A Lesson I’m Trying to Learn
A couple weeks ago my rabbi told me he was going to start fining me if I didn’t stop making self-deprecating remarks about myself. While I’m not sure he can actually make me pay up (good luck with that Reb) he does have a good point. I know that I often make at least self-deprecating if not downright disparaging comments about myself. I have a really hard time accepting credit and acknowledging that I’ve done something good or right. I am almost too humble or too modest to the point of it being a neurosis that is of course a symptom of my larger self-esteem issues.
In addition to trying to see the
shehecheyanu moments in my life I’ve also been trying to remember and actually believe a couple things. The first is that within every human there resides a Divine spark, that we’re all created in God’s image and for that reason alone I have value and worth. The second is the Talmudic teaching on the importance of a single life: “For this reason man was created alone, to teach thee that whatsoever destroys a single soul…scripture imputes to him as though he had destroyed a complete world, and whosoever preserves a single soul…scripture ascribes to him as though he had preserved a complete world.”
When you don’t feel that you’re a very valuable person it’s hard to believe those two teachings are about you. I’ve got no problem believing they’re about everyone else on earth but me? Not so much.
So today’s daily reading from
The Book of Jewish Values is particularly timely. The title of today’s lesson is
Don’t Speak Lashon Hara About Yourself. I’m just going to quote the final paragraph here and highly, highly encourage you to buy
this book no matter what your religious persuasion is. It’s a great book.
“While it’s good to be humble, the Chaffetz Chayyim’s tale reminds us that being modest does not mean denying one’s virtues or disparaging oneself. The Torah explicitly commands us to “love your neighbor as yourself”, implicitly commands us to love ourselves. And just as you would not wish to hear others speaking ill of someone whom you love, so too should you not speak ill of someone you are supposed to love: yourself.
May you have a Shabbat Shalom!
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