John got in big trouble when he was 7 years old. There were a bunch of ants on the front step of his house, and he really wanted to get rid of those ants. So he tried stomping on them. But there were too many. And then he went into the garage, he grabbed the biggest hammer he could find, and he whacked those ants, until there were no ants left on the step. Of course, at that point, there was no step either. So while it’s true, John had found the quickest solution to getting rid of the ants. Sometimes what feels like the easiest solution to a problem, isn’t the best.

When we are faced with a problem, our first instinct is just to destroy it. Cut it out of our life. Take the biggest hammer we can find and smash the problem into a million pieces. We quit friendships. We quit synagogues. We quit jobs. We fire employees. We fire family members.

And what our Torah teaches us, is that smashing or quitting relationships may be the easiest solution, but it doesn’t really solve anything. Our portion this week — Acharei Mot/Kedoshim — is all about what it means to be holy. God says, you will be holy like me. And the way that you become holy is in how you treat one another. A person who is holy is a person who cares for other people.

We have a few famous quotes this week: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

When we meet someone who is different from us, who looks different, who behaves differently, who disagrees with us, we are supposed to respond to that person with love and with connection. The answer to the problem of disagreement is not the hammer, and it’s not the sword; the answer is honesty and open dialogue.

“Love your neighbor as you love yourself” — we often repeat this quote out of context. In the Torah, it is said not as part of an idyllic vision where everyone gets along. It is said in the context of disagreement. The verse says, “Do not hate your fellow human being, do not hold a grudge against them. Confront them, criticize them, correct them, but do not seek revenge — for you must love your fellow human being as you love yourself.”

ADVERTISEMENT

The Torah tells us to give, and receive, critical feedback when things are not going well. But in a world where we don’t trust each other, the easiest thing is to sweep the problem under the rug and cut the person out completely. Why should they listen to me anyway? When we think we are being judged for our mistakes, it is hard to hear criticism, much less believe it is coming from a place of love. But sometimes the easiest answer is not the best answer. And the best answer is to foster an environment where we can be honest about our feelings, and our mistakes, and still live together at the end of the day.

Organizational psychologists at Harvard have found that the workplaces with the best performance are the ones that report the most mistakes. Because when people feel unsafe at work, or at home, or at school, they hide their mistakes to protect themselves. When they do feel safe, they admit they were wrong, because they know they are valued for their humanity and not for their perfection. And learning from our mistakes helps the company as a whole.

The Torah teaches that we become holy based on how we handle our disagreements and our mistakes. Being holy doesn’t mean that anything I do is correct and justified. It’s not to say, I’m a good person and my opinions are correct, so therefore anything I do is automatically good. Quite the opposite. We have the power to be holy, but it all depends on how we behave.

And so, while the rest of the world grabs the biggest hammer they can find, to just smash the problem – we are commanded to do everything we can to fight disagreement and misinformation, with open dialogue, with understanding and with love.

ADVERTISEMENT