{"id":55260,"date":"2017-01-30T15:19:34","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T20:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=55260"},"modified":"2017-02-05T07:57:40","modified_gmt":"2017-02-05T12:57:40","slug":"just-be-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/just-be-nice\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Be Nice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I have observed a recurring theme in my own writing. In past articles on this site, I have advised:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">That, if we arrive at shul and someone is sitting in our usual place (<i>makom kavua<\/i>), that we not say, \u201cYou\u2019re in my seat,\u201d but rather just sit close by. This is actually the halacha, plus we won\u2019t embarrass and inconvenience a visitor;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">That we not use Hebrew or Yiddish words like \u201cgoy\u201d to describe people outside of our own communities. Even if the words are not inherently offensive and no affront is intended, others find them rude and condescending, if not overtly racist;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">That rather than marginalizing converts, we embrace them and welcome them into the community (which is actually a commandment repeated numerous times throughout the Torah);<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">That we call people by the names they want to be called \u2013 doing otherwise is immature and disrespectful;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">That we not make assumptions about Jews of color or ask them questions that we wouldn\u2019t ask people of our own races;<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Etc., etc., etc.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">All of these things boil down to one thing: just be nice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This is something we shouldn\u2019t need to be told as our literature is replete with this message. Nevertheless periodic reminders are necessary. Here\u2019s an abbreviated history of \u201cJust Be Nice\u201d:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">For starters, the Torah itself tells us, \u201cLove your neighbor as you do yourself\u201d (Leviticus 19:18). <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In the Sifra, Rabbi Akiva calls this mitzvah the central theme of the Torah. The scholar Ben Azzai, however, says that a different verse is greater still. He proposes Genesis 5:1 as the central theme of the Torah. This verse simply says, \u201cThis is the book of the generations of Adam.\u201d The danger with \u201cloving our neighbor as ourselves\u201d is the human tendency to justify hurting others because they fail to meet our definition of a \u201cneighbor.\u201d That is not the case with \u201cThis is the book of the generations of Adam.\u201d That verse reminds us that all of us, regardless of race, religion or politics, are all descended from the same progenitors. Differences notwithstanding, all of us constitute the family of mankind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In a famous incident, a non-Jew approached the sage Hillel saying, \u201cAccept me as a convert on the condition that you can teach me the entire Torah while I stand on one foot.\u201d Hillel replied, \u201cThat which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the entirety of the Torah, all the rest is commentary \u2013 now go and study it!\u201d (Talmud Shabbos 31a).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Sage Shammai taught us that we should greet everyone with a cheerful countenance (Avos 1:15). The Talmud tells us that Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai made it a practice to greet everyone he encountered first \u2013 not just Jews but even idolators that he met in the marketplace (Brachos 17a).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">King David taught that \u201cThe world was built on kindness\u201d (Psalms 89:3).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Rashi on Deuteronomy 34:8 cites Pirkei d\u2019Rabbi Eliezer, which observes that Aaron\u2019s passing was mourned more than Moshe\u2019s. The reason, we are told, is because as great as Moshe was, it was Aaron whose life work was making peace between people. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Talmud in Sukkah (49b) says that kindness is greater than charity in three ways: charity is performed with one\u2019s money, while kindness can be performed with one\u2019s money or with his body; charity is extended only to the poor, while kindness can be extended to both the poor and the rich; charity can be given only to the living, while kindness can be shown to both the living and the deceased.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Consider this: Exodus 23:5 tells us, \u201cIf you see your enemy\u2019s donkey struggling under its load\u2026help him, even many times.\u201d Now, one might think that this mitzvah is strictly because of <i>tzaar baalei chaim<\/i> \u2013 preventing needless suffering to animals \u2013 but the Talmud teaches us that it is also to overcome our tendency to mistreat one another. We are told explicitly that if one has the opportunity to assist either a friend or an enemy in unloading an animal, he must assist the enemy first in order to defeat the natural inclination to spite him (Baba Metzia 32b).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There are many more sources that one could cite. We see from all this that being kind is the central theme of the Torah \u2013 according to Hillel, it\u2019s the entirety of the Torah! The world was built on kindness, which can, should and must be performed with everyone \u2013 rich and poor, living and dead, friend and enemy alike! <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">None of this means that one can\u2019t have their own opinion or that we all have to be lockstep on matters of religion, politics or anything else. How boring would that be? We can disagree. There are times we probably should disagree. But how do we disagree? Are we respectful like the Sages Hillel and Shammai were to one another, or hostile and confrontational like Korach was to Moshe? (A reference to Avos 5:17.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Throughout the Talmud, nobody disagreed more than the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai. Their disagreements, however, were based upon a mutual respect and a shared interest in discovering the truth. Despite their longstanding debates on a wide array of subjects, the Talmud (Yevamos 14a) tells us that they did not refrain from marrying into one another\u2019s families (let alone eating in one another\u2019s homes!). This doesn\u2019t mean that they ignored their own understandings of the law. Rather, they knew that they could rely upon one another not to feed them anything they would consider inappropriate, let alone marry anyone they would consider prohibited.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Think I\u2019m wrong? Totally off-base? Feel free to disagree. Just, please\u2026 try to do so kindly. I will try my best to do likewise. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have observed a recurring theme in my own writing. In past articles on this site, I have advised: That, if we arrive at shul and someone is sitting in our usual place (makom kavua), that we not say, \u201cYou\u2019re in my seat,\u201d but rather just sit close by. This is actually the halacha, plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":55279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Just Be Nice - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I&#039;ve observed a recurring theme in my own writing. 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