The Secret of Rebuke

 

It is an important thing to give rebuke, and every Jew is required to admonish his friend when he sees that he is not behaving properly, as it is written, “you shall surely rebuke your fellow man” (Leviticus 19:17).   Nevertheless, not everyone is capable of giving rebuke.  Rabbi Akiva said, “I would be amazed to find someone in our generation who knows how to give rebuke,” (Archin 16b) and if Rabbi Akiva said this about his generation, how much more is it true today.

 

In most cases, when one person tries to rebuke another, he only makes matters worse.  Not only does he fail to improve the other person, but he also leaves his soul with a “bad smell” – the smell of all the misdeeds and bad character traits he is trying to correct.  It is like trying to clean up a pile of rotten, malodorous material that was lying in the same place for a long time.  As long as it stays undisturbed, it won’t smell too bad.  But if someone starts poking around and stirring it up, there will be a terrible smell.

 

And when a soul is tainted with such a “bad smell,” it becomes weaker, and it loses many of the positive spiritual influences that it previously enjoyed … for a soul is nourished primarily through the sense of smell …

 

When, on the other hand, rebuke is offered by a person who is worthy of doing so, he brings a precious fragrance into the soul of his listener… and this gives the soul new sources of nourishment (Likutey Moharan II:8).

 

To understand this, we must realize that there are two different types of rebuke.  The first kind is called for when we see another Jew committing a sin.  It is regarding this type of rebuke that the Torah writes: “You shall surely rebuke your neighbour.”  Since your neighbour is obligated to keep the Torah and to fulfill the mitzvot, you too have an obligation to persuade him not to sin.  This type of rebuke is one of the 613 mitzvot, and when the situation arises, everyone is required to give it.  This is not the kind of rebuke that Rebbe Nachman is talking about when he says that not everyone is capable of giving rebuke.  Nor is it what Rabbi Akiva meant when he said, “I would be amazed to find someone in our generation who knows how to give rebuke.”

 

 

Rabbi Nachman is speaking about a different situation, one in which we see a Jew who “is not behaving properly,” who has taken a wrong turn in life.  Perhaps he has fallen into the pursuit of honor, wealth, or physical pleasure, jealousy, self-centeredness, anger or resentment.  Instead of trying to come closer to God, he has become obsessed with transient pleasures.  This does not mean that he has abandoned the path of Torah, but that his thoughts are preoccupied by false goals, to which he devotes the majority of his energy.  This second type of rebuke is necessary in order to help such a person change the direction of his life.

 

I once heard a parable that illustrates the necessity of this kind of rebuke.  A group of men went on an expedition to collect pearls from the ocean floor.  They descended in a bathysphere to the depths of the ocean, taking a small amount of food and drink, and when they reached the bottom each man was given a short time in which to collect as many pearls as he could.  For some strange reason, one of the men forgot the entire purpose of the journey, and instead of collecting pearls, he decided to spend his time eating and drinking.  Could there be any greater act of love than to remind such a person of the true purpose of his descent?  What a pity for every moment lost…every second could be worth a fortune!

 

The meaning of the parable is clear.  People sometimes take a wrong turn in life.  One man starts to devote all his energy to worldly goals – honor, wealth, or physical pleasure – and he completely forgets the true purpose for which his soul came into the world.  Another is unable to control his anger.  He is furious at someone who hurt him, and for years his mind may be preoccupied with thoughts of revenge and cruelty (See Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah, 2:10).  Another person is filled with jealousy and can’t see anyone else’s success without harboring a sense of resentment and deprivation.  It is very difficult for such people to come closer to God or to take pleasure in Torah and mitzvot; they are trapped by their own obsessions.  This is not to say that they have abandoned the path of Torah – just that they are devoting most of their time and energy to goals that are ultimately false and worthless.

           

In a deeper, spiritual sense, however, such people are practising a kind of idolatry.  The First Commandment is: “I am the Lord your God,” and the Second Commandment is: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”   In truth, as soon as a person starts to move away from the First Commandment, he automatically begins to transgress the Second.  As soon as God is no longer the focus of his thoughts and the purpose of his actions – as soon as he imagines that there is “something else,” something “apart from God” to which he ought to devote his energies – he is already involved in a kind of rarefied idolatry.  When a person agrees to serve a purpose that is not God’s purpose, be it some desire or ideology based upon the false values of this world, he is  no longer really serving God.  When he devotes himself to worthless goals, or allows himself to be directed by false ideals, he has agreed, in effect, to put some “other god” before the true Creator.

 

 

It is very difficult to help a person who has dedicated himself to the wrong goals.  For it is not merely one sin that must be addressed – his whole life must be redirected!  Not everyone has the ability to talk to such a person in a way that will be helpful, especially if the latter has already wasted years of his life on empty pursuits.  Only a counselor with wisdom, sensitivity, and tremendous skill can reawaken a longing for God in such a person.  To separate such a person from his “idols” and return him to the path of life requires great personal compassion and also special assistance from heaven.

 

Once, in the town of Berditchov, near the home of the Tzaddik, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok, a woman lived with her young son.  Some foolishness had entered the boy’s mind, and his only desire was to run away and play with his non-Jewish neighbors.  His mother was worried that he was falling away from Judaism, and she tried to watch him constantly.  One day, however, he managed to slip out of the house.  As his mother saw him running away, she called out with a broken heart, “My little son, My little son, where are you going?” (I heard this story from Rabbi Eliyahu Chaim Rosen, zt”l, of Jerusalem)

 

 

How can we help a person who is running after a life of emptiness?  How can we give him a new appreciation for spirituality and holiness?

 

God can certainly imbue a person with a spirit of holiness, as we see in His words to the prophet Yeshaya, “My mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, or the mouths of your children, or the mouths of your children’s children, says God, from now and forever (Yeshaya 59:21).  Such a spirit of holiness will bring a person to a new comprehension of Godliness, and to an even higher level of awareness that could be described as a “scent from the Garden of Eden.”  A person who receives these gifts from above will experience such a delightful sweetness and such a wondrous vitality that he will be filled with an inner longing to return to God and a strong determination to fulfil the true purpose for which he came into this world.

           

If only we could imbue a person with such a spirit of holiness, then he himself would sense what is truly valuable in life.  But to be able to bring a spirit of holiness to another person’s heart – that is truly an art!  Not everyone can do it.  And that is what Rabbi Nachman means when he says that not everyone is capable of giving rebuke.

 

 

Dovid Hamelech (King Dovid) said, “My spirit fails; hide not your face from me” (143:7).  It is well known that when Dovid wrote the Book of Psalms, he spoke not only for himself, but for every Jewish soul (See Likutey Moharan 11:101).  Sometimes, a person can sin so much that he loses the spirit of holiness with which he was originally endowed.  As long as a trace of that holiness remains, it will cause him to experience feelings of remorse, and this can lead him to return to God.  But if that spirit of holiness leaves him, it can be replaced by a spirit without desire for God, and then he can fall to the lowest level.  Such a person needs tremendous compassion from God in order to return.

           

Sins we have committed, mistakes we have made, and all the trials and tribulations of life can exhaust our strength and spirit, until it seems that God is hiding His face.  Speaking for all those who have experienced such a state, Dovid Hamelech calls out, “If the spirit of holiness fails me, God, do not hide Your face entirely.  Let Your light shine within me and imbue me with a new spirit, and then I will be able to come close to You.”

 

 

To help a person whose spirit has failed, who needs to change the entire direction of his life, it is not enough to admonish him – we must renew his spirit.  For if we criticize him, he will react negatively, and he will only become more entrenched in his position.  Any rebuke that focuses on his faults, especially if it is given without compassion, will only convince him that we want to hurt him, and he will react with anger.  As a result he may lose even the small amount of goodness that is still within him.

 

Isn’t it obvious that any attempt to rebuke such a person with threats or with sharp, stinging words will be counterproductive?  When a person’s life is misguided, when he already thinks that bad is good, and good is bad, how can it help to scold him?  He won’t listen at all, and he certainly won’t change for the better.  

 

 

If you want to help such a person return to God, you must bring him a new holiness that is drawn down from the higher worlds.  You must bring him a fragrance from the Garden of Eden that will imbue in him a new desire for holiness.

 

The Rambam (Maimonides) writes that physical illness can confuse the sense of taste.  To a sick person, bitter food can taste sweet, and sweet food can taste bitter.  The same is true, he says, for diseases of the soul.  A person who is spiritually sick may be attracted to false ideas and bad midot, and he may hate those that are true and good.  He may come to believe that evil is good, and good is evil (Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Deot 2:1)  Such a person is obviously in grave danger, and in desperate need of help.  Nevertheless, if he is rebuked improperly, it will not help at all.

           

The only way to help such a person is to bring him a fragrance from the Garden of Eden.  You must help him to experience the delightful beauty of holiness, to sense a glimmer of the bliss that comes from a comprehension of Godliness.  Since he cannot reach this on his own, you must bring it down for him from a higher level.  Such an experience will pull him toward holiness, and he will immediately realize that he has been striving for the wrong goals.  He himself will be filled with a strong desire to become good.  But only a person who can awaken such feeling should attempt to give rebuke.

 

I have heard it said in the name of the Baal Shem Tov that a teacher who does not study Zohar cannot help his students to acquire a holy soul.  Only a teacher who studies the Zohar, one who has internalized the inner light and holiness of the Torah, can help his students to make that light and holiness a part of their own souls.

           

The same applies to giving rebuke.  In order to awaken a desire for holiness, it is not enough to say the right words.  The words must be spoken by a person with a “voice of holiness,” a voice that reveals the holiness within his own soul.  Only such a person can strengthen the good in his listener and fill him with a new desire for holiness.

 

 

(Excerpt from The Scent of Gan Eden, by Rabbi Yaakov Meir Shechter, Keren Ohr Publications. Used with author’s permission.)