Redefining kavod

At the Broad, Los Angeles, July 2018

In honor and memory of my father, פסח בן דוד הכהן on the occasion of his sheloshim שלושים

לעליית נשמתו

ד׳ בְּנִיסָן תשפ״ב

 

I thought I would start out by learning about what one should do to fulfill the mitzvah of כיבוד אב ואם Kibbud av v’em once one’s parents are no longer among the living. It quickly turned into a study of what כבוד is altogether, and then led to a broader definition of the term itself to be used for the specific mitzvah.

Right now, I will use the definition “honor”, since that is what pops up most frequently in translations. So how does halakhah/Jewish law define how one should honor one’s parents? I was taken by this formulation about the mitzvah in general by Rabbi Doniel Neustadt, particularly the third part:

Kibbud is accomplished in three different ways:

1.Through the children’s thoughts—children are supposed to view their parents as being honorable and respected people, even if they are not considered as such in the eyes of others. This attitudinal aspect of the mitzvah is the main part of Kibbud.

2.Through the children’s actions—These actions must be done b’sever panim yafos, pleasantly and enthusiastically. The manner in which one assists parents is a crucial aspect of the mitzvah

3.Through the children’s speech—e.g., when a child is honored, he should credit his parents for the honor bestowed upon him. When a child asks others to grant his request or to do him a favor, he should not request it in his own merit, but rather, in the merit of his father or mother (when applicable).

Rav Binyamin Tabory brings a discussion from Rav Asher Weiss who says “the Ramban explains that we should honor our parents as we were commanded to honor God, as they are partners in birth.”. This helps explain is Kibbud Av v’Em as a mitzvah between Man and G-d, not between Man and Man (obviously I’m using “Man” as meaning human being). He also brings up the idea that Father and Mother are one unit (which brings to mind the opposite catastrophe of ben sorer u’moreh, which is not listening to the parental unit. But I digress, and probably not for the last time. I will add that my attempt to have careful sources here will hopefully become apparent.)

What is kavod anyway?

Wikipedia gives a great chart to show the layers.

Root: K-B-D (כבד)‎: meaning “heavy”, “honour”, or “liver”
Hebrew	Transliteration	Definition
כָּבֵד	kaved (adj.)	heavy
הִכְבִּיד	hikhbid (v.r.)	to be heavy
כָּבֵד	kaved (n. m.)	liver
כָּבוֹד	kavod (n. m.)	honor, glory
כִּבֵּד	kibed (v.)	to give honour to
בכבוד	bkavod (n. m.)	(valediction) with honour/respectfully
כבודו	kvodo (n. m.)	your honour
כִּבּוּד	kibud (n. m.)	honouring
כִּבּוּדִים	kibudim (n. m. pl.)	acknowledgements
כָּבוּד	kavud (adj.)	honorable, distinguished
כִּבּוּד	kibud (n. m.)	(literary) cleaning, sweeping
כִּבֵּד	kibed (v.)	(literary) to clean a room, to sweep
כָּבַד	kavad (v.)	(biblical) to weigh heavily upon
כֹּבֶד	koved (n. m.)	(physics) mass, weight

I’m not going to talk about the liver today. And I don’t pretend to understand why it’s sometimes spelled honor and sometimes honour…

But I am taken with the connection of heaviness; which connects with seriousness and gravitas. Connection itself seems to be the key here. I also found a meaningful connection here to Bowlby’s Attachment Theory; the strength of the parent-child attachment stands well to model all future relationships. And in Jewish terms, it moves backwards towards our relationship with G-d, and forwards with all other people.

Lauren Grabelle Herrmann writes on Sefaria:

In Jewish contexts, this word is used in the following ways:

Kibud av va-eim (honoring father and mother)

Lich’vod Shabbat (to honor Shabbat)

Lich’vod Torah (to honor Torah)

Kavod ha-rav (the honor of rabbi/teacher)

Kavod ha-meit (the honor of the dead)

(This word is also used many times in the story of _Exodus when Pharaoh is hard-hearted or stubborn – his heart is kaveid.)

The word kavod comes from a Hebrew root meaning weighty or heavy. The diametric opposite is the word klala (curse) which comes from the Hebrew root meaning light. When I relate to someone with due seriousness, I honor him/her, and if I treat him/her lightly, it is as if I curse him/her.

Honor is external behavior mandated by and appropriate to a reality of inner holiness. Behold, you have within you a holy divine image –this requires you to treat yourself with a certain level of self-respect. Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Alei Shur

https://www.sefaria.org.il/sheets/221209?lang=he

What about dignity?

dignity (n.) 

c. 1200, “state of being worthy,” from Old French dignite “dignity, privilege, honor,” from Latin dignitatem (nominative dignitas) “worthiness,” from dignus “worth (n.), worthy, proper, fitting,” from PIE *dek-no-, suffixed form of root *dek- “to take, accept.”

From c. 1300 as “an elevated office, civil or ecclesiastical,” also “honorable place or elevated rank.” From late 14c. as “gravity of countenance.”

I think the grand move to show kavod after someone dies is to restore their dignity. There is no other Hebrew word; here I think English gets the prize. Or can it be that the act of showing kavod/doing the mitzvah in all its forms is to maintain or, in many cases, restore dignity. This is my redefinition, as in re-direction.

The older (and more popular) of my two Hebrew-English dictionaries (Alcalay, 1965) translates kavod as “honor, respect, glory, splendor, majesty, reverence, distinction, importance, wealth, riches, ambition”. The other (Levy, 1997), composed thirty years later, translates the Hebrew kavod as “honor, respect, dignity” (translating the English “dignity” into the Hebrew “kavod, mekuvadut, hadar”). A thorough examination of several (Christian and Jewish, old and new) translations of the Hebrew bible into English, revealed that dozens of words deriving from the root k.v.d  were translated into “honor”, “glory” and “respect”. The translations vary greatly: the same word in the same context is sometimes translated differently by different translators; the same translator sometimes chooses different English terms for the same  k.v.d word in different contexts.⁷ Nevertheless, “glory” and “honor” are the most prevalent English terms used to capture the essence of the biblical k.v.d words. “Honor” is more commonly used when a k.v.d word refers to humans, whereas “glory” is more often used to translate k.v.d words relating to god. Although my own translation of biblical k.v.d words would sometimes differ from existing translations, I agree that “glory”, “honor”, “respect” and maybe “dignity” are the most appropriate English words which capture the essence of the Hebrew root k.v.d. in both biblical and modern Hebrew. I would argue that in many cases, a more accurate translation would consist of more than one of these English words.  

The intuitive differences between the English “honor”, “glory”, “respect” and “dignity” indicate the complexity of the Hebrew root k.v.d. Clearly, none of the English terms, nor any artificial combination thereof can fully capture the exact, specific meanings of k.v.d. in biblical or modern Hebrew contexts. Yet, the existence of these distinct terms in a different language helps differentiate aspects in the Hebrew root, which cannot be fully verbalized within the Hebrew language itself. The use of this English terminology in this context is far from perfect, but may be as much as we can hope for.⁸ It is, therefore, meant to be taken as suggestive rather than definitive. 

Honor and Dignity Cultures: the Case of kavod and kvod ha-adam in Israeli Society and Law   Dr. Orit Kamir, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1999

Berakhot 19a): Great is kevod ha-beriyot, as it overrides a prohibition in the Torah.

If Kibbud av v’em is included in the section of the ten commandments dealing with relations between G-d and man, then it is clear that this is because the honor due to our parents stems with their partnership with G-d, and it is our first connection to G-d. All the honor that we show our parents can grow to be a relationship with those who we are honor-bound. Emulating G-d starts with our relationship with our parents. We imitate them, and we learn that sometimes we need to reach beyond them for role models. But we start with them.  

So what do I learn from my father’s life to restore the dignity that he lost over the past few years?  And the things that I didn’t mention at the funeral, in particular.

1. The ability to change. Redirect your energies. I could write a very long description about how my father listened to us and changed his behavior in 1974, sitting on a bench along the sea in the city of Yafo. Remind me to tell you sometime.
2. To survive means to pay attention to those around you who have done well, but just as much to those who have not.
3. Don’t dwell on the losses, but move on. Move on well. Sur-vive.

And now how do I make it my own?

I’m thinking now of how my father was unusually concerned with how things look. This may have been from his need to have order in his life, since so many externals were not. It wasn’t helped by living in La-la land, which is much too externally-motivated for me. But maybe I can rearrange what he thought. Instead of “looking good”, maybe we should focus on “looking well”. I don’t mean health-wise, although that’s absolutely necessary, but not my point here. I mean really looking at things well. Pay attention. Marvel at what is marvelous, and there is much, and act on what is dangerous, and there is unfortunately too much.

I am struck by the word צלם image, as in אדם בצלם א-לוקים. Man created in G-d’s image.

Rav Chaim Navon shares Rav Soloveitchik’s understanding that:

The Torah describes the creation at length in order to teach us a very important lesson – “to walk in all His ways” – and to instruct man to imitate his Creator and be himself a creator. A person should not shake his head saying that this demand of man is impossible, for he cannot imitate his Creator in creativity; at the very most, he can adopt some element of His other traits: lovingkindness, mercy, and the like. The Torah, nevertheless, demands of man and commands him to tirelessly exert himself to cling to the traits of the Holy One, blessed be He, and be a creator. (Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Yemei Zikaron, p. 86)

I am similarly struck that the word צילום is used for photograph. If you knew something about my father, you would know that he loved photography. He loved images, the art, the process. As he grew older, he accepted that he could use a digital camera and get the results he then wanted, which was to interact with his models. He would go every year at Hoshana Raba to his shul and take photos of everyone; mostly because it was permitted and more likely because he didn’t have the zitsfleish to go through the ganze ceremony. But he would religiously print out copies of all the photos and give them out when he saw them next.

Or leave them in his boxes for me to try to do, and unfortunately, mostly fail.

But honestly, the interaction between him the photographer and his subjects, who became his friends, was everything. The objects became subjectified. This became his creativity. And that was a gift that was his. As much as I love taking photos, I do it to take things in, to frame my reality, and perhaps to hide from it. Maybe it’s okay that I’m in this stage; maybe I can allow myself the room to adapt and grow.

Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi posted on Facebook about the broader meaning of the special brachah for the blossoming fruit trees we say in Nissan. She adds that, according to mystical interpretations, the blessing of the trees also includes your family tree, that your ancestors come to bless you at the same time, so it is also called the “Blessing of the Souls”. Your family sees how you need tikkun/repair before you can find your proper way to the Pesach seder, whether it be for your own family, livelihood, or other worries. By connecting to nature, to the way in which G-d provides everything for us in its due season, we can realize that G-d is with us, with goodness and comfort. It is then up to us to appreciate and enjoy it. Choose to enjoy the abundance of blessing.

I was doing some weeding just now, one of the allowed agricultural activities during this year of Shemittah. I took some photos of some new lemon buds. They are not quite open, so I will hold off on saying the brachah for Nissan. There is also an opinion that one shouldn’t say the brachah on fruit trees that flower twice in a year. This poor lemon tree barely flowers at all, and no fruit have formed on it since we planted it already over four years ago. Maybe it will come to fruition.

Just as I grappled with the idea of Rosh Hodesh Adar and the transformation of the idea of simchah/joy then, I have to deal with my father’s name now that we’ve entered Nissan. His Hebrew name, for those of you who didn’t know, was/is פסח Pesach; the name of the Passover holiday. How am I going to go into the holiday without coming to terms with this? A bit “in my face”, for sure.

Pesach doesn’t mean passing over, most likely. Let’s use the definition “jump”, although that’s not exact, either. But in terms of my father and his undiagnosed ADHD, it works well. I have distinct memories when I was maybe 10 of my father coming home in time for dinner, but then jumping back in his car to go chase a firetruck after hearing a siren. That was more important to him than so many things that you might have thought should come first.

My poor mother.

But the other interpretation that I will introduce here is פה סח—mouth talks. A pun for the holiday.

My father was a master of speech. His ideal job, he said for many years, would have been to be a maitre d’ at a restaurant; he just loved talking with people. He definitely would have been a great greeter at the Beit HaMikdash, telling people where to bring their sacrifices and what was bothering them that day, or congratulating them on things that went well. And then moving happily to the next person.

But keeping his negative emotions mostly to himself.

The Arizal taught that the word “Pesach” is composed of the words peh sach, which means “speaking mouth.” When Bnei Yisrael sacrificed the Korban Pesach, they sacrificed their speech to Hashem – by refraining from uttering forbidden words of lashon hara, anger and contention. Accordingly, the Korban Pesach was an essential catalyst of the Exodus from Egypt. By sacrificing their peh sach, their “speaking mouths”, they proved their greatness and their worthiness to be redeemed.

https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/57020/is-there-a-connection-between-%D7%A4%D7%A1%D7%97-pesach-and-%D7%A4%D7%94-peh-mouth

Rebbe Nachman continues the thread:

הֲפִיכַת הַשֻּׁלְחָן בְּשַׁבָּת הַגָּדוֹל, מְרַמֵּז כִּי עֲדַיִן לֹא יָצָא הַדִּבּוּר מֵהַגָּלוּת עַד פֶּסַח, שֶׁאָז יָצָא הַדִּבּוּר מֵהַגָּלוּת בְּחִינַת “פֶּה סָח” כַּיָּדוּעַ, שֶׁזֶּה עִקַּר בְּחִינַת יְצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם, שֶׁיָּצָא הַדִּבּוּר מֵהַגָּלוּת. Regarding the custom to turn over the tables on Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat right before Pesach. Speech remains in exile until Pesach. PeSaCh is Peh SaCh (a mouth speaking).¹⁴¹Sha’ar HaKavanot, Inyan Pesach #6; Likutey Moharan I, 49:6. On Pesach, speech emerges from exile. This is the main idea of the Exodus.

Sefaria Rebbe Nachman

Our people’s power is in our mouths. Our voices. And that is why we teach our children Torah as soon as they learn to speak. Here it says that the father teaches; we know that sometimes the child teaches the father. We look to fill our mouths and ourselves with Torah; with G-d. And this is why we don’t end Pesach until seven weeks later with the bringing of the Bikkurim and the declaration we would say at that time at the Beit HaMikdash., gratitude for all the gifts of the Land and of our existence.

Maybe this all connects perfectly with Purim, after all. In the Talmud Megilla 14a, it says:

“Whoever reports a saying in the name of the one who said it brings geula (redemption) to the world as it states. ‘And Esther said to the king in the name of Mordechai (Esther 2:22)’.”

As we bring the truths that we hear and learn from their speaker, or acknowledge that the truth that we have been found worthy to learn ultimately come from our parents by the nature that they are partners with Hashem, we are ultimately able to bring about the Redemption. We move out of the way and make it about someone else or something else, for the sake of Truth.

From the roots of this commandment is that it is fitting for a person to acknowledge and return kindness to people who were good to him, and not to be an ungrateful scoundrel, because that is a bad and repulsive attribute before God and people. And he should take to heart that the father and the mother are the cause of his being in the world; and hence it is truly fitting to honor them in every way and give every benefit he can to them, because they brought him to the world, and worked hard for him when he was little. And once he fixes this idea in his soul, he will move up from it to recognize the good of God, Blessed be He, who is his cause and the cause of all his ancestors until the first man (Adam), and that he took him out into the world’s air, and fulfilled his needs every day, and made his body strong and able to stand, and gave him a mind that knows and learns – for without the mind that God granted him, he would be ‘like a horse or a mule who does not understand.’ And he should think at length about how very fitting it is to be careful in his worship of the Blessed be He.

Sefaria Sefer HaChinuch

So on Seder night, we should be upstanding and raise a glass to my father and to the ultimate גאולה Redemption. May we be the ones who bring it. Or at least let us step out of the way to allow it to happen.

במהירה בידינו בימינו