If you read the excellent guest post from weight loss hero Roy Naim earlier this week (and if not, why not? – go and read it now on pain of death), you will have read him make mention of some wise words by Rabbi Hunter.
What I didn’t realize until I spoke with Roy this morning is that the quote and subsequent paraphrasing were taken from a longer letter.
I said I was curious and Roy asked me if I wanted to hear the whole thing. Sure I did.
Something struck me as Roy was reading it, something that I think many people miss – especially those invested in and aligned strongly with any particular point of view.
I had seen this happen on Facebook in the aftermath of the school killings in Connecticut and the subsequent discussions on gun control. In fact I slipped into it myself if I’m being honest.
It’s the basic inability to take any good out of an ‘opponents’ opinions. And when I say opponent, that could simply mean somebody with different religious views or has a contrary opinion on politics or any other emotive subject.
Life Isn’t Black and White
But life is almost never that black and white, especially when you’re dealing with opinions and facts that are sometimes wide open to interpretation, even for experts.
This is a strange introduction to the letter by Rabbi Hunter, but I think it’s important.
Wisdom can come from any source, yet all to often we reject it (or don’t even see it) because we don’t like the person who is delivery the information.
Or as is more often the case, we don’t like what they stand for and believe that they therefore have nothing of value to add.
I’m pretty sure (and very much hope) you will see the depth of knowledge and wisdom in the letter and accept it for what it is no matter what your beliefs.
However many people worldwide would turn off the moment they hear the source is a Rabbi. And other people would have done the same if it came from the Pope and others from a Muslim Ayatollah.
In such situations our cognitive biases take over and hi-jack our critical thinking abilities without us even knowing.
So I guess I’m saying, strive to understand the message at all times. It’s by no means easy, but it’s very worthwhile.
And remember, messages come in all forms
The bitchy boss may have just found out her husband is sleeping with their pet goat.
The guy that cuts you up in traffic may be rushing to meet a family member who has been rushed into hospital.
And the man that staunchly defends relaxed gun laws and claims guns don’t kill, people do, may just be an idiot.
That last bit was a joke btw ;-)
Words of Wisdom
Although the student’s letter is not printed, Rabbi Hutner quotes a portion of it in his response.
“I’ll never forget the desire i had to succeed and to keep advancing from one spiritual level to the next, from one dream to the next. Now, however, I realize that my dreams have not com true. All is lost. ”
Rav Hutner writes back:
“My friend, I am pressing you to my heart and whispering in your ear. Had your letter described all the good deeds you are involved in, I would have said that I received a good letter from you. Now that you chose to write a letter about the pitfalls you face and your spiritual failures, I say that I received a very good letter from you.”
Imagine the student’s feeling upon reading the response Discussion of his failures makes his letter “very good?”
Rabbi Hutner points out the underlying mistake that made this student feel so despondent. He writes:
“There is a terrible sickness among us. When we tell stories of a great man, a successful person, we only record their later years, when they already succeeding in becoming great, and we make it sound like that they were filled with perfection from birth rather than it coming from years and years of internal struggles.
I beg of you, don’t picture these great people as people who were born perfect, people are constantly with their good side. Rather, realize the greatness that these great people achieved is a result of a steady tenacious war against every base and low inclination.
Know, that when you feel your evil side, your failures, raging inside of you, it means that you are on par with the greatest of people.
Everyone is amazed at the purity of speech of the Chofetz Chaim, but who knows of the battles, struggles and obstacles, the slumps and regressions that the Chofetz Chaim encountered in his war with his evil side?
Know, however, my dear friend, that your soul is rooted not in the tranquility of the good side but rather in the battle of evil, of failures.
The expression, Lose a battle win a war, applies. Certainly you have stumbled and will stumble again, and in many battles you will fall. I promise you though, that after losing battles you will emerge victorious, Lose battles but win the wars.
The wisest of all men (King Solomon) said, A righteous man falls seven times and rises again.
Fools believe that the intent of this verse is to teach us something remarkable. The righteous man has fallen seven times and yet he rises. But the knowledgeable are aware that the essence of a righteous man, of a successful person rising, is by way of his seven falls. Because of his failures.”
Thanks Tim for the mention and for sharing the letter with people.
That letter is really valuable to me and it is something I read often which reminds me to get the original framed perhaps. That said, Rabbi Hutner was a great man and love the letters that were compiled in his book.
And you are right. Often people won’t hear what a person said because they are “against” them. Each live their own world instead of including each other in the same world.
Something to work on.
Yeh do you think we can get that whole world getting along thing sorted by New Year?
It’s a challenge and thanks to you for sending me the letter!
Great point . This reminds me of a lady that I am currently corresponding with . She is author of a fairly popular advice blog, but feels like a fraud because of mistakes and bad choices made a long time ago . We are not who we were unless we choose to remain stuck there.
Dan @ ZenPresence
Dan,
I feel this brings up another point. Not just about putting our differences aside and be willing to learn from each other…AND also to learn not to see the person in their past form.
Dan, get her to reframe her negative issues from the past so she can see them as crucial learning experiences.
If you have done that or you do do it and it doesn’t work, tell her to get over it!
No need to thank me for my genius life coaching advice ;-)
That’s a beautiful message. One delivered in the hardest of times, in a way that can truly resonate. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks for the kind comment mate!
Heartfelt – thank you!
You’re welcome!
Oh, I love this! Yes, messages come in all forms — and each one has something to teach us if we just get quiet and receptive enough to hear them.
I, personally, would find someone who had never struggled or failed terribly boring, and their deeds less heroic. But to admire someone who earned wisdom through his or her own failures…that is inspiring!
I recently edited a book by a former gang member, now turned inspirational speaker, author, and musician, who hangs out with some of the most famous personal development people around. He always says that he “took the manure of my life and turned it into spiritual fertilizer!”
I love stories like that last one. Of course many people believe change like that doesn’t happen and they are suspicious of those that claim to be on the straight and narrow.
But seeing as I’m on an arrogant streak from above, they’re ALL wrong ;-)
And I can prove it because I have changed massively. I used to have hair!
In general I do try to evaluate ideas by their intrinsic merit alone, rather than by their source.
I look at how logical and rational an idea sounds, whether the evidence stacks up, whether it fits with my existing beliefs, and so on.
All those things are far more important than *who* came up with the idea.
However, as humans we create generalisations because most of the time they serve us well. So, for example, if I see a desperate-looking guy standing in front of me me with a knife, demanding my money, I’m unlikely to ask him for his opinion on creationism. Sure, the guy may have some nugget of wisdom to impart to me, but it’s fleetingly unlikely.
Yes, from time-to-time religious figures may provide some useful more guidance. But we don’t need religion for morality. And I would argue that there are many secular guides to morality that are far more consistent, logical and useful than anything any of the Judeo-Christian religions have spouted.
*Steps down off soap box*
Rob,
The last paragraph, I can debate with and I am sure others can as well.
As a Jew, therefore Judaism is my religion, it is not a third party infiltrating who I am. It is a CORE of who I am. It is part of me.
Being a Jew is not a nationality. Ask any person, who was born Jewish, what is his nationality, he will say Jewish even if he was born in Israel.
That said, as for guides of living a good life, I would ask let’s go through history and you will find how religion impacted many aspects of our current way of living. Sure, there are the bad and yes, there are plenty of good.
What are the goods? Well, I can only speak for the Jewish nation but you will find that from over 2000 years ago till today, plenty of records that show the literacy rates were the highest to be found in the known world. Woman rights was already within who we are.
Now, of course, I am biased. And I can quote all day from books I have read on many religions.
Now, it may be logical not to kill – but is it? During the times of the Romans/Greeks killing was a sport.
Heck, they have killed their own kids (not talking abortion) if the child was sick or a girl. Or maybe cuz’ they couldn’t afford.
Even Aristotle, the fame philosopher rationalized doing so.
I don’t know if it true, and nor if I am communicating clearly during this writing (as I am just writing my thoughts as they come – usually how I write) but I am willing to say that any morality we have today was influenced somehow by religion.
And that said, in terms of guides, in Judaism there are books we call “sifrei mussar” which are books of ethics. Students spend hours studying it in becoming a better person.
It is, in a way, reading this blog or listening to Tony Robbins. Becoming a better person is the goal. Becoming an ethical person.
There’s a lot to say but I hope I got you thinking just a bit differently.
Again, no to agree with me, but to see it in a different light (and I do understand what you are saying as corruption is all over the place).
I think the core of this is that we all tend to seek out information from sources which resonate with our existing beliefs and attitudes.
When I was a teenager, I was strongly religious (Evangelical Christian). But there were enough aspects that I disagreed with to put me off for life.
This is the core problem for me: Life is short and I don’t have time to waste on certain information sources if there’s a high probability I’ll strongly disagree with significant chunks of it. I do try to be open-minded, but I also have limits to my tolerance.
For example, if I’m reading a book and there’s enough stuff in there that annoys me (usually because it is illogical or narrow-minded), I’ll just stop reading that book and will probably never read anything else by that author again.
I rely on people like Tim, who have higher patience levels than I do, to find the rare gems in weird and wonderful sources where I’m unlikely to ever look myself. Tim enjoys that kind of research. I don’t!
Please see below as I wrote my response there.
“ It is a CORE of who I am. It is part of me.”
Hm, I’m not sure about that Roy. I get what you mean, but your religious beliefs are acquired and hypothetically if Judaism were to disappear overnight, you would still be left.
Playing Devils Advocate, I agree that we don’t need religion to provide us with morality. However, a lot of people have acquired morality through their Church and all major religions have done amazing work to help the underprivileged.
Have they also been corrupt and had self serving, hypocritical and even criminal people within their midst? Of course, but to me that’s just a law of averages thing the same as there will always be corrupt people in the Police etc.
My main beef with religions (and Roy gets a pass here for obvious reasons) is the way they try and force their beliefs upon others. That becomes a heightened sense of their own values and is nothing short of sheer arrogance with occasionally some stupidity thrown in to the mix.
I gotcha about the core statement. You are right, I am me and would I do the things I do if Judaism wasn’t here, for most part no. But that’s the challenge.
As for the religion and nationality, that’s the thing. The Jewish people is not a religion – it is a nation. Even the most nonreligious person will say he is a Jew. That is what I meant it is part of our identity.
As for pushing religion down people’s throat, we have all seen it. Yes, Judaism too.
And it doesn’t work. The way it works, if you want to attract people, is to become a role model and serve people. To do your thing and be an ethical person.
One of the sayings from our Rabbis, in the book Ethics Of The Fathers (worth reading either way) is “derech eretz kadma latorah.” Which means being a mentsch, an ethical person, a person with manners comes BEFORE observing any Torah laws (religion).
Sadly, some don’t remember that. But many do and they live the life as role models setting examples for many others.
OK, this is gonna sound interesting regarding Judaism. We do not seek out people to convert. Heck, we make it so hard for you to convert that many get turned off. The reason for this is many and won’t go into details here but it is something we do.
As for within the Jewish people, there is a concept called “kiruv” which is a Orthodox Jewish outreach movement. But even here, successful ones, don’t come and yell at you for not doing the *right* thing. We invite you to our home. We feed you. We learn more about you. We serve you. And usually, the person becomes interested in what we do and end up becoming more observant over time.
But shoving down people’s throat doesn’t work and it is why people get turned off even within the nation (until they see a different side to us).
As for what Rob say staying open minded and yet not agreeing with the law of his religion, well, I can relate as they are stuff that I don’t understand in Judaism, yet, I observe it because doing so is important to me. It is part of the struggles and challenges.
During the holocaust, while Jews were being murdered, many still held onto their faith, even singing while on the way to the death chambers. Why? I don’t know. But I do know they value their religion.
Now, here’s another thing. In Judaism, we do not modernize the law. In the over 2500 years that we are a nation, whatever can be kept today is kept and observed like it was on day 1. Nothing is changed. What changed is the environment and we apply the laws to them, not allow the environment to change the law. Unlike today’s Christianity that changed so many times over the years – well, then this happens and people get turned off.
Listen, in the Torah it says that gay sex is not allowed. Cool. But that doesn’t mean I am going to ban gay marriages. Heck, do what you like and I am still your friend.
The Torah says don’t eat pigs. Do you see me saying “I’ll kill you if you do?” Nope.
Our role is DERECH ERETZ – being ethical and having manners. Being a role model for all.
When people meet me, in all modesty, they love me. Religious or not. Why? Cuz’ I am not looking at them as a religion, rather I see them as a person. What I do is what I do and what they do, they do.
If that person is “astray” – now this word can apply religiously or just in life in general – I will become closer to the person, learn more about them and just serve as a role model (and have done so successfully and have over 100 people like that, if not more).
I struggle with my own religion plenty, but here is what I do know – I am here to serve and be the best me I can so others can be elevated in their own ways.
Jewish or not, religion or not, manners come first.
(Again, I just wrote and wrote and allowed what’s in my mind to speak).