We’re all familiar with the NYPD motto, “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect.”
That should be the motto of every educator and parent every time they speak with a child.
It is our motto as yidden all day every day towards everyone, isn’t it? Doesn’t derech eretz kadma l’Torah mean exactly that?
What does it mean to speak to everyone with courtesy, professionalism, and respect? What would you sound like?
The Mishna in Avos (5:7) gives some examples:
You wouldn’t speak before allowing a senior person to speak.
You wouldn’t interrupt anyone.
You wouldn’t answer without pondering what the other person had said to you.
You would stay on topic and be accurate in your statements.
You would respond to points made in sequence, not jumbling topics.
You would admit when you don’t know something.
You would admit to someone when you’ve realized over the course of your conversation that he or she is right about something and you were mistaken.
The Mishna, rather than declaring these traits to be the marks of courtesy, professionalism, and respect, declares them to be the marks of a chacham.
According to the Rashbatz, this Mishna is referring to someone who is a chacham in derech eretz. (Mishnas Reuven on Avos, Mosad HaRav Kook, vol 2, page 304. The editor there (Note 1) points out that this Mishna is also found in Derech Eretz Zuta chapter 7)
In contrast, what would disrespectful behavior look like? Here’s a list compiled by the University of Iowa:
A mild level of disrespect is manifested by avoiding someone, refusing to speak to someone, excluding, yelling, screaming, and belittling.
A severe level is manifested by unwanted physical contact, throwing objects, slamming doors, rude gestures, sarcasm, harsh or public criticism, and verbal abuse.
I underlined “sarcasm.” Sarcasm is a severe expression of disrespect because it expresses contempt.
There is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt. (Eighteenth century British novelist Henry Fielding)
Sarcasm conveys contempt for the person you are addressing by showing them that you do not consider them worthy of serious discourse. Contempt has been described as the feeling that a person is beneath consideration, that a person is absurd, incompetent, or beneath dignity.
(Excerpted from: Schriber, R. A., Chung, J. M., Sorensen, K. S., & Robins, R. W. (2017). Dispositional contempt: A first look at the contemptuous person. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(2), 280-309.)
I underlined “verbal abuse” because humiliating someone is a painful form of verbal abuse, a severe expression of disrespect, and it happens too often, especially towards children.
“Humiliation is a specific and often traumatic way of exercising power, with a set of consistently occurring elements and predictable consequences, including a loss of the ability to trust others. These consequences are serious and long-lasting.”
(Excerpted from: Leask P. (2013). Losing trust in the world: Humiliation and its consequences. Psychodynamic Practice, 19(2), 129–142.)
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. (Elie Wiesel)
The obvious reason to avoid expressing sarcasm or verbal abuse towards a child is that children absorb and playback what they hear and see from their parents and teachers. Any disrespectful behavior to which they fall victim will be used by most children to victimize someone else. Why shouldn’t they act that way? They learned that behavior from their parent or teacher from whom they are supposed to learn, aren’t they?
What do you think of this idea of reciprocity? Do you disagree? Do you believe that it is okay for a parent or a teacher to use sarcasm, humiliation or some other form of disrespect towards a child in order to be mechanech that child if that works with that child? Do you believe that such conduct on the part of an adult does not give a child license to imitate that conduct? After all, aren’t parents and teachers authority figures who have leverage over children, a right to impose rules and boundaries, and to use whatever means available to gain compliance?
An NYPD officer has a whole lot of leverage as an authority figure starting with issuing summonses for violations and going all the way to physically restraining, arresting, and incarcerating a person who breaks a rule. Why do they need to be respectful? What can they gain by that?
They can gain respect, cooperation, and sometimes admiration for their ability to maintain their standards of conduct in the face of disrespectful or defiant conduct on the part of others.
Does it always turn out that way for the NYPD? Unfortunately, no. Many people are not on the level of chacham, of derech eretz.
I hope that when they interact with members of our community they are treated with respect.
Our children interact with members of our community all the time.
If we are on the level of chachamim, our middah of derech eretz, our courtesy, professionalism, and respect, should be on display towards our spouses, our parents, our teachers, our children, and every person with whom we come in contact, Jewish or non-Jewish, all of the time.
Our every interaction is an opportunity to be mikayaim v’halachta b’drachav, and when do so, we give nachas to Hashem.
Our children do imitate our ways. Let’s make sure that when we see that imitation, we feel nachas.
Rabbi Ackerman is the author of Confident Parents, Competent Children, in Four Seconds at a Time
Available at bookstores and on Amazon.
He can be reached at 718-344-6575