Helping Oneself

Philosophy Issue#2 (Issue#1 here)

Now this is a topic I find myself strongly being able to relate to. I’ve been told countless times “you have to do what you want, what do you want?”. I always have the same answer that I want to do what the right thing is, whether that’s what my parents say, or school says, or whoever I feel is right. It caused me to feel sandwiched with the whole college dilemma, since I didn’t know what I wanted for myself. Since I have such a strong care for others, I want what they want. (Although when I was babysitting, I realized I was sacrificing too much of myself and had to put an end to it.)

Jean Hampton in 1993 wrote an article called “Selflessness and the Loss of Self”. She discusses this topic of helping oneself and having self authorship. There are two “moral voices”, the ethic of care and the ethic of justice.

Women-ethic of care: they take into consideration people’s feelings. Mothers were trained to be this way since they have to raise a family and take care of their children. A mother has to care for her children and be aware of their feelings when siblings fight.

Men-ethic of justice: they make decisions based on logic. Men were trained to be this way since they are in the work place and have to make quick decisions. Business is all about quick decisions based on logic, they never think of the competitors feelings.

We have lots of mitzvos that are other related, “Vehafta L’reach Hakamocha” and you can’t embarrass another person, you have the mitzvah of “Kibud of Haem” and respecting your elders, and the midah of “anivus”. We have the concept of being “mevatar” to give something up for another person to have. All this trains us to be good moral people who care about others.

At the same time I fear we become so other oriented, that we loose focus of ourselves.

The question becomes how much do we owe to ourselves and how much to others?

Boys would say if responsibility to others and to oneself conflict then you go about 3/4 to yourself and 1/4 to others. Boys feel the most important thing in their decision is themselves.

Girls on the other hand would say it depends on the situation that if you have responsibility to someone else then you should keep it to the extent that it is really going to hurt you or stop you from doing something you really, really, want, then maybe you put yourself first. A girl would evaluate what she feels is more important, her job or someone she loves, and if it’s someone she barely knows then maybe she would go first.

Now I personally think the girl is being better. However, I do understand where it’s important to take care of oneself so as not to cause harm to oneself when taking care of others. A perfect example of the girl way of thinking is Tembow in her You want my... honey?? post.

Self authorship is needed for a person to make a decision that is based on what they choose to do, and not dictated by society. This enables you to grow as an individual. An example: an investment banker had wanted to be a clown his whole life, and even though he was making tons of money he didn’t feel satisfied so he decided to drop his job and go to clown school, now he has self authored his life.

I think self authorship is important to prevent a person from doing avairos. If a person chooses what they want, and if they want to do the right thing, then they will. But if they are pressured into doing what other people say, then they may be encouraged to do something they really don’t want to do, and thereby do an avaira.

Helping Those In Need

I am taking my third philosophy class and I have to say I am enjoying it very much. I like thinking about different moral issues and debating what I feel is correct. So here’s to issue #1, helping those in need, to what extent are we obligated, and are we obligated at all?

Peter Single in 1971 wrote an article called “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. In this article he talks about this topic of helping people in need. Singer claims “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally to do it”. For example: If you are walking past a pond and see a child drowning, you ought to go in and save the child. This will mean getting your clothes dirty, but that is insignificant, where the death of the child would be a very bad thing.

Singer claims it makes no moral difference whether the person you can help is a neighbor’s child or a child from a 3rd world country whose name you don’t even know. Singer also claims that there is no distinction between cases in which you are the only person who could do anything and cases when you are one in a million in the same position.

Singer believes a person should give till they reach marginal utility, where if they would give any more then they would cause harm to themselves.

Singer believes that there is no such thing as charity, but rather a person is required to give away money they would use to buy new clothes they don’t need, to help famine relief. Singer claims it is wrong not to give away the money.

Arguments:

1- Distance can make a difference. We always learn that Chesed starts at home. So I believe we should first help our family, friends, and those we care about, before we help strangers.

2- I don’t believe a person has to give so much that they are left with as much as the poor people have. A person needs an incentive to continue working, if they were to always give everything away, and not keep any for themselves then they would no longer work as hard, and then we would have to be asking for help.

3- I think there is such a thing as charity, we have tzedaka, where it’s a mitzvah to help someone out. Although 10% is required of us, we are not permitted to give more than a certain percentage. Even if Tzedaka is required of us to give, we still get acknowledged and rewarded for it, it’s still considered a moral act.

Anti-Semitism

Recently I made a list of things I have never done/seen, one of them is “interacted with a drunk person”. Well today I may have encountered just that, or maybe it wasn’t a drunk, maybe it was a mental person who wasn’t 100% (thereby rationalizing my fear).

So today I went on a nice shabbos walk with my mother, or at least it was nice until 3 scary incidents occurred. So we started off walking down an Avenue that had a lot of stores open with mostly Russians walking around. I didn’t like walking down that avenue because then it’s too busy and it feels like during the week, and you can’t talk, your focusing on walking past it all.

So then we get to Ocean Parkway, and we sit down on the bench across from a nice sefardi shul, we were watching people come out of it, and we were talking. Then we got rudely interrupted by this crazy man. He was on a bike, with white/grey hair and beard, he had ripped jeans and looked like he was homeless. He calls out “F’n Je*u* if I had the strength I would nail you to the cross”. I’m still not sure who he was talking to, where the only one’s there, so it must of been us, but I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

So I jumped up off the bench and started walking away, signaling that my mother should do the same. So then my mother calls my name telling me to cross the street, since the man was following in my direction. So I quickly cross. Meanwhile, there was a sefardi father with 2 sons walking nearby on the sidewalk to where I crossed over to. They saw what happened, so as we were walking down the block, they kept turning around and looking. I thought they were being kind and they wanted to make sure we were okay. When we got to the corner and were waiting for the light, the father asks if I was scared. I of course said “yea!”, and my mother said she didn’t get scared. So that was incident number 1. As a side point, I noticed many sefardi men were wearing baseball caps.

Then we decided to walk home through a different Avenue, my mother likes to look at the nice houses and comment on them. So we were standing by a house and I noticed a ramp so I made a comment. Then all of a sudden we hear the neighbor to that house call out “F’n A-holes” and he continued cursing. He wasn’t talking on a phone, so not sure if it was directed at us or not, but again we passed by and continued on. Now that was incident number 2.

When we started getting closer to my neighborhood, I see this lady who looked like a man, wearing men clothes, but with woman parts. She had this huge black dog on a leash, she was on the opposite side of the street, so we continued walking. But then she started crossing over to our side and yelled out “Get away”. So we quickly crossed to the side she came from. But then this huge black and brown dog without a leash comes chasing after us, crossing the street. It was a few feet behind my mother, I quickly was able to get away. I felt bad for leaving my mother so close to the dog, but she was able to get away too. So that was incident number 3.

Then we finally made our way home, I had a chazaka of 3 in one day, I had never encountered such anti-Semitism and it freaked me out. I guess it teaches us that we aren’t so safe as we would like to think.

Parshas Vayikra

Midah means measurement. Someone with Middos has the right amount of measurements for each characteristic. There is no such thing as a bad characteristic. Each one can be good when used at the right time, in the right way, in the right amount. I remember in 12th grade my teacher taught us why it’s important to have pride to be a good Jew, it stuck with me through all this time.

Something to Say:

From the cattle or from the flock shall you bring the offering (1:2)

The Sages tell us that the cattle, referring to bulls and cows, symbolize haughtiness, whereas the flock, referring to sheep and goats, symbolize humility. The verse mentions both to signify that these two character traits, both arrogance and humility, must be utilized in the service of God. In this context, haughtiness is not meant in a negative or destructive sense, but rather a sense of pride that is necessary to fulfill our duties. The Zohar refers to this as azus dikedushah, arrogance of holiness, the strength of character we must exercise when someone wishes to turn us away from our obligations to God.

I know some of you feel that Jews can seem haughty sometimes, or act arrogant, but you see here, really it’s needed as a survival tactic. There’s nothing wrong with being haughty in of itself, its only when it’s used for negative that it is bad.

Yentas/Shadchanim

Now I’ve heard of the stereotype of shadchanim of being Yentas who talk a certain way which is very comical. I always thought that was just in movies like Fiddler on the Roof, and in the olden days. I didn’t know they still exist. Today I came upon one and it got me thinking.

I had come to school to find class cancelled, I was unsure if I should stay in school to wait for my next class to start or if I should go back home, since there was 3 hours between the two. I remember in 6th grade my teacher told us that “Mother’s know best” and that mothers are always right. So I called my mother and asked her what she think I should do, and she suggested I go home.

So I went home, and as I was on the city bus I overheard this Jewish lady on the cell phone. Now she was the yenta/shadchan type that I heard about but yet never saw. She was talking in a loud voice, in a certain tone that can only be described as a “Yenta tone”. She said “the girl is 5’7, slim”. Then this non Jewish lady turns to look at her, she doesn’t notice and continues. “She’s bubbly, she’s a very good girl…”.

I was thinking, it’s very nice that this lady is helping out and wants to make a shidduch, but I couldn’t help feel bad for the girl. To me this all sounds very degrading, it’s as if the shadchan is making a sales pitch, trying to sell off the girl. I just don’t like the way it sounds for a girl to be on the market and sold off to someone else. It seems like such Chutzpah.

Why is it that the guys are the ones who have the mitzvah to get married, and yet nobody goes around selling the guys? It’s always the girls being sold. Why are guys the one’s with waiting lists of girls? I think waiting lists are another degrading thing to a girl.

Oops, did I just write a Shidduch post?

Then as I was walking home I saw a Pretty weed!

 

Now that can have all kinds of connotations, so many ways to tie it into my thoughts.

 

 

One last thought, why do men always pick up their coats/jackets before they sit down?

Jewish Song Sunday #18

David Kerner: The Story of Haman and Mamoud
hattip to: Teruah

I know this is a little late in coming, but this is a Purim song to the tune of BINGO. David is actually one of the parents of kids I had babysat for. I even wrote a post about him on my babysitter blog.

Lyrics
There was a rasha long ago and Haman was his name-o
Hey-Mem-Nun Sofit
Hey-Mem-Nun Sofit
He-Mem-Nun Sofit
And Haman was his name-o.    

Now Mordechai HaTzadik, each day would walk right by him
And no, no he wouldn’t bow down
No, no he wouldn’t bow down
No Mordechai would not bow down because he loved HaShem-o.

So Haman hatched his evil scheme, and things looked rather bleak-o
Mor-de-chai Ha-Tzadik
To the palace he came to seek
His righteous lovely Jewish niece*, Esther HaMalkah

Together they did lead the Jews in fasting and tefilah
We really love you Hashem
Our relationship we want to mend
To you we will return again, to You we will be faithful. 

Now in the end Haman was left, hanging on a tree-o
And for the Jews, there was light
Joy and honor and delight
And so on Purim day and night we tell the story still-o.  

Baruch Mordechai,
Arur - arur Haman!
B'rucha Esther
Esther B'adee!
_______
There is a rasha living now, Ahmadinejad's his name-o
Ach - mad - din - e- jad
To say his name it might be hard
But right there on his business card he tells us what he'd do-o.
He'd like to take the Jewish State and wipe it off the map-o
(And if he could he surely would, because he's such a wacko)
The Holocaust he does deny
He's plotting the next genocide
It's time to stand and take a side, so which side are you on-o?

Parshas Vayakhel

A lot of times there’s the excitement of something new which motivates us to do something. It can be something you normally wouldn’t want to do, but because it’s new or the first time you get excited about it. Example in the beginning of the school year, you can’t wait for school to start and can’t wait to do your homework. But then as time goes on, you no longer have the same motivation.

Something To Say:

The people are bringing more than enough for the labor (36:5)

The Mei HaShiloach asks: Why are the Jews praised for brining these offerings? Who wouldn’t give money towards the building of the Mishkan, which served as a house for God? The Mei HaShiloach explains that a man never knows if he truly has a generous heart or not. The first time he is asked to do a mitzvah, he is able to do it with great enthusiasm, but after he has become accustomed to the mitzvah, his performance often does not have the same fire anymore. This may serve as a sign that he is not truly a giving person. In this verse, however, we read that the people gave many contributions; they continued to give time after time, with great enthusiasm, proving their authentically generous character.

So here, the Jews really had a true excitement to do the mitzvah and help donate towards the Mishkan. It wasn’t just because it was a first time thing, and it was exciting, but rather they truly were giving people. The Jews continued to give more and more, so it wasn’t a one time thing.