We have been talking about the quality of giving musar/ rebuke, when it comes from love. The Bet HaLevi talks about the negativity of a middah called Hanufa, which we translate as flattery, but it really means to praise a wicked person and not rebuke them. Why is this so terrible?
He says that Hanufa comes from the ultimate hate that one has for a friend. The reason why a person flatters someone, and doesn’t point out his faults, is because he really doesn’t care about him. He doesn’t want to rebuke him, so he causes him to continue in his bad ways.
If he really loved and cared for him, he would want to get him on the right path. This is what he calls the ultimate hate. This hate is not the type of hate where you’d see a person punching somebody in the face. It’s more of the famous saying, “Live and let live.“
I once said that the statement should really be, “live and let die.“ If the guy is sinning, he is getting into trouble. You can’t just sit by and let him do it. If you really care about somebody, you want to help him.
Of course, it has to come out of care and concern. Quite often, it comes out of ego and competition. That’s why, if a person doesn’t know how to give proper musar , he can’t give it, because it will backfire.
Proper musar is only when the recipient feels that it’s coming from love. We might not be able to do that today.
But we have to understand that a lack of musar is not because the person is a peace-loving man.
Not giving musar, not helping someone, when they are doing the wrong thing, because you don’t want to cause friction, or because it’s more comfortable this way or easier, that is not love. In fact, Shlomo HaMelech makes the following very harrowing statement, “Spare the rod, hate your child.”
Most people think that he said, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” But that is not what Shlomo HaMelech said. Maybe that was Dr Spock.
Shlomo HaMelech said Spare the rod, hate the child. What does that mean? If I don’t hit my child I hate my child? It seems like the opposite, if I hit him, I hate him. But that’s not it. If you hit him, you love him. It’s hard to hit a child. Of course, today we don’t hit, because children don’t know how to accept it. But hitting doesn’t just mean hitting. It means disciplining. Disciplining is difficult. It might be easier to just give the child a lollipop. It is easier to ignore him. But that is not love. If you aren’t loving, you are hating. There is no parve middle-ground here. If someone doesn’t rebuke their child because they are just too uncomfortable, or because it is too complicated, that is not loving the child. That is loving yourself. If you love yourself, and you don’t do what you’re supposed to do for another person, that is called hate.
This is a very heavy statement, and people do not like to hear these kinds of things. But just letting people do what they want is not love.
If I remember correctly, the Ben Ish Chai tells the following story: There was a thief once who got caught, and was being taken to the gallows for his multiple crimes.
They asked him for his final wish, which was to see his mother. But when he saw his mother, he yelled at her, and they wondered why this was his final wish. The man was on the way to the gallows and he had nothing better to do than berate his mother? The thief answer that it was his mother’s fault. She never gave him musar after his first crime. She thought it was cute. She never said anything, and that is why he became what he became.
Of course, we can’t blame everything on our mother. That is not the point of of the story. The point is that when you ignore someone’s weaknesses, because it’s easier or more convenient, where is that coming from? It’s easier to just write on a report card, “Doing great.” It is easier not to give feedback.
But that is why the flatterer, the one that does not give mussar, is really so detrimental.
Tomorrow, we will discuss how the Bet HaLevi uses this concept to explain a difficult Gemarah. Have a wonderful day.