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So happy to see the unity march in Israel with all types of Jews walking together to promote tolerance between different groups. If I am more religious than you, then I am not more superior and if you are more religious than I, you are not more superior. Superiority has no place in a religion that states, Ish Echad B’lev Echad. Kol Hakavod to our brethren in Israel.
Do you mean to say that somebody who is an Oved HaShem is NOT a better person/superior to a nonreligious person?
Do you include bein adam lachaveiro in your equivalency, or only bein adam lamakom?
What do you mean by <If I am more religious than you, then I am not more superior and if you are more religious than I, you are not more superior.> Better/superior in what way? According to, or relative to what? After 120, when the neshamos of the “non-religious” people will ask why the neshamos of the “religious” people are enjoying a greater reward in Olam HaBah, they will be told it is because they were BETTER Jews than you (i.e. during their corporeal existence, they chose to be closer to Hashem.) In Olam Habah, the reward is being close to Hashem.
< Choosing to be closer to Hashem by being an Oved Hashem does not make me better than the next person >. In fact, it does.
I suppose that on Purim, you don’t need to drink to be mekayem “ad d’lo yada”, in fact, you are mekayem it year round.
Why?
Besides, I could make the same point by listing off Jewish reshaim.
CR10 +1
CR10- It seems that you are disscussing 2 issues. In your discussion about judging others, you are correct, we aren’t permitted to do that.
In your discussion about better/superior vs. worse/inferior, someone who chooses to be an Eved Hashem is clearly better than someone who does not. Chazal tell us that we have the ability to choose, but we don’t have PERMISSION to choose. Hashem tells us what choice to make. Check out Parshas Nitzavim (Devorim 30:19). Hashem says, “I have placed life & death before you…CHOOSE LIFE.” Life means a life of serving Hashem. We are told what is right & what is wrong, and certainly right is better than wrong, and certainly someone who chooses right is better than, superior to, someone who chooses wrong. When you observe someone who is not keeping the commandments, you come to the conclusion (i.e. you judge him) to be wrong, & therefore inferior to someone who is doing what is right.
OK, so I’m waiting for you to restate your OP as follows:
“Although Judaism certainly believes that one who keeps the Torah and mitzvos is superior to one who doesn’t, we should nevertheless not speak derogatorily about a sinner, nor look down at him, because having never been in his place, we can’t judge him.”
Not that I would be in total agreement with such a statement, but at least it recognizes that it is better to keep the Torah than not to.
This topic is ridiculous. Judaism is 100% a religion of superiority. Anyone who says otherwise is either in kiruv, chovavei torah, the idf, or lying.
I’m the only one who’s superior.
“Superior” is a dumb word in this discussion. It’s pointless. Am I superior to my not-Frum neighbor? Is a Gadol HaDor superior to me? Is a Gadol HaDor superior to my not-Fum neighbor? The answer is that it really doesn’t matter. Where there are practical Nafka Minas (e.g. we can’t trust my not-Frum neighbor’s Kashrus, we can probably trust mine, and we can ask life-and-death Shailas to the Gadol HaDor), that doesn’t make anyone better or superior. That’s up to HKBH to decide. Debating it is kinda the reason we have Halachos of Lashon Hara.
CR10, We are all at different levels. You are not better than me and I am not better than you.
Those two sentences contradict each other, so no, not much clearer.
Sam2, “Superior” is a dumb word in this discussion. It’s pointless.
No, it’s not. I make judgments all the time (and you probably do as well) to decide who to emulate, and in what way.
If I consider someone an adam chashuv (“superior”), I will take his actions much more seriously as worthy of copying, and his thoughts and hashkafos as worthy of accepting and learning from, than someone who is not as chashuv (“inferior”).
DY: Interesting point. I’ll concede to it to some extent. But part of what makes him “superior” in the first place is what makes him worthy to emulate. He is not worthy of emulation because he is superior, but he is worthy of emulation because of what he did in the first place. No one was born superior than anyone else. So it’s the Torah that creates this superiority. We want to emulate the Torah and we find the proper people to emulate to do that.
Who is the most superior member of the coffee room?
Who is the most superior member of the coffee room?
But part of what makes him “superior” in the first place is what makes him worthy to emulate.
True, we need a starting point from which to establish what we consider superior and worthy of emulating, so that it shouldn’t be completely circular. That starting point is our Torah hashkafos as we have learned from our parents and rebbeim, i.e. our mesorah.
He is not worthy of emulation because he is superior
I disagree. Once we establish who is superior, there is always more to learn.
CR10, please define the word “superior” as you are using it in this discussion.
I can’t judge anyone who does not keep the Torah. I know three siblings who survived the Holocaust together- one stayed frum completely, one went completely off the derech, and one initially went off but later came back and raised his family in a Torah lifestyle. From very similar experiences each derived completely different points of view and very dissimilar reactions. Each made their decisions based on themselves, and as I have no window into the thought process of another person, I therefore cannot judge to know WHY and therefore to condemn, as condemnation can come only from my context.
That said, as has been mentioned, the words “superior” and “inferior” really have no place in this discussion. The word “superior” as applied to oneself, especially when associated with the word “inferior” when it’s applied to others, is really against the whole idea of anavah and not trusting oneself until the day of one’s death. I think that a much better way of looking at it is by seeing if you feel like you are doing ratzon Hashem. If you feel good about doing Hashem’s will then you will feel good about the fact that you do so and, thus, about yourself. However, you, in relation to a nonobservant Jew, are not inherently superior in the traditional meaning of the word for a whole slew of reasons- among them being that nobody is judged in comparison to others. It seems more appropriate to wish that the other person had the same sense of hana’ah and fulfillment from doing ratzon Hashem as you have- the idea behind kiruv. It’s like the difference between kinas sofrim and regular kinah- one is constructive and one only destroys.
In summation, I don’t think anyone can look down on a nonobservant Jew as inferior (as in, oh, I should cut you in line because I’m just a better person). Luckier, perhaps, but not necessarily better. Not until 120 will we find out how Hashem does his din v’cheshbon.
The problem is that if I don’t have a TV and you do, I may feel superior to you. And if you are a learner and I’m not, you may feel superior to me. This list could go on and on. The point is not to feel superior to any other Jew even if we keep more mitzvot than others and yes, that includes the IDF, MOs, secular, etc. We are all at different levels. You are not better than me and I am not better than you. We are all equals at different stages. Hope that is clearer.
Ridiculous. There is definitely room for debate about what is right and wrong, there is room for debate about what path HKBH wants one to choose. But there is no argument about the fact that the Mitzvos you do and the more Torah you learn (in proportion with Aveiros of course) – The more ???? ? one is ?????, the more schar one will get, and the better person one is. On the other hand, the more aveiros one does, the worse person he is, and the more ???? one gets.
So a person who has a pretty clean slate and loads of Mitzvos is going to be a much better person than the person who has is a Choiteh and has not done any Mitzvos.
This may not justify speaking or thinking bad about sinners, because one doesn’t know the special circumstances behind every situation and nor does one know the private life of any person. But that is neither here nor there!
Rav Dessler says in Kuntras Nekudat HaBechira that each person is judged according to his choices based on where he is holding spiritually. It could be that a someone raised in a secular home who chooses not to eat pork because he is Jewish receives a better judgement than someone raised in a frum home who keeps mitzvot by force of habit. See Rambam Hilchot Tesuva 3:2 that only Hashem knows the weights of mitzvot and aveirot.
Hashem loves all Jews equally, because He loves us the most possible. If Hashem loves me the most that is possible, then if I do more mitzvos, Hashem doesn’t love me any more then He did before, because He already loved me the most possible because I am a Jew. What changed was our relationship. Now Hashem can be closer to me.
For example, a parent loves all of their children equally, but might feel closer to some of their children. If one child is constantly fighting with his/her parents, and the other has a great relationship, the parents are probably closer to the child with the great relationship. But that doesn’t mean that they love the first child any less then the other one.
I think when we are discussing superiority here, we are talking about their closeness to Hashem, because if we are talking about how much Hashem loves different Jews, its all the same.
I think when most people use the word “superior”, they mean “better”. It doesn’t normally mean “haughty”, and it doesn’t normally mean “closer to Hashem”.
If Reynold’s aluminum foil is superior to the store brand, it is not haughty about it, and is no closer to Hashem because of it.
CR10:
I’m assuming (correct me if I’m wrong) that you agree that it is indeed far “better” for a Jew to observe Torah u’Mitzvos than chas vi’shalom the alternative. While it is obviously not our place to judge any fellow Jew, and certainly not to feel that we are inherently “superior”, we do believe that some actions are better and that some are worse.
So while we do not believe that we personally are better than anybody else, we certainly do believe that that living a religious lifestyle is far superior to living a secular one.
There are bad choices, good choices, and better choices. That doesn’t mean that the individuals who make those choices are necessarily bad, good, and better respectively.
ha! DY nice pesach mashal. avi k has agood point wth rav Dessler and what nw13 is saying isnt a contradiction
I believe our ultimate goal in this world is “es haElokim yira vi’es mitzvosav shimor, ki zeh kol ha’adom”. Vi’ahavta li’rayacha kamocha is certainly one of those mitzvos, but only one of many.
Judaism is a religion of continuous self-improvement. Either you are on the way up or you are on the way down. There is no reason to feel superior/inferior to someone who is currently on a different level at the moment than yourself. But those who continue to strive to level-up are certainly superior to those who freely express that they have become as religious as possible and have no need to further improve themselves.
Squeak, you make a good point about the importance of growth, but still, mah nafshach. If superiority means being on a higher level, even when two people are growing, or ch”v the opposite, one could still be superior to the other.
And if the word superior is being (mis)used to refer to gaavah, it is still not acceptable for someone who is growing to look condescendingly at someone who is not growing.
What a troubling discussion….. Do ANY of us underlings, including those we hold in very high esteem, really know for 1000000000% certain what Hashem desires of us and considers of utmost importance, causing us to feel superior and judging others to be inferior, because of level of observance?
The older we get, the smarter we become, and realize the less we know.
I think the safest bet is to “Leave the driving to Greyhound”, and the judging to Melech Malchei HaMlochim.
DY- If someone is fortunate to start life on a relatively higher level than most (e.g. being born to a frum family), is that anything to take credit for? And if someone has worked on personal growth for 70 years, does that make him superior to the 25 year old who is on the same path but has not had as much time? I think not. Certainly these are role models for growth oriented people, and deserving of respect for their current status, but superiority means something else to me. Being on a higher level is a function of where a person started (decided by Hashem) and how much time the person has had (decided by Hashem) – only the path we choose can be credited to ourselves.
Squeak, If someone is fortunate to start life on a relatively higher level than most (e.g. being born to a frum family), is that anything to take credit for?
No, but again, if we are defining superiority as taking credit, I don’t think someone who has been growing for a long lifetime should be taking credit.
And if someone has worked on personal growth for 70 years, does that make him superior to the 25 year old who is on the same path but has not had as much time? I think not.
This part, I disagree with (the rest might be semantics). The younger person may be on the same path, but he hasn’t gotten there yet, though he may be faultless for that.
In other words, I think you are defining superior in a third way, which avoids my “mah nafshach”, as worthy of credit.
Under that definition, I agree that being born into a
“superior” family doesn’t deserve credit (although according to my definition he might be superior), but someone who has maintained a path of growth for a longer period of time does deserve more credit, all else being equal, than one who has done so for less time, even if it is only due to age.
Squeak – You are definitely right that HKB”H definitely gives different people different challenges, and each person has a personal tachlis to fulfil during ones lifetime. The people who are born into nonreligious environments are probably stronger than those born into religious families, because Hashem decided that they HAVE the strength to overcome that particular nisayon, whereas a FFB may not have that strength, and therefore HKBH does not put him into the matzav on nisayon which he cannot overcome.
By Moshe and Ahron, the Torah sometimes precedes Moshe and other times precedes Ahron, to show that they were both equal in greatness. Everybody points out that of course, Moshe was the greatest Prophet ever? The answer is that both of them fulfilled THEIR OWN POTENTIAL, although Moshe’s madreigo was higher than Ahrons. So to answer the OP, if both fulfil their tachlis, they are equal in stature.
It also says Lfum Tzarah Agra – that reward is calculated in proportion to effort. Somebody who was handed everything on a silver platter and becomes a Gadol Hador may NOT get as much schar as somebody who works on himself to become frum.
However, I was once told a Mashol of a Dinner where the children were given Hotdogs and Chips, and the adults were served a four course gourmet meal. Each one enjoyed their meal immensely. Giving an adult hotdogs or giving a child a gourmet meal would not have satisfied either of them. Each person received exactly what he needed. And although the lamb chops were BETTER than the Hot Dogs, since a child cannot appreciate it, for him it is pointless, and worth less than the hotdog. It would not be a reward for a child to receive a gourmet dinner, because he cannot comprehend it.
The same thing is with us in Oilom Habo – if one person fulfilled his tachlis to the full, he will get the reward he deserves – but you cannot say that a “pushite yid” will get the SAME reward as a Rosh Yeshiva, but rather in proportion he will. Giving a simple person the same reward as a Rosh Yeshiva – even if he did put in more effort and time and thought to become what he became – is stupidity. (Dunno if it is true, but it is definitely something to think about!)
I think that most posters here are operating under a grave misconception that is informing their answers. The statement was put, admittedly, as “Judaism is not a religion of superiority.” But it is clear from the words of HKBH that Judaism is only in part a religion. “V’Atem Tihyu Li Mamleches Kohanim V’Goy Kodosh.” is what we are commanded to BE. A Kingdom of Kohanim, a Holy Nation. A Kingdom. A Nation.
That which defines a nation and its self identification or self determination is vastly different than a singularly religious self concept.
Religiously, an individual has responsibilities, but few communal ones. Given our human nature – the same as everyone else – we are drawn to be competitive, to consider how we behave almost solely in the context of how well we measure up to our fellow Jew, and to identify ourselves and hold our self worth as intimately connected to the conclusion we come to compared to our neighbor.
And yet this ignores almost completely the national responsibilities HKBH set out for us. If I am busy perfecting myself, I have little cheishek to be an Ohr Lagoyim, or to reach out to a Jew who looks, talks, acts and understands differently than me, even though the gemoro mandates both him and me to do exactly that. (Kol Yisroel Areivim…)
If I ignore HKBH’s national definition of Jewishness or Judaism, I also dissociate myself from other responsibilities. I shy away from working the land, giving leket and peah to the indigent as a communal, national responsibility. I look to those responsibilities as a Jew that focus on individual elevation – like exclusively learning Torah bli kemach.
It isn’t difficult to figure out the why and how of this transformation of what it means to be Jewish. In millenia of exile, with expulsions, restrictions, persecutions, and denigration, it is close to impossible to assert national responsibilities. So our leaders shifted the focus onto individual religious observance. They weren’t wrong. We would have disappeared long ago if they hadnt done that. Nonetheless the shift happened – clearly – because of an obvious and compelling change of circumstances. We now have another obvious and compelling change of circumstances, and an opportunity to exercise our national responsibilities again. We must not ignore them.
WHY?
Because if we are to achieve this notional “superiority” that is being discussed, it will be because we have distinctively accomplished our national mission. Every living being HKBH put on earth has a purpose, but no nation is tasked as we are with perfecting the world. In the Jewish context, every individual Jew has a purpose in perfecting themselves and their actions, but none of them is accomplishing enough to be, feel, or regard themselves as superior if they aren’t fulfilling their national responsibilities.
In sum, “superiority” is as wrong a term to use in this conversation as is “religion”. It is not descriptive of the totality of what we are or what we as individuals strive to accomplish. Maybe we should replace “superiority” with “responsibility” or “accountability”. And maybe we should remember Mamleches Kohanim VeGoy Kodosh when we think of how to define Judaism and how it is fulfilled.
No one but Hashem knows His cheshbonos. I think it is time for ALL of us to be a little less arrogant about who is a better Jew and who is superior. The poshuteh Yid might be sitting right next to the Rosh Yeshivah in Olam Haba, for reasons known only to Hashem. We can only do the best we can do, and always strive to do better.
But “better” is a matter of opinion SOME of the time. One person might feel it means the person uses a “better” hashgocha or goes to a “better” yeshivah. Someone else might feel it means to be a better human being, doing more chessed, donating of oneself, not only of one’s money.
If you buy a more expensive esrog, that does not make you a better Jew. It just means you were B”H able to afford to buy it. Other people might choose to use that additional money (assuming it is not available off a money tree)to give to someone else to be able to afford to buy ANY esrog, much less a gorgeous Hidur Mitzvah one (and I KNOW the wealthier people ARE giving tzedaka, too, but it is so much easier for them to do so than for someone who has a little less in their wallet, and we do, after all, believe that lifum tz’arah agrah). Everything is relative.
Our actions and sincerity make us better people, not the shul in which we daven, the chumros we adopt, the lateness of our sedarim. But again, only Hashem Knows how to credit us for all of that. Hashem gave us the mitzvos in order to make us better people and better Jews. I believe that the second we view ourselves as superior to another FRUM and ehrliche yid, we already demonstrate that we are not. Just one gal’s opinion.
Yichusdik, maybe, instead of substituting a bunch of words, you should start a new thread about the topic you wish to discuss, which is not the same one being discussed here.
Oomis, I believe that the second we view ourselves as superior to another FRUM and ehrliche yid, we already demonstrate that we are not.
According to your own approach, we shouldn’t view ourselves as superior to a non frum or non ehrliche Yid either.
CR10, I’m not going to start weighing the importance of the various mitzvos, but suffice to say that to peg only one particular mitzva as “our ultimate goal” to the exclusion of all others is a mistake. It is Hashem’s will that we keep all of His mitzvos.
AZOI.IS:
“What a troubling discussion….. Do ANY of us underlings, including those we hold in very high esteem, really know for 1000000000% certain what Hashem desires of us and considers of utmost importance, causing us to feel superior and judging others to be inferior, because of level of observance?”
While it is indeed incorrect to judge people as inherently inferior for being unobservant, it is also incorrect to pretend that Hashem’s will is clear as mud. We have a pretty good idea of how Hashem wants us to lead our lives; it’s spelled out in minute detail in the Torah that He gave us. Our job is to keep these directives. “Es haElokim yira vi’es mitzvosav shimor, ki zeh kol ha’adom.”
Maybe DY, or maybe the chutzpah of even discussing the superiority of our practice of Judaism when half of what it means to be a Jew is being willfully ignored sticks in my craw. I politely but firmly disagree with you. It is completely germane to what is being discussed here
or maybe the chutzpah of even discussing the superiority of our practice of Judaism when half of what it means to be a Jew is being willfully ignored sticks in my craw.
For the most part, the discussion has been very general in terms of what constitutes proper avodas Hashem. If it bothers you that more examples of communal responsibility weren’t given, that’s fair to bring up, but to call the discussion as a whole a “chutzpah” is unfair, insulting, incorrect, and frankly, disclaimer notwithstanding, a bit impolite.
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