Leveraging Love: Absorbing what we hear and clearing away the muck
Rabbi Shraga Simmons, educator and cofounder of the outreach sites aish.com and JewishPathways.com, poetically describes tochecha (rebuke) as “…the beauty of reality staring us squarely in the face.” Like a mysterious mirror, a rebuke reveals how we negotiate our delusions and their proximity to the ever-unfolding truth. Meant to be a gift that inspires transformation, tochecha, when received well, demonstrates that our yearning for spiritual evolution is stronger than our fear of change. A tochecha asks us to listen so that we may fully absorb what we hear and then get busy clearing away the muck.
The art of giving and receiving honest feedback or rebuke
Tochecha — the art of giving and receiving honest feedback or rebuke — is part of the biblical formula for sustaining friendships and relationships. According to the talmudic rabbis, it is an integral part of love; without tochecha, love cannot endure. (Bereshit Raba 54:3) I see evidence of this every day in my psychotherapy practice and personal life. Those who are skilled at giving and receiving feedback are able to sustain healthy relationships over the long term, while those who lack such skills are ill-equipped to deal with relationship challenges when they arise.
Redemption Song: Rebuking Mordechai Gafni
How do you give tochecha to someone you disdain, someone for whom you have no respect, someone you believe will never acknowledge it — and likely never change? Is such a thing possible, or even advisable? These were the questions I wrestled with three years ago, as I considered publicly rebuking Marc “Mordecai” Gafni. I leaned on the Talmud’s teaching that we should rebuke someone, even 100 times, but not say something if it would fall on “deaf” ears. (Baba Metzia, 31a)
The Dangers of Anonymity on the Internet
The Internet’s capacity to offer its users at least a modicum of anonymity (or pseudonymity) is, theoretically, one of its greatest strengths. Without it, dissident, marginalized, and otherwise ignored populations could not make their voices heard. Think of the LGBTQ activist in Russia or the Sudan, or the woman fighting for girls’ education in Afghanistan, or an undocumented immigrant mother highlighting the risks she takes to make a better life for her son: Shields of anonymity online protect these voices, creating more and better contributions to the marketplace of ideas.
NiSh’ma: Tochecha
Sh’ma Now offers three takes—Elana Hope Sztokman, Joshua Ladon, and Zohar Atkins—on the verse, “One who rebukes a person—an “adam”—will in the end find more favor than one who flatters.”
