IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING

But why did they have to die? That question about Rabbi Akiva’s students has bothered me since childhood. 

“Because they didn’t treat one another with kavod.” The standard answer given always felt too one-dimensional to placate me, a worried school student, questioning the ramifications of my bein adam l’chaveiro middos-in-progress. 

Another, unrelated question, that little me raised her eyebrows at: Why do we have to praise Hashem so much? Surely Hashem doesn’t need our praises? 

“It’s because we need to remind ourselves of Hashem’s greatness.” That answer made sense to me, but didn’t help me daven with more enthusiasm, seeing the heapings of praise written in the siddur day after day, trying to tell myself they’re there as a reminder for me. 

It wasn’t until I listened, and then, excitedly re-listened, to a shiur from R’ Yussie Zakutinsky, that wove in concepts of Matan Torah, Praising Hashem, and the kavod of the students that it felt like all the pieces clicked into place. It touched my avodah as a woman, wife, and mother, and I realized my personal toolbox had expanded. 

Allow me to (excitedly) expand with you. 

Here’s a dynamic Hashem created in the universe. When it comes to people, what you see is what you get. More precisely, what you choose to see, is what rises to the surface. The good we typically notice in a person is hardly the sum total of their greatness. We are all neshamos, connected to infinite potential, and there is obviously much more we are capable of. There can be many additional qualities within each neshama that, for some reason, are dormant. They’re in there, but they’re not quite available to the person yet, at least, not without some help. 

These latent qualities of the neshama are only activated when they are acknowledged. They need to be noticed and praised, which then awakens them and brings them to the forefront. The Tzemach Tzedek teaches that this is the reality of how Hashem wired people; when you praise and highlight someone’s particular quality, that quality emerges. This is true for emotional and intellectual qualities. 

 It’s quite simple and yet spiritually sophisticated; when someone sees us as great, and speaks to us as if we are great, we become great. If you can lock in on someone’s inherent greatness (well before they or anyone else perceives it), and then praise that greatness, their neshama is going to be able to access and manifest what was locked away within. 

As below, so above. Hashem too has many aspects of Himself, his middos, that are so infinitely beyond us, they are hard for us to access. Therefore, Hashem created a system where there needs to be a verbal effort from our part to awaken and engage these middos. When we praise Hashem as a Harachaman, the Merciful One, or as a Gomel Chesed, a Loving Kind One, we are calling forth those middos, and bringing them to the forefront. Now they become middos that are ‘awakened’ and can flow into our lives. 

This explanation from the Tzemach Tzedek totally energized me to connect with the inyan of  praising Hashem. Of course, I want to experience Hashem in all the ways my siddur describes! When I articulate those praises, it actually activates those pathways for Hashem to interact with me! 

Now, the students of Rabbi Akiva were great talmidei chachamim, and, of course, they treated each other with some level of respect. But, R’ Yussie teaches, they only respected what they saw. They respected what was showing up on the surface, and not the potential within. Based on the principle above, because they didn’t acknowledge the innate greatness in each other, they didn’t interact with each other as though they were deserving of higher levels of kavod. Therefore, those higher levels of greatness from their neshamos weren’t activated and never emerged. 

This created an immense and practical challenge, because the Torah coming from Rabbi Akiva was on such a high level, that it needed vessels that were also on an incredibly high level to receive it. Had the students regarded one another as deeply capable, they would have given even more kavod to one another. This in turn, would have helped their innate greatness to develop, and the talmidim would have evolved to become the true vessels capable of containing R’ Akiva’s torah. The more powerful the vessel, the more powerful the Torah it can contain. 

Imagine for example, the spiritual voltage of the torah coming from Rabbi Akiva was 1,000-watt Torah. But the students, due to the lack of kavod towards each other, had only developed into 500-watt vessels. Truthfully, had they received more kavod from one another, much more greatness could have been awakened, and they could have developed to become 1,000-watt keilim for R’ Akiva’s torah. However, when they received torah from Rebbi Akiva, their vessels weren’t enough to contain or sustain such high-voltage Torah, and their vessels shattered. On a physical level, they died. Their deaths took place specifically during the time period when our nation is collectively working to refine our personal vessels, in order to receive the Torah. 

Now that we’ve established that we each have the power to induce real growth from a person by treating them as if their true greatness has already emerged, we can ask, whose job is it to do that? This koach is available to every single Jew. The praise can flow from chavrusa to chavrusa. From kehila to kehila. From any Jew to truly any Jew.  

But who has been gifted with the special koach to see someone’s greatness, well before they can see it themselves, and speak to it, lovingly and steadfastly, calling it out from where it’s been dormant? Who else, but a mother? 

A mother, an ‘Eim’, from the lashon ‘Emunah’, because she sees, she believes, and she refuses to back down even if the school is calling, the rebbe is frustrated, and the siblings have had enough. A mother is uniquely equipped to zero in on the good qualities within her child and praise them, address them, and make a big deal over them. She’s not ‘in the clouds’. She’s reflecting an essential reality. She is the most powerful agent available for her child’s true development — helping the full qualities of the neshama come alive. 

“When I see you play with your dolls, I can see you’re such a giver who takes care of others.” These words can bring forth latent qualities of rachmanus within a child. 

“You’re a real zaruz, a doer who just gets things done,” has the ability to awaken energy. 

“You’re such a gibbor, a strong boy!” can make a boy strong. 

This dynamic is certainly not limited to children; it can be applied to any of the neshamos in our orbit. The ones we’re related to, the ones we find ourselves clashing with, the one we marry, along with the ones we give birth to. Saying “You’re such a thoughtful, caring person” can awaken a thoughtful middah. “You’re such a helpful person!” affords the neshama the chance to express its middah of chesed.  It’s not delusional, it’s deliberate. And truthfully, it can be said privately, directed towards the person, and not necessarily out loud in front of them. 

Call and response. We activate middos in neshamos around us by staying aware and articulating what we believe we see. 

The neshamos around us are depending on us. The gemara says, a prisoner cannot free themselves from prison. A person cannot treat themselves the way they truly deserve — they are limited by their own self-understanding, in a prison of sorts, limited by however much growth they think is accessible to them. You can help them out. Sing their praises. Over and over. Speak to all the positive qualities you know they are capable of. You are so well-equipped in this mission. Women are given extra portions of speech for a reason. Nine extra portions in fact! We are given extra layers of bina, of discernment — to be able to poke through all the weeds and locate the good qualities that we know are there. It’s not always easy work, but it is holy and powerful work. And it does work! Have the machshavot tovot, say the dibburim tovim. Experience and enjoy the process of the neshama awakening. 

 My little girl changes the lyrics, and sings emphatically at the top of her lungs about her toddler brother — “Hillel is a big Tzadik”. I smile and sing along with her. Right now, he’s bumbling into things and, let’s be honest, trying to eat batteries. But within him certainly is the middah of Yosef Hatzaddik, and the tzidkus needed from every Jewish boy to grow up connected to kedushah in a world of bombardment. If we don’t sing to little Hillel about his middah of being a tzadik, who will?