Hello and welcome to our Relationship Enrichment Seminar. My name is Shlomo Shulman and I'll be your facilitator today. This week, we'll cull our Revolutionary Relationship Enrichment Tip from an unusual source. Not from some pop psychologist. Not from any billionaire New Age Guru. This week's Revolutionary Relationship Enrichment Tip comes from our weekly Torah Portion: Vayechi.

Before we begin, let's see how much we already know about our Torah's advice for relationships. How about a quiz? When people we care about engage in activities that are self-destructive or self-defeating or offensive to others, in what manner does the Torah instruct us to correct them? Do we: A) stone them; B) tell them they're going to burn; or C) criticize the negative behavior, but not the individual?

Which one did you guess? If you guessed A or B, then you've heard too many television evangelists. If you guessed C, then you're right! We learn this lesson from the blessing that our Patriarch, Yaakov, gave to his second and third sons, Shimon and Levi.

In the last year of his life, Yaakov called in his twelve sons to bless each one according to his unique abilities. Yaakov understood that every individual is born with a unique potential to contribute to the world, to bring society closer to the perfection that G-d designed for it. No two people have identical roles. Each of us was born into singular circumstances.

 

Everyone's family is different. Every community is different. Each generation is different. Every person is different-different characters, different needs, different weaknesses, different desires. Different dreams. Yaakov understood that distinct blessings are needed for different people to guide each towards the hidden goal that G-d has set for him or her.
Shimon and Levi had a problem with anger. Their problem did not arise from simply not being able to deal with the normal ups and downs of life. Shimon and Levi were tested severely. Their own grandfather, Lavan, tried to do their whole family in. Then, they narrowly escaped a brush with death in a confrontation with their evil uncle, Esav. Finally, their sister, Dinah, was kidnapped and raped by Shechem, a prince of the city that bears his name.

Shimon and Levi did not handle this final indignity well. Shechem and his people would not admit that there was anything inappropriate about the way they treated Dinah. This was what being a lady's man meant to them. So Shimon and Levi took matters into their own hands. Through cunning, they rescued their captured sister, but they killed every male citizen of the city of Shechem as well.

According to Maimonides, Shimon and Levi acted justly (Mishna Torah, Laws of Kings 9:14). The citizens of a state are responsible for making sure that laws are enacted to uphold justice in their land. If they willingly allow injustice to run rampant, then they bear responsibility for all the injustices that occur there. According to Maimonides, the citizens of Shechem were liable for the death penalty for their willful blindness to evil.

But Yaakov did not see things this way. Yaakov understood that Dinah had to be rescued and that Shechem, her captor, deserved to die, but he did not concur with the severe judgement against the rest of the city (Nachmonides). Yaakov felt that this violent decision originated in the emotions of Shimon and Levi and not in their reason.

Yet, when Yaakov rebuked his sons, Shimon and Levi, on his deathbed, he expressed his censure in an instructive manner. Yaakov admonished: "Cursed is their anger, for it is powerful; and their fury, for it is intractable�" (Genesis 39:7). Rashi points out that even when Yaakov was rebuking Shimon and Levi, he did not curse them. Yaakov cursed their anger.
The wise example that Yaakov set for his family is critical for us-his children-to follow. We have to learn to criticize the action, not the person. We have to learn the distinction between bad behaviors and bad people. This makes all the difference in the world in how we speak to others and how we see others.

When our children surprise us by discovering ever new ways of misbehaving, we have to try to admonish them in a corrective manner: "Chaim, that was a very bad thing to do"; as opposed to: " Chaim, you are a bad boy." This is the wisdom behind the Yiddish rebuke: "Es past nisht," which means, "that (behavior) does not befit you." The underlying message sent is: "you're too good for that. It's beneath you."

I once observed one of the most beloved Rebbes in Chaim Berlin Elementary School in Brooklyn, NY sending a kindergarten student into the hall. As the youth was exiting the class, his Rebbe said to him: "You're a good boy, Chaim. You just have to learn to behave." We have to learn to separate negative behaviors from people with positive potential, in our inner thoughts and in our outward speech. By doing so, we are emulating our Patriarch, Yaakov; linking ourselves to a 3,500 year old chain of wisdom for building relationships with each other and with our Creator.

Good Shabbos.