Tikkun Middot at SAJ The Middah of Kavod כָּבוֹד

The Hebrew word kavod meaning RESPECT/DIGNITY/HONOR involves treating oneself and others in a way that reflects the reality that all people are created in the divine image.

In Jewish contexts, this word is used in the following ways:

(Demanding)

Antonym: Kal (Lightness, Easy, Lack of seriousness)

The word kavod comes from a Hebrew root meaning weighty or heavy. The diametric opposite is the word klala (curse) which comes from the Hebrew root meaning light. When I relate to someone with due seriousness I honor him/her, and if I treat him/her lightly, it is as if I curse him/her.

Honor is external behavior mandated by and appropriate to a reality of inner holiness. Behold, you have within you a holy divine image –this requires you to treat yourself with a certain level of self-respect.

Shalom Noach Barzofsky (The Slonimer Rebbe). This excerpt is a commentary on the quote above from Pirke Avot 4:1:

When the Mishnah asks, “Who is dignified?” it does not mean, “Who is made dignified by other people,” as is the common understanding. What value is there in being dependent on other people giving you dignity?

Rather, “Who is dignified? One who gives dignity to all people” is teaching that the gaze of one person to another is like glancing in the mirror – if his face is dirty he will see in the mirror a dirty face. So it is the same when a person looks at the other – the amount that he is pure and refined internally, so he will look more generously upon the other and see good attributes. On the other hand, if he is infected with bad attributes and behaviors, so he will see bad attributes in everyone else. Therefore, the truly dignified person is the one who treats all people with dignity, who appreciates all people. This behavior is the true sign that he is dignified himself.

Rav Kook teaches that "It is only when a person is in a state of low-level spirituality he will experience a desire to glorify himself before honoring others. Such a person will seek honor both through the virtues he possesses and with other virtues that he does not possess." When we need and seek recognition from others, it is a sure sign that we lack a deep sense of our own holiness and kavod.

(On Kavod:) Do not seek honor for yourself, but go out of your way to honor others.

Honoring others...does not mean giving up the power and practice of exercising judgment, but puts the focus on moving away from unwise, useless, habitual, and even destructive acts of judgment. We start to move in that direction when we recognize the roots of the problem lie in our own fears and our own inadequacies...that make us fear that others will not give us the honor we feel we want or need.

A Talk by Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel zt’l, the “Alter of Slobodka” (1849-1927). Translated by Rabbi Nosson Scherman, from the Greatness Within Website

We must recognize and know that the mitzvah to imitate God is not an impossible decree …to become different than we are; rather, this great mitzvah befits us, especially once God has revealed this great love by informing us that we were created in God’s image. The Divinity within us obligates us to become whom we really are in potential, whom we were created to be – to release the potential within each of us and become people who truly reflect God’s image.

"Woe to man who is unaware of his faults- he is not attentive to what needs repair. But double woe to he who is unaware of his virtues- he is unskilled in the tools of his trade!"

Kavod Practice from the Hasidic Sources“Azamrah” (I shall sing) from Likutei Mohoran (the teachings Reb Nahman of Bratslav)Excerpted and translated by Rabbi Jonah. C. Steinberg

Know that one must judge every person in a way that inclines toward merit, and even someone who is wicked, one must find in such a person some small bit of goodness, a grain of good in which that person is not wicked...

Because even if that person is wicked, how is it possible that there is not in that person yet a little good? For how is it possible that this person has never done some mitzvah[1] or some good thing ever?

And by means of your finding in the person just a little more good where that person is not wicked, and by your judging the person favorably, by means of that, you truly elevate the person to merit....

And likewise, one must find the same within one’s self. For this is well known, that one must be very careful to be in a state of joy always and to distance sadness very, very much. And even when one starts to look at one’s self and to feel that there isn’t any good in one’s self at all, and that one is full of transgressions, and the Accuser wants to topple one in this way into sorrow and darkest melancholy, God forbid, nonetheless, it is forbidden to succumb to this. For is it really possible that one has never done some mitzvah or good thing ever?

And even if, when one begins to search that good thing itself, one sees that it too is full of blemishes and that it too is not wholly sound – that is to say, one sees that even the mitzvah or the sacred thing that one merited to do is also full of distractions and foreign thoughts and many faults – even so, how is it possible that there should not be in that mitzvah or sacred act some small bit of good?

And so one must search out and gather more and more points of goodness, and in this way, melodies are made.