One of my daughters, a bunch of months ago, came over to me. I forgot which one, and she said to me, “Dad, you know, one of my friends was being not nice on the phone.” I’m like, “Okay. What else is new?” And she said that everybody else agrees with her about what I’m doing wrong. I don’t know if you know how this works: whenever people want leverage, they say, “Everybody agrees with me.”
So I told my daughter, “You know what? The truth is, in all likelihood, she’s probably right.” I said, “She’s probably right. Your friends are probably talking behind your back a little bit. It’s probably true.” She said, “What do you mean? But they’re my friends.” I said, “People talk behind people’s backs all the time. You talk behind their backs or so. Even your friends who love you—I believe they love you. I don’t think they hate you. I believe they love you, but it’s just how we work. People talk. They shouldn’t, but that’s what they do. People say both positive and negative things about one another.” So life works. It is the story life works.
You know, I realize it. I once thought about this myself. I told my daughter, “I think there are people out there that like me.” I said, “But even the people who like me, don’t you think they say, ‘Oh, he was right on this. This speech was good. This wasn’t as good’?” Even among the people who are in this room, who come here every single week, there are times when you go to the table and say, “I don’t know what he meant by that. I don’t know why I did that. I think he went too far on that.” It’s just the way it goes. There will be noise around you, no matter who you are.
So if you’re gonna chase that noise, you’re gonna be running around like whack-a-mole. You’re gonna be stopping this one: “I didn’t mean this.” Then you can explain yourself to that one, and he explains it to that one. You’re gonna be chasing your whole life. I told my daughter, “Doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Doesn’t mean they don’t love you.” I realize that people probably do this about me. I realized that there were rabbis that I know and love, but we debate: “He should have done this. He should have done this.” It’s nice to wonder, like, if he would hear what I say, I would be mortified. Hope it’s not Lashon Hara (evil speech). Maybe, I hope not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love them. Doesn’t mean I don’t believe it. Doesn’t mean I’m not so impressed. It’s just, it’s what we do.
So if you’re gonna worry about every person’s comment, you will be exhausted. You’re gonna be exhausted. You’re just gonna give up. So you either could be a doer or you could be a chaser. Do is like the three examples I gave you: Irving Bunim and the Va'ad Hatzalah, another example, and a rabbi who ignored him, and Rav Moshe Feinstein speaking bold words to a surgeon. There are people, and there are thousands of stories like that from the greats. There are people that do, and then there are people that they can’t do because they’re so paralyzed by chasing...