Whenever I’m invited to speak to what I think will be a large audience, and I am confronted instead with a very small group of faces, I remember the wise words of my Uncle Joe who said of the people who are not there, “If they don’t come, they won’t have to go home.”
I learned from him that we have to speak to and with the people who do stand before us without worrying about those who do not. And we really have to speak with them, taking them for the serious human beings they are, appreciating the weight (koved) of heart and soul and mind that entitles each to our full respect (kavod).
Pirke Avot expresses this in the maxim: “One who learns from his fellow one chapter, one legal matter, one verse, one saying, or one word, is obliged to pay him honor…And there is no kavod except Torah.” (Pirke Avot 6:3) From whom will we not learn a verse and more, if we are open to the learning? To whom do we not owe respect? No one. We are honored by the respect we receive from all, and we are privileged to reciprocate.
The next chance to do so comes with the very next face we encounter.
Professor Arnold Eisen is the incoming Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. www.jtsa.edu
