Elana Hope Sztokman

NiSh’ma: Tochecha

Many who learned the wisdom of the talmudic sage Shmuel became masters of rebuke. But they gave rebuke to the wrong people over the wrong issues. Some threw stones at cars on Shabbat; some threw chairs at women praying at the Kotel. Some threw breastfeeding mothers out of shul or gay couples out of the community. Others threw angry glances at those whose ideas they did not comprehend. Some students of Shmuel made rebuke the central mitzvah of their lives, and it is hard to see how that kind of rebuke is an act of chesed, or lovingkindness.