We all have people in our lives who annoy us, who make us upset, who get on our nerves. It could be a coworker, a neighbor, a sibling, a sibling-in-law, a parent, a parent-in-law, a child, a child-in-law, or, even in a generally good marriage, a spouse.
King David, in one of the chapters of Tehillim (38), teaches us the best way to handle such people:
ואני כחרש לא אשמע, וכאלם לא יפתח פיו.
“I am like a deaf person who does not hear; and like a mute who does not open his mouth.”
The best solution is, very simply, to ignore it, to be “deaf” and “mute,” to remain silent.
I often tell my students that when their peers annoy them, they’re like a kid turning the stick in a “Jack-in-the-Box.” Kids turn and turn in order to enjoy the great pleasure of watching the Jack jump out of the box. Annoying people do the same thing – they keeping annoying other people so they can have the satisfaction of watching them “jump out of the box” – get annoyed and upset.
One of the ways of stopping ourselves from reacting is to remember that it is Hashem talking to us, not them. When somebody gets on our nerves or says something that makes us frustrated, we need to hear Hashem speaking to us. Maybe He’s telling us that we should try to improve. Maybe He’s telling us we need to be more humble. Maybe He’s telling us that we need to be strong when people try to upset us.
At the end of Parashat Vayehi, we read that after Yaakov died, Yosef’s brothers came to Yosef in a state of panic. They thought that now that Yaakov was gone, Yosef would now take revenge for what they did to him, selling him as a slave. And so they came to Yosef and begged him to forgive them. Yosef assured them that they had nothing to fear.
“You tried to hurt me,” he told his brothers, “but Hashem had other plans.” Yosef pointed out that they were just Hashem’s messengers to bring him to Egypt so he could become the most powerful person in the world, saving the entire region during a time of famine. He didn’t resent what they did because he realized that it wasn’t them – it was Hashem.
I recall once when somebody in one of the places where I regularly speak criticized my style, telling me that I wasn’t doing my job properly. My instinct was to get angry and defend myself. But I stopped and reminded myself that this is Hashem speaking to me. What was He trying to tell me? I thought that in all likelihood, Hashem wanted me to be work to be better at what I do. And this is what I did – I worked on improving my speaking.
King David says later in that chapter of Tehillim, כי עווני אגיד אדאג מחטאתי – “For I shall speak of my wrongdoing, I am concerned about my sin.” David remained silent when people insulted him because he looked inward instead of outward. Rather than getting angry, he looked into himself and asked, “What does Hashem want from me? How can I be better?”
Let’s follow this example, and learn to react to annoying people by not reacting. If we remember that every annoying word is a word spoken to us from Hashem, our response will be to look into ourselves and see where we can improve, rather than jumping like a Jack-in-the-Box.