Gratitude to Greatness

Week #2: Gratitude to Friends

How do you understand the different relationship one has with a friend and a sibling as described in Mishlei?

Dovid meets Mefiboshet

1. How did Dovid treat Mephiboshet?

2. Why did Dovid care so much about Mephiboshet?

3. What does this teach us about the importance of gratitude to friends?

Week #3 Greatness of Community

The relationship between the Jewish people and its individual members is different than the relationship between any other national group and its constituents. All other national groups only bestow upon their individual members the external aspect of their essence. But the essence itself each person draws from the all-inclusive soul, from the soul of God, without the intermediation of the group... This is not the case regarding Israel. The soul of the individuals is drawn from ... the community, the community bestowing a soul upon the individuals. One who considers severing himself from the people must sever his soul from the source of its vitality. Therefore each individual Jew is greatly in need of the community. He will always offer his life so that he should not be torn from the people, because his soul and self-perfection require that of him. (Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, Orot, p. 144)

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, On Repentance, pp. 114-115

Judaism has always viewed man from this dual perspective. It sees every person as an independent individual and also as part of a community, a limb of the body of Israel. Jewish thinkers have conducted an ongoing dialectic on this subject throughout the ages. The pivotal question is: Does the individual stand above the community which should serve its needs, or should the individual subordinate himself to the community's needs? In Judaism this question has been asked in relation to the individual who serves as a community leader. Who, in our history, was a greater leader than Moses, redeemer of Israel, the great rabbi and teacher, about whom our Sages wrote that his worth was equivalent to that of six hundred thousand men, meaning the total number of the male community of his time? Nonetheless, when the children of Israel fashioned the Golden Calf, "God said to Moses, 'Go down - lower yourself down; for did I not grant you greatness only to benefit Israel? And now that Israel has sinned, what need have I of you?'" (Berakhot 32b). Even the greatness of an individual like Moses is dependent upon the community. It would seem that the community and the individual are placed in balance with each other and are interdependent. At times we find that the community must sacrifice itself on behalf of the individual ... And at times the individual must sacrifice himself for the good of the community.

Never is the individual's worth belittled when measured against the whole community; and never is the community undermined because of any individual or individuals. Each has its own position of strength.

The Stories That Bind Us

The New York Times, March 15, 2013

Bruce Feiler

...Around that time, Dr. Duke’s wife, Sara, a psychologist who works with children with learning disabilities, noticed something about her students.

“The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she said.

Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis. They developed a measure called the “Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions.

Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?

Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness...

Psychologists have found that every family has a unifying narrative, he explained, and those narratives take one of three shapes.

First, the ascending family narrative: “Son, when we came to this country, we had nothing. Our family worked. We opened a store. Your grandfather went to high school. Your father went to college. And now you. ...”

Second is the descending narrative: “Sweetheart, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.”

“The most healthful narrative,” Dr. Duke continued, “is the third one. It’s called the oscillating family narrative: ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.’ ”

Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have what he and Dr. Fivush call a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.

Leaders in other fields have found similar results. Many groups use what sociologists call sense-making, the building of a narrative that explains what the group is about.

Jim Collins, a management expert and author of “Good to Great,” told me that successful human enterprises of any kind, from companies to countries, go out of their way to capture their core identity. In Mr. Collins’s terms, they “preserve core, while stimulating progress.” The same applies to families, he said.

Mr. Collins recommended that families create a mission statement similar to the ones companies and other organizations use to identify their core values.

The military has also found that teaching recruits about the history of their service increases their camaraderie and ability to bond more closely with their unit.

Cmdr. David G. Smith is the chairman of the department of leadership, ethics and law at the Naval Academy and an expert in unit cohesion, the Pentagon’s term for group morale. Until recently, the military taught unit cohesion by “dehumanizing” individuals, Commander Smith said. Think of the bullying drill sergeants in “Full Metal Jacket” or “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

But these days the military spends more time building up identity through communal activities. At the Naval Academy, Commander Smith advises graduating seniors to take incoming freshmen (or plebes) on history-building exercises, like going to the cemetery to pay tribute to the first naval aviator or visiting the original B-1 aircraft on display on campus.

Dr. Duke recommended that parents pursue similar activities with their children. Any number of occasions work to convey this sense of history: holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers, even a ride to the mall. The hokier the family’s tradition, he said, the more likely it is to be passed down. He mentioned his family’s custom of hiding frozen turkeys and canned pumpkin in the bushes during Thanksgiving so grandchildren would have to “hunt for their supper,” like the Pilgrims.

“These traditions become part of your family,” Dr. Duke said.

Greatness of Judaism

Leo Tolstoy, What is the Jew? quoted in The Final Resolution p. 189, The Jewish World Periodical, 1908

What is the Jew? … What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish? What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?! The Jew – is the symbol of eternity … He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.

Rabbi Reuven Leuchter – Chosen for bringing a third dimension to the world.

The focus of non-Jewish life is earthly existence, incorporating a broad range of norms all geared toward the ordering and taking full advantage of the world on a “two-dimensional” plane. The Seven Noahide Commandments all reflect this idea: they relate to life within the set boundaries of physical existence, within an autonomous world that knows only two dimensions.

The Sages thus term non-Jewish nations “Nations of the World.” They are essentially “of the world.”

Jewish life, by way of contrast, revolves around a third dimension, a plane of existence that connects the physical world with a higher, Divine existence. Unlike the Nations of the World, the deeds with which Israel is charged are therefore little understood by their human perpetrators – for they pertain to a Divine sphere that is “not of the world.”

The Purple Jacket

There was once a king who was just, wise, and powerful. He had only one problem; his subjects were rotten. Throughout his kingdom there was rampant dishonesty and theft. Killing and stealing were common. Whatever he tried, he could not change them … Eventually he left his kingdom and built another one. It was a wonderful place with every amenity. He advertised that only those who agreed to live at the highest ethical level could come. Many did come and for a while, everything was great. Eventually, however, stories of crime began to circulate. The king despaired. What could he do now? His closest advisor suggested, “Call in a select few and give them a special training course in the highest standards of behavior. Then give them a mission to be examples to others and a special uniform: a purple jacket.”

At first the plan went wonderfully. The behavior of the entire nation began to improve. When a man began to argue with his wife, he would pause and ask, “What would a Purple Jacket Person do?” When someone had an opportunity to cheat someone else out of some money, he would ask, “What would a Purple Jacket Person do?”

But over time things started to slip. The king began to hear reports that even the Purple Jacket People were beginning to act badly. He told them that he had no choice. Since they had the mission to uphold the highest moral standards, and they were known as his representatives, they would have to be punished to show everyone that such behavior was not correct.

Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb

Are all people created equal?

Descriptive equality: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal …” The Declaration of Independence thus states its belief that people are in fact equal to one another … Now in some respects this is clearly true. We are all born … we all die, we all breathe, eat, sleep, excrete, etc. Certain experiences affect us with pleasure (love, success, ice cream) and pain (failure, a visit to the dentist). But in other respects it is clearly false. We vary considerably in physical characteristics (height, weight, strength, coordination, color, beauty), intelligence, personality traits (sympathy, sensitivity, industry, self-control) and certain sources of pleasure (Bach is preferred by some, the Beatles by others). Given all these differences, does a blanket assertion of equality make any sense? … What we cannot do is oppose chosenness by a blind, blanket commitment to equality: “You say Jews are different? We believe that all people are equal so you must be wrong” … Thus Judaism has no difficulty with descriptive equality.

Ideal equality: This idea takes for granted that people are different, and should be treated differently. It asserts that one goal of this treatment ought to be the reduction of differences between people, insofar as this is possible … This is an ideal with which Judaism can wholly agree. Chosenness in no way opposes efforts to reduce differences, when those efforts take realistic account of the inherent limitations the differences impose.

Rabbi Tzvi Freedman

Do we exclude others? Absolutely not. Any person who wishes to join the Jewish people and their holy mission is welcome, regardless of race, color, sex or family background. We only ask that they commit to keeping the rules God gave us, just as the Jewish people accepted those rules when they received the Torah at Mount Sinai some 3,300 years ago. And if they opt not to join, we believe that the righteous people among the nations will share in the rewards of the time to come. I don’t know of any other religion so liberal as to say such a thing: You don’t have to join us, you don’t have to do the things we do, just believe in One God and fulfill the basic requirements of every human being to society, and you’re in.