The Talmud in Yoma teaches that one should always speak gently to one’s fellow human beings. Speaking gently encourages us to regard all those to whom we speak as equals. When we order others about, we tend to think of them as inferiors. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin in Codes of Jewish Ethics warns that we should be particularly careful to speak in a gentle manner to children, employees, and those with whom we disagree. Also, we should use such expressions as “Would you be so kind?” or “Please.”
Yossel Czapnik told me that a fellow in Borough Park was having his home painted by a black painter. The homeowner, together with the painter, were removing all of the paintings hung on the wall before starting the job. One of the framed enlargements was a photograph of the Bobover Rebbe, zt”l.
The painter inquired if this rebbe was the homeowner’s rabbi. The man shook his head, but the painter still had more to ask.
“Why isn’t he your rabbi?”
A tad exasperated, the man dismissed the query and said, “Let’s get on with the job.”
“But why isn’t he your rabbi?” the painter insisted.
Annoyed about questions from one who knew nothing about what he was inquiring, the man pressed that it was time to resume the job. “There are plenty of rabbis hanging on the wall, but they are not necessarily my rabbi. Can we please get on with the job?!”
“But he’s my rabbi,” the painter said with pride, and pulled out a photo of the Rebbe from his wallet.
The homeowner became totally agog as he looked in gape-jawed wonder at a black laborer who was proudly displaying a photograph he kept next to George Washington, Abe Lincoln and Andrew Jackson.
The painter explained how he acquired the Bobover Rebbe as his rabbi. “One morning I was painting the rabbi’s home when he walked in and immediately asked me if I had eaten breakfast. When I replied in the negative he waited upon me, and after serving me a full meal, he said, ‘I want to tell you something.’
“I knew just what he was going to say, as my customers all tell me the same thing, ‘I’m paying you good money, I want a perfect job.’ But this is not what the Rebbe said to me.
“He taught, ‘We once had a world of perfection and everything was the way it was supposed to be. But because of our sins, the Temple was destroyed and ever since we have not had a perfect world. I therefore cannot ask you to do a perfect job, but I would like you to try your hardest.’
“And you know how it is,” the painter continued, “he recommended me to hundreds of his followers. Not one of them ever offered me breakfast, but they all tell me, ‘I’m paying you good money, I want a perfect job.’
“And I say back to them, ‘You want a perfect job?! There is no Temple, how could you seek any other perfection?”
A well-known radio show host has made the point that you can learn far more about a young man’s character by how he interacts with the waiter than how he treats his date. And although one need not be humble to treat a waiter pleasantly and decently, I have yet to see an exception to this rule.
One last story, one that I know for a fact to be true, which depicts how humility and pleasantness are wed. I wish I could use the real names in this story, but as the protagonist is so humble, identifying him would be a cause of aggravation rather than pride. The fact that he would prefer – indeed insist – that he not be identified only proves my point.