There are two interpretations of gratitude: one pagan-philosophic, and the other Jewish-moral. Aristotle in the Greek world, and Cicero and Seneca in the Roman world, had little use for gratitude. According to Aristotle, to be in a predicament of gratitude meant to be indebted and inferior. It placed you under obligation, and therefore marked you as subordinate. The "high-minded” man, therefore, would immediately pay back a favor, and even in greater measure, thus tipping the balance in his favor and becoming superior, the creditor instead of the debtor.Gratitude is thus a prudential quality, it is a question of cleverness in establishing the social relation to your own advantage instead of to that of the other. Gratitude is therefore an element in social mechanics, and is an obligation that should be gotten rid of as soon as possible in order to retain your own social position. This is the normal attitude of most people. It is probably why ingratitude is so common, while those whom fate has destined to be in a position to help others, learn by experience not only not to expect any thanks but to be very happy if they are not repaid with enmity and resentment. If gratitude is a debt, then just as the borrowerusually resents the lender because he feels obligated to him,so is the person who feels called upon to express gratitude . Judaism, however, never saw it in this light. That gratitude is important, goes without saying. The very word ,Jew״ comes from ״Judah" which in turn, according to the Torah, means thankfulness, for Leah named her son Judah, saying:הפעם אודה את ה', ״. This time I will thank God.״ Furthermore, Saadia Gaon saw gratitude as the first principle in attempting to construct Judaism on a rational philosophical basis. The fact that we are the creatures of God automatically implies gratitude to Him, which in turn accounts for a large number of the Commandments.Gratitude, in Judaism, is not prudential but moral; it is not primarily social but personal. …

With regard to character in the study of Chabad, mention that for Chabad – or sublimation – is a major element based upon their metaphysical conception of evil. In other words, evil is really the divine paradoxically transforming itself through – through the catastrophalistic idea of Luria – into something physical; therefore, the way to approach evil is by reversing the process and going back to the divine. However, this idea of the interchangeability of good and evil leads to a kind of fudging of the boundaries in the view of R. Hayyim, who, therefore, in an important gloss to the parashah, insists that the primal sin of the eating of the etz was the interspersal and interpenetration of good and evil. The moral conduct of man therefore requires their separation rather than the transformation from one to the other. Question: does this mitnagdic and halakhic and pluralistic view of R. Hayyim find reflection in the views of the Rambam – as opposed to the views of Hasidism?

No, this is not a note on some imagined connection between Eric Fromm and Paul Erlich. Not at all. It is, rather, an outrageous pun on an equally outrageous situation. Our Orthodox Jewish society seem to be progressively obsessed with frumkeit, piety or religiosity. We have the frum, the half-frum, the "FFB" ("frum from birth") and the "BT" (Baal Teshuva — the newly frum) and, most notably, the frum and the super-frum (or glatt-frum).Now, there is nothing wrong with asserting that there are different levels of piety, varying degrees of frumkeit. My problem is with the term itself, and especially its use as a label, both pejorative and honorific. The very plethora of quantative measures of frumkeit is an indication of demonstrative piety with all its attendant exhibitionism.Any truly religious personality must recoil from such crude means of evaluating fellow human beings, and Jews should be especially sensitive to such gross ostentation and conspicuous frumkeit which is anathema to genuine spirituality.If not frumkeit, what then? When I was a child, I was taught the Hasidic maxim that, "a galach (priest) must be frum;a Jew should be ehrlich." Ehrlichkeit means integrity, honor, honesty. Ehrlichkeit is the true distinguishing characteristic of the religious personality, whose exquisite moral sensitivity must reject invidious comparisons of more or less piety.Frumkeit, at best, refers to mitzvot she1bein adam la-makom, the relations between man and his Creator. It says nothing directly about the quality of one's relations with his fellow humans. It requires an additional step to include bein adam le'chavero, social behavior, in the rubric of the Man-God relation. But this is not the Jewish way, which grants bein adam le1chavero autonomous status.Ehrlichkeit, however, covers both areas. Integrity is a quality that describes both man's ritual and his social conduct. One's "religious" life, no less than his ethical life, can be honorable or dishonorable. The best word f…

ישעי׳ א-א: "חזון ישעיהו בן אמוץ אשד חזה על יהודה וירושלים בימי עוזיהו יותם אחז יחזקיהו מלכי יהודה". ולכאורה בלתי מובן מדוע היה לו להזכיר כל אלה המלכים שמלכו בזמנו. ואם, כפי שמקובל, הנבואה הזאת באמרה בשנה האחרונה למלכות עוזי׳, מדוע לו למנות שלשת המלכים שמלכו אחריו? ועי' במלבי״ם שכתב ששנה בבואתו בימי כל אחד מהמלכים האלה, כלומר, שהנביא חזר על דבריו בחיי כל אחד מארבעה המלכים האלה. ונראה שרעיון נשגב טמון בדבריו: אם הנביא או המוכיח רואה שדבריו לא פעלו, שנבואתו שבה ריקם, עליו לא להתיאש וגם לא עליו ל״חדש" משהו במסר שלו או אפילו בסגנונו, אלא לחזור על אותם הדברים ממש פעם אחר פעם עד שייכנסו בלב המקשיבים – לרצונם או שלא לרצונם.