't wait for them to call. He would call them. He says, my student, you better hire him. He would go and be forceful in whatever way possible to defend and protect and serve the honor of his students. I remember one time, he was very special. He was a very special man.
I remember, I think I said this story recently, there was one time I was running for a bus, and in Israel, buses don't stop for you. And the bus drove away from the stop, and I'm running full speed, and he stopped, opened the door, and I get right on the bus. I'm like, thank you so much. He says, it's not me, it's the man back there. I look back, it was my rabbi. My rabbi started yelling, he says, that's my son.
And it says that someone who teaches you Torah is like your father. Our relationship was a very close relationship, very, very special how he treated all of his students with such respect and with such love. We can't get trapped in the obsessive need for recognition. Everyone wants to be recognized, but we have to learn to let go of it. It's okay, I don't need to be recognized. I don't need to have my name in bold letters, on top of the sign, on the top of the letterhead,
on the top of everything. Seeking the approval of others harms you, because it keeps you from the real work of becoming great. When you're always worried about your own name, your own approval, and your own recognition, what happens is, is that then you lose sight of what you need to accomplish, because you're too busy getting caught up with the... We've all been party to situations where there's a task that needs to get done, but people
don't get that task done because you didn't call me doctor, you didn't call me rabbi, you didn't call me a reverend, you didn't... Just there's something that needs to happen. I remember, I don't want to get to specific situations, but there are times where there's an important need for action, and people aren't ready to spring into action because you called me mister. I remember one time I was dealing with a life and death situation, and I was firsthand involved
with this story, with this case, and I get a phone call from somebody who I did... I knew the person, but I didn't know him in the capacity of being a rabbi, so I said, I said, look, Mr. So-and-so, and he stops, he says, how dare you call me a mister? I'm a rabbi for 50 years. Okay, I'm sorry. Now let's get back onto the topic here. And he was very, very insulted and hurt that I called him a mister, but either way, I understand
if someone works hard for a title, which a rabbi, you work very, very hard, a doctor, I understand that, a lawyer or whoever it is, but take it easy. It's okay. There are plenty of people calling me, call me mister. It's fine. You'll get over it. There are worse things, and they've called me that. They've called me worse as well. It's fine. I was talking to a rabbi recently, and he told me, oh, he says, the people I've been
dealing with recently, he says, the names that they call me, I said, well, welcome to the club. I said, if they didn't call you those names, you're probably not a rabbi. That's what happens. It comes with the territory. People are very argumentative, and people think, many people think, you see, the Sephardic have it easiest because whatever the rabbi says is Bible, but the Ashkenazic rabbis, it's not like that. The rabbi is just someone else you can argue with, and that's the way people do it.
And you have to learn not to let the honor get the best of you. It's okay. People can disagree with you. People can argue with you. Nothing's going to happen. It's okay. People sometimes don't appreciate, you know, doctors, what are the doctors there for? They're there to save lives, and I've seen people yelling and screaming at doctors, what have you done to my, they're the ones who are up at all hours of the day going to take
care of patients, and yet they get the most grief. What can you do? That's the reality. You can't let honor block you from doing the things you need to do, so they're going to dishonor you. You know, you see this, the truth is you see this in many areas in life. You see where, you know, if someone doesn't get the right honor, sometimes they shut down. They shut down, and that's the punishment. You didn't give me the right name? How dare you? Okay.
If I can tell you the honor that I've gotten over the years by being called Rabbi Yaakov Volbi, where people stop me like, I listen to your podcast all the time. I'm like, you mean my brother, but thank you, I appreciate it. I take a lot of honor when people confuse me with my brother. If you need others to verify your significance, it's time to examine your self-esteem. We have to, can't take ourselves too seriously. Can't take ourselves too seriously. It's okay.
Let it slide off your back. It's okay. It doesn't have to be exactly the way you imagine it in your own mind. When you act to impress others, you feel the emptiness inside. Don't do it for others. Do it for yourself. Do it for who you are. Do it for your real values. When you get the urge to toot your own horn, ask yourself, who am I trying to impress?
And this is something which we can all fall prey to, where, you know, just like, by the way, you know, I did that. You know, I want to share with you an incredible story from a man who passed away in the past month. Rabbi Nutter Greenblatt, Rabbi Nutter Greenblatt was a phenomenal Torah scholar. He was known as the divorce man. He was never divorced. I don't think he was ever divorced. But he was the one, the rabbi, who knew the laws of get better than anyone.
Yes, from Memphis, Tennessee. So he was an incredible man. Very sharp. And he didn't really care about anybody, you know, that... Don't try to impress him, okay? He knows more Torah than anyone. He was like... So one time I was sitting right here at this chair, at this desk, and I knew that I had to finish the class as soon as possible because I had to run to the airport to go pick him up. It was one of the evening classes.
And his flight arrived early, of course. Class ended late, of course. And I run to the airport as quickly as possible, and he didn't fly with luggage. He only had his hand luggage. He was waiting for me at the departures, so he doesn't have to wait through the whole line of the arrivals and all the cars. He's there waiting for me, and I felt terrible. He's this 90-year-old man waiting for me.
As I ran out, took his bag, put him in the car, got him in the car, and as I started driving, I said, you know, rabbi, I'm so sorry. I said, I just finished class, and I ran here as quickly as I could. I promise. I was like... I apologize. Please forgive me. He says to me, look, you're a grandson of a great rabbi, a great master rabbi. You can hear this for me. Nobody cares that you gave a class. Nobody cares.
You were late, and just apologize. And it's basically... It was... No, but it was like, I deserve to hear that. I deserve to hear that. It was very humbling. It was very... I'll tell you what. There were many times after that that I wanted to, you know, excuse a thing because of something good I was doing, and I learned from him, keep your mouth shut. We have no excuse here. I'm sorry. I apologize, and move on.
You don't need to throw in there, I was just teaching a class. Nobody cares you were teaching a class. I thought it was a very, very important lesson to learn. Important lesson to learn. You're wrong, you're wrong, and just say you're wrong, and that's it. Even if you convince the whole world that you're the greatest person in the world, did you convince yourself yet? Did you convince yourself yet? You know, that's... at the end of the day, we're trying to convince everybody. We haven't convinced ourselves.
The ones who are really the greatest don't need convincing. They don't need to convince others. They don't need to persuade others that they're actually so fantastic and so great. Our sages teach us that honor and respect is a need for every human being. Every human being needs honor. Kavod is an internal need deep within every person to be respected. Some are virtuous to have an internal self-respect, while others need the respect from others. I'll give you an example. How do people dress today?
How do people talk today? Today you walk in the streets, you walk in, you go to a Starbucks, there are women who walk in as if they're at a beach. And I wouldn't go to the beach because I don't want to see that. So why do they bring it into the Starbucks? Why do they bring it into the places where people are shopping? You go to Target and you have to see. People are like, there's no self-respect. There's no self-respect.
If their grandmother saw them, they would whip them. This is the way you walk around without any self-respect? And in a way, it used to be that people in business would come in a suit and tie. And we've gotten this casual culture where you have a Steve Jobs walk in with sneakers and blue jeans and a t-shirt, and that's coming to work. It used to be that people had, before they flew, they'd get their hair done, they'd be dressed in proper attire.
Today everything goes, whatever, because people don't have an internal barometer of self-dignity, of self-worth. And that's the problem, that people today are ready to say anything. People are ready to march in Washington, D.C., in the most despicable fashion, without having any self-respect. Self-respect for yourself, you're a human being, you're someone who's able, capable for greatness, and there's no self-worth. You know that the demographic that has the highest suicide rate, the highest suicide rate is white-collar criminals, white-collar criminals.
Here's a guy who was the CEO of a company, a wealthy guy, got caught on some tax fraud, is sitting in prison, and suddenly nobody cares about him anymore. Nobody comes to ask him for his advice. No one comes to, oh, where are you going? Yeah, let's go, let's have fun, let's go do this, everyone is, he has all these friends. Suddenly they're all gone, there's no more value, there's no more honor, it's gone. The honor has been taken away, and they have nothing left.
We have to be very careful about people's honor. The work on this trait requires an individual to identify where they stand with regard to honor and respect. Respect yourself, the way you act, the way you walk, the way you dress, the way you talk. You know, the Torah is very cognizant about this. A Torah scholar who has stains on their clothes, they have dirty clothes, is warranting death. Here you are representing the Torah, and you walk around like a schlamazel.
You walk around without any self-dignity, you're representing something. Which is why it says that a rabbi, a Torah scholar, is not allowed to run. You see someone running through the mall, you hope it's an emergency. You just see some people, there has to be, that's why I do do exercise, but I only do it at night. I don't feel like I am so honorable, perhaps, but the people I teach are, and I have to respect them.
It wouldn't be respectful, I try, by the way, it's like, my wife and I have this every time we travel to New York by car, we come back to Houston, so when I travel back, we have to stop at one of the supermarkets to buy a bottle of milk, some cereal, you know, for the next morning. And then we'll do the big, something quick, just a loaf of bread. So I always keep my shirt, and a pair of pants, and a jacket in my trunk so that when we get
there I can change, and go in, so what's the big deal? Because when we're driving, I drive a little bit more comfortably, I'll wear shorts and a t-shirt, right? But I said, my students are here, and in their eyes I represent Torah, I teach Torah. For that, I need to honor and respect them. And I think that that's an important thing, at least for myself, I feel that that's a responsibility that I have. Respect your friends, let them speak first, the Mishnah tells us.
Be friendly, treat them the way you'd like to be treated. Someone who walks in, you know who they are, introduce them to your friends, okay? And then most of all, more importantly than anything, respect God. Person should have a respect for the Almighty. So a few exercises we can do is make a list of what people typically seek admiration for. What do people seek admiration for? Wealth, strength, skills, education, intelligence, career, health, athletics, sports, right? Are there other more important things that perhaps should be on that list?
How about someone who's a good husband? Someone who's a good father? Someone who's a good community member? Wouldn't they go up there with being the actor or the actress or the singer who have depraved lives, who can't hold a relationship? Why are they so honored in our eyes? The politician, who did he pay off now? Who did he get paid off by? What do we know? But the person who's a righteous person, who's good, who saves people, who helps people, no honor for them.
We should go take pictures with them, not take pictures with the actors and the actresses and the singers and the movie stars, who's on their 50th marriage, twice removed. Make a list of things you do to impress others. What is it about these things that makes you feel important? Teach yourself to feed yourself properly with your own self-dignity. I'm doing the right thing, and it doesn't make a difference if people dislike it. It doesn't make a difference if people won't admire me because of it.
I'm doing what's right. I'm doing what the Almighty wants me to do, and that's what counts. How do I know if I'm doing the right thing? Ask yourself one question. What does the Almighty want from me? If the Almighty wants me to do this, I'm doing the right thing, and I don't care what people say. If the Almighty doesn't want me to be doing this, then I shouldn't be doing it even if people honor me.
Honor is the belief that looking good is more important than the deed itself. Know your priorities and don't get carried away by honor. My dear friends, let's go get them. We don't need the honor from others. We like it. We enjoy it. But don't make your life dependent on it.