Are Religious People Better Mannered? Part 1/3

Recently, a friend told me about how she’d had a bad experience with some religious men.  They were dressed in outwardly Orthodox Jewish garb, but they did not show her enough respect by moving aside to allow her to board a bus.

She is not the first person I know of who has commented on such a situation.  In fact, people mention things like this to me all the time.  It comes up both with individuals’ personal experiences and whenever an observant Jew is shown in the media.

My response is generally that we are all human beings and we all make mistakes.  Every person is given a different set of strengths and weaknesses.  Viewed in a light of Torah, these vary greatly.  There are a lot of different mitzvot (commandments) we must follow and a lot of different middot (character traits) we must work on.  This is why each and every one of us is different, unique, and special.

We learn that changing just one middah (character trait) is harder than memorizing the entire Gemara… and that is quite hard to do!

The problem is that some of our weaknesses are more publicly visible than others.  Maybe one observant Jew has a weakness for money and will pursue it at all costs.  What happens when he is caught cheating or stealing or committing fraud?  He ends up in the news and the whole world knows about it.  Maybe another observant Jew has a weakness for cheeseburgers.  First of all, it is easier to hide a cheeseburger (even if you get caught, you can probably eat it before anyone can prove it was real meat and real cheese).  Second of all, it might damage his reputation within a local community, but it is hardly going to end up in the news.  Yet both of these men are committing sins.  They both have their weaknesses.

In fact, some sins and weaknesses are so commonplace, we hardly even regard them as sins anymore!  A lack of modesty is idolized in our society.  And the world would see nothing wrong with speaking gossip, even though lashon hara is one of the most terrible sins there is. There are even entire magazines you can buy devoted to lashon hara, just as there are magazines you can buy of people dressed in an immodest fashion (actually these magazines seem to me to often be one and the same!).

The problem is that when someone outwardly acts and dresses in an observant fashion, we hold them to a higher standard, have higher expectations of them.  And it is true that in presenting yourself in a certain way, you make yourself a role model.  However, it is not true that just because you are doing your best to be a role model that you will be perfect.

We as the viewers of these people must always remember that even our “role models” are human, too, and have their flaws and challenges.  We are, all of us, human and imperfect.

Stay tuned tomorrow for part 2!