Mentch Before Ruchnius?

I have read the idea "emotional health comes before spiritual growth" several times and have wondered about it.  Sometimes it's couched as "first he needs to become a mentch, then we can work on his ruchnius." It is in the context of those off the derech or those having personal problems.

I can see that if someone is an emotional mess, they are in no position to listen to a shiur.  But they could very well be encouraged to do a mitzvah!

In the book Incredible, the story is told of Yossi Gevili, an inmate in an Israeli prison who showed up at an Arachim seminar.  He was on furlough, only his second one in seven years because after he was allowed out the first time and got into a fight, they were hesitant about letting him out again.  This time, he figured the safest place for him was at an Arachim seminar.

Yossi Gevili had been one of the worst prisoners at the prison.  He did not get along with anyone, he argued constantly, was mean, and broke all the rules.  When he returned to the prison after the seminar, he was a different person, polite, and he started using a siddur.  Four days at the Arachim seminar made him into a baal teshuva and model citizen.

Arachim personnel found him a job when he was released and gave him the support he needed to stay on track. He married and settled down and gave his mother nachas.

So here was a man who was difficult inmate in a prison who did not first undergo therapy or any sort of program to address his emotional state of being, his obnoxious behavior, and his anger.  He was exposed to Torah lectures and this changed his life.

Mentchlichkeit

-Someone spends many hours preparing for a shiur and delivers it.  He finds out that someone else heard his shiur and delivered it without crediting him and is hurt. 

-Someone spends many hours preparing for a shiur and as soon as he gives it, he puts it up online so that others can use it for their own audiences.  He is happy to enable others to benefit from his work.

-Someone writes a poem.  Someone else submits it to a contest under their own name.

-Someone pays an architect a lot of money to design a house.  A wealthy person, who is building a house two houses over, calls and asks whether they can use the blueprints to build the identical house.  This is without offering to pay anything.  The person gives them the blueprints while thinking it was quite a chutzpa to have asked for it gratis.

-Someone buys a stunning accessory to wear with her dress.  A relative asks her where she bought it and she tells her.  The relative buys the identical accessory and they both regularly show up at the same simchas wearing the same thing.

-A kalla find a beautiful outfit, a sample piece, and has it customized to her specifications.  Someone in her circle sees it and copies it and shows it up wearing it, just like her.

-A person bakes delicious cookies and is asked for the recipe.  She declines to give it because if she does, then she won't be the only who knows how to make these cookies.  They are her specialty.

-A woman shows up at a wedding wearing the same gown as one of the wedding party and a member of the wedding party tells her, in no uncertain terms, to go home and change.

-A creative person designs unique shalach manos and others copy it.

-A new minyan is started that siphons off people from an existing shul.

-There is a shiur that takes place which is well attended.  Someone in the neighborhood decides to start another shiur and this takes away people from the first shiur.

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When do you say, "zeh neheneh, v'zeh lo choser" (this one benefits and the other one does not lose out)?

How should copying clothes, decorations, etc. be regarded - as complimentary or a chutzpa?

When does geneivas daas apply? Must everything be credited to the originator?

There are halachos of hasagas gevul - of not being allowed to encroach by, for example, opening an identical type of store in an area which cannot support them both.  From what I've learned, this generally does not apply to Torah, though perhaps it depends on the circumstances.

In some of these cases, there may not be an outright right or wrong, but perhaps that is where the mitzvah "You shall do that which is right and proper (haYashar v'haTov)" [Devorim 6:18] comes in.

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This is something to think about when we are the person who is being asked for something or copied, and it is something to think about when we want to ask for something or copy someone else.  Be forewarned, people have strong feelings on this subject!

Does It Work Both Ways?

There is an ongoing discussion in R' Grylak's column in Mishpacha magazine about parents who expel their wayward children from their homes.  He is incredulous that parents can do this, especially to 15-16 year old girls.

A rabbi who founded a home for these homeless girls tells R' Grylak that it is the shame the parents feel because of their child, the feeling of betrayal, that she humiliated them in front of the world.  "After we sacrificed so much for her, after we nurtured and raised her, she turns around and spits in our faces?" And he says that throwing her out is their revenge.

R' Grylak then goes on to elaborate on the erroneous idea that parents have that their children are their personal property which is why they feel so deeply ashamed and hurt when their children reject their upbringing.

When I read this, my mind went off on a tangent.  According to R' Grylak's reasoning, there would be no good reason for parents to kvell and feel nachas when their children do well.  If, according to him, we should not feel ashamed if our children do things to reject our teachings, by the same token, should we not feel proud and thrilled when our children embrace our teachings?

The Long View

Due to extenuating circumstances, I did not attend my usual exercise class one day, quite an anomaly for me.  When I sounded a bit discomfited by my absence, someone said to me, in twenty years it won't make a difference ...

Now that is true.  But I think my habit of exercising will made a difference in twenty years or I wouldn't be doing it.  So although missing a single class won't made a difference, it is the aggregate of my weekly exercise sessions that will make a difference. 

So is the "it won't make a difference in twenty years" a good outlook or not to have? As is often the case, it depends what it is applied to.  If it is something trivial that will be long forgotten twenty years hence, but is disappointing or annoying now, then yes, it is a positive outlook.  But if it is applied to life's daily decisions ("one cookie now won't make a difference in twenty years"), those decisions add up.

That leads to the another point - is it said after the fact or before.  If it is a way to minimize the discomfort of something that already happened, that could be a good thing.  If it is used as a way of making decisions, it could easily lead to poor choices.

Is He Really Doing His Best?

Shais Taub found it necessary to write a lengthy (more than a page) explanation about his use of the phrase "he was doing his best" in a previous article.  It leaves me wondering what the point is in using a phrase that is so puzzling that it needs that much explaining. 

I remember coming across the phrase, "He is doing the best he can with the tools he has" in Miriam Adahan's writings years ago, and not liking it.  Why? Because it isn't true.  I assume that if I am not always doing the best I can, neither are other people.  After all, how often are we actually doing the best we can.  If someone offered us a million dollars to do better, wouldn't we do better? Quite likely!

Taub says, "When looking at a person's behavior, we have to take into account all sorts of factors ... the best that they were able to do at that moment, with the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities they had at that time.  These factors include their experiences, their education, whether they had enough sleep last night, and so on."

He goes on to say that none of these factors are excuses and they don't absolve anyone of anything.  They just help explain the rationale behind someone's behavior.  He goes through all this explaining in order, he says, to help us see that the problem is with the other person, not us.  But then I don't accept this line either, "They were pathetically incapable of doing better." Sure they were! But for some reason, Taub wants to use these phrases which aren't true, while simultaneously saying, the person should have done something to become the kind of person that doesn't do those bad things.

I can see thinking through various factors to explain someone's unacceptable behavior; we do this when we are judging someone favorably.  But why not simply say: "Their behavior was unacceptable; They could have done better; It was hard for them because of bad habits/poor role models/difficult personality, etc.?"