.
The Doctrine of Assignment*
The concept of kavod habriyot (honor for humankind) is the underlying
principle that forms the basis for the numerous halakhot associated with respect for the dead, the period prior to
burial, burial itself, the period of mourning, and laws concerning one who
happens upon a corpse. Kavod habriyot
is in turn based on the more fundamental idea of Tzelem Elokim - the fact that mankind was created in God's
image. The relationship connecting these two concepts was expounded by Na=manides (Ramban). Ramban contrasts
the Biblical statement, "Let us make man in Our image and Our
likeness," (Genesis 1:26) with a
phrase in Psalms: "[With] honor and glory did He crown [man]" (Psalms
8:6) and draws a parallel between the two:
"Man crowned with glory" implies that he was created in God's
likeness; "man crowned with honor" implies that he was created in His
image. "The image of God" is thus identical with the "the honor
of God." The halakhic concept of kavod
habriyot is constructed on this equation.
With this idea as an
introduction, the Rav posed the following question. How does Judaism judge the
human drive to attain honor? Is honor a worthy or unworthy aspiration? Immediately upon posing the
question, some relevant statements from +azal present themselves. For example, "Jealousy, desire, and honor
remove man from the world" (Pirkei
Avot
Given the apparently
negative view that +azal maintain towards the
pursuit of honor, why did the Torah
introduce the concept of kavod habriyot at all? Furthermore, why does the verse in
Psalms laud God for endowing man with honor if its very pursuit is denigrated?
While honor often seems to be viewed
negatively, other sources suggest that honor is a Divine attribute. God Himself
is referred to as "the King of Honor" (Psalms 24:8). Indeed the word
"honor" appears Biblically numerous times in possessive form in
reference to God, e.g., "It is the honor of God to conceal a matter"
(Proverbs 25:2).
The imperative of vehalakhta bidrakhav, "And you shall go in his ways"
(Deuteronomy 28:9) of imitatio Dei, is well known. The Talmud
expands on this directive to suggest that just as God is merciful, so must we
be merciful; just as He bestows kindness, so must we bestow kindness (Shabbat 113b). Further extending the
Talmud's statement, if God Himself is called the King of honor, and honor is one of His attributes, then the attainment of honor
should actually be a mitzvah. But if
so, how can this idea be reconciled with the aforementioned negative statements
of +azal noted above?
The resolution of these
apparently contradictory attitudes towards honor lies in understanding the
Doctrine of Assignment.
This doctrine was first
articulated to Moses through a simple instruction issued by God.
When we first encounter this directive in the Biblical narrative we tend to
gloss over its significance. Yet, without a full understanding of its
implications we cannot understand Moses' role, nor our own role, in Jewish
history:
…HERP
LA VXL$AW HKL HTEW
And now go, and I will send
you to Pharoah... (Exodus 3:10).
Reflect for a moment on the
paradoxical implications of this nondescript phrase. The Creator of worlds, the
Master of the Universe, the Infinite, appoints flesh and blood, temporal man,
who is "today alive but tomorrow in the grave" (Berakhot 28b),
as His agent, (shalia=).[1] How can weak, finite man possibly act as the
agent of the Infinite Creator of worlds? Although there is no sound
resolution to this question, the
imperative for man to accept the assignment remains.
When one acts as an agent on
behalf of another, a well-known Talmudic dictum applies: WTWMK
ODA L$ WXWL$, "an agent is likened to
the sender" (Mishnah Berakhot 5:5). Since
man (the agent) was created in His image (i.e., likened to the sender) he is
compelled to accept the assignment despite his feeble capabilities and temporal
nature.
When Abraham entrusted Eliezer with the task of finding a wife
for Isaac,[2] when Jacob entrusted Joseph with the task of burying him in
the
Just like Moses, all of us
have been appointed as God's agents, sent to fulfill His assignments. And just
like our Biblical ancestors, this designation was ratified by an oath, as
described in Niddah 30b:
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HDYLH OWY HZ "IW$L LK EB$T " ."RPE YDRWY LK WERKY
."HMRML EB$
Rabbi Simlai explained:
"...the [fetus] does not leave [the womb] until [an angel] administers to it an oath, as it states: "For to Me will every
knee bend, every tongue swear" (Isaiah 45:23). "For to me will every
knee bend" refers to the day of death, as it states, "To Him will bend all who descend to the
dust" (Psalms
In its
original context, the latter verse ("pure of heart...") is a
rhetorical response to the Psalmist's question posed in Psalms 24:3: "Who
may ascend the
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And
what is the oath that is administered to [the fetus]? "Be righteous and do
not be wicked. And even if the entire world says to you that you are righteous,
in your own eyes consider yourself as wicked. And know that the Holy One
Blessed Be He is pure, and His servants are pure, and the soul that He gave you is pure; if you keep
watch over it in purity, fine, but if not I will take it away from you."[7]
"For to you will every tongue swear."
Every Jew was sent to earth as an agent of the Creator. When a Jew sins, he
violates not only the will of God but also the terms of his assignment. In Halakhah, a person's role as agent
disappears the moment the sender wishes to terminate the agent's status (his sheli=ut). A person exists on earth
only as long as he pursues his mission. When an individual disregards or can no
longer accomplish his mission, then the initial half of the verse becomes
operative: "'For to You will every knee bend' -- this is the day of
death."
The same thought is
expressed in a verse in Job 14:5-6:
.RWBEY ALW TY$
WMWY RYK$ YK LDXYW WYLE HE$
If the days and months that a person lives are
predetermined, and You have set limits [on his life] that man cannot surpass –
then turn away from him, and let [his pain] be relieved, until, like a hired
hand, he craves the [end of] his day.
Man's days are numbered, but while he lives he is a
"hired hand" whose job is to perform his employer's assignments.
To better direct our
individual talents and strengths towards carrying out our assignments, we were
predestined to live in a specific time and place.
In this vein, the Rav cited Rav Avraham Yitz=ak Hakohen Kook,[9] who provided a novel explanation of a
meditation taken from Berakhot 17a
that is included in the Vidui portion
of the Yom Kippur service:
YTRCWN
AL WLAK YTRCWN$ W$
My Lord, before I was
created I was worthless, and now that I indeed have been created, it is as if I
were not created.
Rav Kook explained this meditation as follows:
Hashem, you know that had I been born in an earlier generation, in an earlier
era, I would have been worthless, unable to accomplish my specific assignment.[10] Yet, I have accomplished so little of my
present assignment, I am likewise unworthy of having been created even in this
generation.
The word VALM, angel, when used in the Bible, can refer to a human as well as a celestial
being. Both were created for the same purpose: to carry out God's mission. The
difference is that angels have no free will – they are compelled to carry out
their assignment. Man, in contrast, is free to be either faithful or unfaithful
to his mission and his Sender.
There is a passage in a
midrash that amplifies this
idea. In the Torah's description of the
visit to Abraham by three strangers, they are described as OY$NA, people (Genesis 18:2).
Yet, when they visit Abraham's nephew
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In regard to Abraham, whose spiritual powers
were great and for whom angels were [therefore] commonly found in his company,
they were called "men," but in regard to
Abraham lived his life as a true agent
of God, totally dedicating himself to his assignment. Angels, whose very being
is similarly dedicated, appeared to Abraham simply as peers, as men who did not
seem extraordinary in any way. But in
GOD'S SHELIHUT VERSUS SHELIHUT IN HALAKHAH
The parameters regarding the
appointment of an agent and the commission of his assignments are precisely
defined in Halakhah. God's
appointment of man as agent differs in some very significant ways from the
halakhic concept of agency. The Rav discussed four ways in which they differ.
1. Open-Ended
Assignment Term
When the rules regarding
conventional sheli=ut are detailed in the halakhic tomes of +oshen Mishpat (121-125) and Even Ha'ezer (140-142), an appointment
of a limited nature is discussed. An agent, for example, might be asked to give
or receive a betrothal or writ of divorce, or to sell or receive an item. Such
assignments are specific, with clearly defined objectives. An agent cannot be
appointed to carry out an open-ended, indefinite assignment: a BWCQ
WNYA$ RBD.[11]
Yet the assignment to which
God appoints man is indeed open-ended. The agency is permanent from the oath at
birth through the moment of death. Although the specific assignment may have
yet to be defined and can change during the course of one's life, one's role as
God's shalia= is a permanent assignment. A person cannot accept or
reject an assignment, since a person can never know for certain his ultimate
purpose.
The Yerushalmi in Kiddushin
(61b) provides a powerful illustration of this concept. The Gemara tells a
story of the supreme lengths that Rabbi Tarfon went to honor his mother. Once, his mother
tore her shoe and rather than allow her to walk barefoot, Rabbi Tarfon actually
placed his hands under her feet, alternating his hands as she walked, until she
arrived home and reached her own bed. Later, when Rabbi Tarfon fell ill, the
Rabbis came to visit him. Rabbi Tarfon's mother asked them to pray for his
recovery, in the merit of his honoring her so excessively. When the Rabbis
asked what exactly Rabbi Tarfon did that was excessive, she related the
incident of the torn shoe. The Rabbis responded, "even had he bestowed
honor upon you that was thousandfolds greater than what he has already done, he
would not have fulfilled even half of the Biblical imperative of honoring
[parents]."
Commentators on this passage
ask an obvious question: When one is concerned for the well-being of someone
who is ill, one normally reflects on that person's good deeds, and prays for
his recovery based on those merits. Honoring one's parents, moreover, is one of
the few mitzvot for which the Torah
specifically designates long life as a reward.
Why, of all times, while Rabbi Tarfon lay ill, did the Rabbis see fit
to minimize the extraordinary honor he extended to his mother?
In addressing this question,
the +afetz +ayyim explained that one can never know his
designated assignment. Naturally one would assume that the assignment of Rabbi
Tarfon, one of the greatest Torah Sages of his time, was the dissemination of
Torah along with his august contemporaries: Rabban Gamliel, Rabbi Akiva, R.
Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus, R. Yehoshua Ben
Hananiah, R. Elazar Ben Azariah, and R. +utzpit Hameturgaman. Yet the
Rabbis who came to visit Rabbi Tarfon were not quite sure. Perhaps his purpose
on earth was indeed to disseminate Torah. On the other hand, maybe Rabbi Tarfon
was created to serve his mother in her old age. True enough, for this purpose
he did not need to become the great sage Rabbi Tarfon; a simple unlearned Jew
could have fulfilled that assignment just as well. Perhaps becoming a Torah
giant was only a secondary, minor assignment, while his major purpose on earth
was to help his aging mother.
So when the visiting rabbis
heard his mother suggest that Rabbi Tarfon exceeded the requirements of the
mitzvah of honoring one's parents,
they in essence responded: God forbid! If Rabbi Tarfon completely fulfilled his
assignment, then there is no longer a reason to remain on earth, and he would
succumb to his illness. The rabbis therefore insisted that Rabbi Tarfon had not
discharged a tiny fraction of his obligation; his reason for being placed on
earth remained to be realized. +azal have said: Sometimes God
causes it to rain on an entire continent so one specific blade of grass can
grow (Ta'anit 9b). Similarly,
sometimes a great man, one of the greatest of his generation, can be placed on
earth to accomplish a relatively small assignment -- serving his old, frail
mother.
The incident contains an
important message for us all. We cannot argue that a specific task should be
relegated to someone else because it doesn't seem to play to our unique
capabilities.[12] A mitzvah
can never be beneath someone to perform. +azal say, "One should be careful to fulfill the easy as well as
difficult mitzvot because one does
not know the reward for any mitzvah"
(Avot 2:1). The Rav added that one
should fulfill the "easy" mitzvot
simply because one does not know his assignment; perhaps he was sent precisely
to fulfill just such mitzvot.
2. The Sender
Accompanies the Agent
It is axiomatic that after
an agent's appointment, the agent substitutes for the sender and accomplishes
the assignment on his own. The sender does not normally accompany the agent,
for what would be the purpose of an agent if the sender tags along and could do
the task himself?
Yet, when God assigns an agent,
He never leaves his agent's side. He accompanies His agent and is a partner in
all his actions. Without the Sender's active help, the agent would most
definitely fail: "If God does not build the house, in vain do the builders
toil, if God does not guard the city, in vain is the watchman's effort"
(Psalms 127:1). All the agent must do is exert the effort; success depends on
the Sender.[13]
This concept would seem to
violate a halakhic dictum: "If two workers are assigned to perform the
same task, one capable of accomplishing it and one incapable, one pays only the
capable one." Yet, despite the fact that He is indeed All-Capable and we
are pitifully incapable, Hashem is charitable – accomplishment of the
assignment is credited to the agent. For example, when Jacob awakened from his dream of the
ladder reaching to the heavens, he set the foundation for the future Temple on
that site, saying: "And this stone which I have placed as a monument shall
be the House of God" (Genesis 28:22). In order to be credited with
building the Temple, man must only move one stone. Although the remainder of
the construction will be done by the Sender, man will receive full credit.
This paradoxical idea of a
sender who appoints an agent, yet also accompanies him on his mission, was
revealed to Moses in Egypt. At first Moses wished to refuse his
assignment: "Who am I that I should go to Pharoah?" God answered,
"I will be with you" (Exodus 3:11-12). God, in effect, said:
"Moses, you are making a mistake. This is not a conventional assignment. I
will not leave you alone to carry out the sheli=ut, I will not retreat into
transcendence while you are left on your own, with the entire burden of freeing
the nation resting on your shoulders. In this assignment, I the Sender will not
leave your side, not even for a moment." "And this will be the sign
that I have sent you: When you take the nation out of Egypt, you shall worship
God on this mountain" (Exodus 3:12). "The full realization that I have
accompanied will strike you, Moses, when, much later, at Mount Sinai, the Jews will proclaim: EM$NW H$EN - 'We will do and we will
listen' (Exodus 24:7). You will wonder how a people can change so completely,
how a nation of lowly slaves can transform into a 'kingdom of priests and a
holy nation' (Exodus 19:6). No human leader can accomplish such a
metamorphosis; it can only be accomplished through My active participation.
Therefore, Moses, you cannot argue that the assignment is too difficult for
you. If the Sender accompanies you, then even you, 'the heavy of mouth,' the
stutterer, can lead this people. On the other hand, were I not to accompany
you, even Aaron, to whom I gave the gift of oratory, would not be up to the
task: 'And I will be with your mouth and
with his mouth...' (Exodus 4:15). Without My continuing, guiding Presence,
neither of you could accomplish what is required. No mission is too difficult
to accept because, 'I will be with you.' "
3. Incomplete Fulfillment
Another difference between
ordinary agency and God's assignment lies in a halakhic concept: WTWXYL$
H$WE$ XYL$ LE HQZX,
it is assumed that an agent appointed by man can complete his assignment (Eruvin 31b). In contrast, man's mission
from God can never be completed:
… HBRH
RK$HW OYLCE OYLEWPHW QXWD TYBH LEBW HBWRM HKALMHW RCQ OWYH
The day is short, the work
is vast, the employer exerts pressure, the workers are lazy, and the reward is
great (Avot 2:15).
The inability to complete
one's assignment is a reality that accompanies man as long as he lives. As
such, no person can assert that he has completed his Divine mission.
4. Mission Equality
The relative significance of
each person's assignment does not depend on the specifics of the mission, how
much of the assignment he completes, or the lasting effect of the sheli=ut.
No one can assess the relative importance of his Divine assignment.
Wholehearted acceptance and the will to carry out the assignment are all that
count.
There is an important
passage in Masekhet Berakhot 17a that addresses this theme:
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A
common saying among the Rabbis of Yavneh: I am a creature and my colleague is a
creature. My work is in the city, and his is in the field. Just as I don't
involve myself in his work, so does he not involve himself in mine. And if you
were to say that I accomplish much and that he accomplishes little, we learn
that it does not matter whether one accomplishes much or little, as long as he
does his work for the sake of Heaven.
The rabbis of Yavneh had a sacred mission. Through every page of the
Level of accomplishment is not what sanctifies an individual. It is the faithfulness in which one engages in the assignment. Holiness is associated not with perceived success, but with the effort. Man is not judged by his accomplishments, but by the devotion through which he pursues his mission.[14]
Jacob's Reaction to Joseph's Dreams
The Rav made use of this
concept to explain the Biblical story of Joseph's two dreams as described in Genesis 37:10-11:
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And [Joseph]
related [the second dream] to his father and to his brothers. His father
scolded him and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamt? Are
we to come – I, your mother, and your brothers – to bow down to you to the
ground?" His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter
in mind.
After Joseph recounted his first dream
involving sheaves of wheat, the Torah does not describe any reaction by Jacob. Only when he shareds his second dream, when the stars, moon, and sun
bowed down to him, does the Torah discuss Jacob's rebuke. Yet, the themes of
both dreams seem identical, so why did Jacob only rebuke Joseph after
recounting the second dream?[15] Secondly, there is an inconsistency in Jacob's
rebuke to Joseph on the one hand, and "keeping the matter in mind" on
the other. If Jacob's disapproval suggested that the dream had no significance,
why did he "keep the matter in mind"? If, on the other hand, Jacob
indeed expected the dream to be fulfilled, why the reprimand?[16]
The Rav explained a profound
idea that emerges from this narrative. The first dream, involving sheaves of
wheat bowing to Joseph's wheat sheave, represented
Joseph's political and economic power, and his brother's dependence on that
power for their own well-being. This aspect of Joseph's dream did not trouble
Jacob. The first dream would indeed be fulfilled precisely as Joseph
understood. There would indeed come a time when Joseph would be ruler,
supporting an entire land and its population, including his own brothers who
would ultimately bow to him. The physical dependence of poor on rich, of weak
on strong, is a simple, ubiquitous relationship. The obeisance of the brothers
in Joseph's first dream was of an economic and political nature. Physical and
economic dependence on a benefactor does not detract from the intrinsic honor of the beneficiary. No jealousy
was therefore expressed by his brothers, nor any rebuke by his father.
However, the second dream,
involving the sun, moon, and stars bowing to Joseph, represented an attempt by Joseph to arrogate for himself a different
type of authority. The subservience of the heavenly bodies denotes spiritual
rather than economic subordination. Joseph felt that his mission on earth was
of greater spiritual import than that of his brothers. A person's intrinsic
holiness is based on the fact that he is assigned a personal mission by God.
If, in Joseph's recounting of his dream, he maintained that his mission was
more sacred than that of his brothers, he in essence was suggesting that he was
endowed with more holiness than his brothers. Joseph was therefore undermining
the egalitarian foundation of, "with honor and glory did He crown
him." Yet, Jacob did not believe the dream to be untrue, for if
he did, Jacob would not have waited for the event to pass. So what specifically
was the reason for Jacob's reproof to Joseph?
Jacob understood that not only would
the second dream be fulfilled, but that its precise antithesis would come to
pass as well in a manner that Joseph did not foresee. The spiritual
dependence of the brothers on Joseph would indeed take place one day, but Jacob
understood that there would come a time when the roles would be reversed, when
Joseph would also be dependent on his brothers to realize his own spiritual
destiny. The reliance of the brothers on Joseph for their physical well-being
was indeed absolute, and their respective roles in this regard would not change.
However, in the religious realm, Joseph would one day have to make a figurative
obeisance to his brothers to parallel their own earlier deference to him. Only
in this way could the egalitarian nature of sheli=ut apply to Joseph on one hand and his brothers
on the other. Only in this way could there be balance among the roles of all
the protagonists on the spiritual stage. Jacob's criticism of Joseph was due to
Joseph's mistaken impression that his brothers' spiritual dependence on him
would be as permanent as their physical dependence. So Jacob therefore waited
for "the event to pass" in all its symmetry, for a time when not only
Joseph's dream but its very antithesis would be fulfilled.
And as Jacob had so clearly comprehended on
that fateful day in Canaan, the moment of Joseph's complete subjection to his brothers' control ultimately arrived.
.HZM
YTWMCE TA OTYLEHW OKTAק'HםDQPY
DWQP ……TM
YKNA WYXA LA FSWY RMAYW
The viceroy of Egypt, the
ruler who by his smallest gesture had the power to judge his brothers for life
or death, before whom the brothers begged for their own lives as they pledged
eternal subjugation to him, now made an amazing request. The all-powerful
Joseph was utterly powerless to
accomplish the one objective that mattered most to him – to assume his place
among the tribes of Israel, to have his name etched beside that of his brothers
on the breastplate of the Kohen Gadol. To achieve this goal,
Joseph had to be buried in the Land of Israel. The Biblical commentators ask
why Joseph did not simply assign his two sons, Menasheh and Ephraim, the task
of his interment. The answer is that Joseph was not only concerned about his
final resting place, but about his very legacy. He was torn from his family,
estranged, in Egyptian exile for so long that he required a spiritual
realignment with the rest of the Children of Israel.
To accomplish this
realignment, Joseph had to repair the breach in the relationship
with his brothers, a relationship that had been strained since childhood. He
somehow had to inculcate love and respect where previously there was distrust
and fear. His legacy had to be redefined and redeemed, with acknowledgement by
his brothers and their descendants of his pivotal role in the continuity of the
Jewish nation. There is a subtle double meaning in Joseph's request: YTWMCE TA
OTYLEHW -
"And you shall take [lit. elevate] my bones (Genesis 50:25)": the
removal of my remains from Egypt should "elevate" my standing from
estrangement to becoming an integral constituent of the tribes of Israel.
In this way the antithesis
of Joseph's dream came to pass.
Joseph figuratively prostrated himself before his own brothers as he begged
them to fulfill his dying request. He was now utterly dependent on his brothers
to fulfill their sheli=ut for him to attain his own
redemption.
Only hundreds of years later
was Joseph's dream fulfilled in the
way that he originally understood. On the night when the Jews were ready for
their triumphant exodus from Egypt, the Midrash relates that Moses delayed the departure from Egypt
as he searched for Joseph's coffin (Shemot
Rabbah 20:19). In this way, Moses acknowledged the importance of Joseph and
his spiritual mission as the paragon of Jewish commitment in exile. Joseph had
demonstrated that one could identify as a Jew and act in accordance with Jewish
precepts, both in poverty as a slave and in royal grandeur as the ruler
of Egypt. Without his example as a precedent, Jews could not have endured the
centuries of enslavement in Egypt.
And why was Moses so dedicated to this task? The
commentators suggest the reason was because he was a grandson of Levi, Joseph's greatest antagonist.
"Simeon and Levi are brothers, vessels of violence are their wares"
(Genesis 49:5). Levi was among the greatest of scoffers as Joseph recounted his
dreams. But through his great descendant Moses, Levi vicariously acknowledged
his mistake. The Talmud (Sotah 20b)
comments on the phrase:
WTCYXMB
WME -WME FSWY TWMCE TA XQYW
"And he [Moses] took the bones of Joseph with him"-- with him in his
abode.
Moses not only physically carried
Joseph's coffin, but internalized Joseph's legacy. Moses acknowledged that
the entire nation owed their everlasting gratitude to Joseph not only for their
physical well-being, a gratitude that had already come to pass as foretold in
the first dream, but also, and perhaps mainly, for his spiritual leadership and
example as represented in his second dream. This belated recognition now
constituted the complete fulfillment of the "sun and moon and eleven stars
bowing to me" (Genesis 37:9). Could there be a more beautiful example of
such obeisance than Moses carrying Joseph's coffin on his shoulders? Joseph's
spiritual mission on earth was now validated, his second dream fulfilled in its
entirety.
Joseph and his brothers figuratively
bowed to each other. Each honored the other since neither had an assignment
that could be deemed superior to that of the other.
HONOR: A
POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE TRAIT?
Through understanding the
four foundations of God's sheli=ut to man, we can now revisit
the question of whether honor is a negative or positive
attribute. Honor can be understood to be a positive attribute when the
recipient understands that his own self-worth is based on his role as God's
emissary. One gives honor to the sender through his agent. While the ambassador
of a small principality might be ignored, the emissary of a great country is
honored on a level commensurate with that country's greatness. How much more
should honor be granted to the Creator's emissaries, because through such
recognition, the Sender Himself is honored.
For this reason, a person
who demeans himself has violated the very notion of his assignment. For
example, an opinion is stated in Kiddushin
40b that one who eats in a marketplace is considered similar to a dog and
is therefore unfit to act as a witness in a court proceeding.[17] The veracity of any witness is based on the
fact that he was created in God's image, which in turn is reflected in the kavod habriyot due him through his sheli=ut. If a person lacks
self-respect, he has relinquished the basis for kavod, and has therefore lost the element of believability as a
witness.
Yet this same attribute of
honor, so central to humanity's election by God, turns negative when one
aggrandizes the significance of his own perceived assignment over that of his
fellow. Since no one truly knows what his assignment is, he cannot assert its
superiority over anyone else's. In addition, the intrinsic holiness of a person
is not related to one's accomplishments, but rather to the self-sacrifice by
which he carries out his assignment.
In other words, kavod becomes a negative trait when it
becomes confused with gedulah, which can be loosely
translated as superiority. Gedulah is
a relative term - it only has meaning when contrasted to the status of another
person. The disparaging statement of +azal: "Whoever pursues
greatness (gedulah), greatness flees
from him" (Eruvin 13b), refers specifically to gedulah rather than kavod.
A good illustration of gedulah is provided in Megillat Esther. When, for example, Haman engaged in self-aggrandizement,
the Megillah records: "And Haman told [his family and
friends] all the ways the king promoted him (VLMH WLDG R$A LK) and elevated him above the
officials and royal servants." Haman's self-esteem was only realized
through flaunting his preferred position among the king's advisors (Esther
5:11). This distorted sense of dignity permeated Ahasuerus's thinking as well when, searching for an appropriate means to reward
Mordecai for thwarting a palace coup, he asked: HZ LE YKDRML HLWDGW RQY H$EN
HM, "What honor or greatness has been done for Mordecai for this?
" (Esther
6:3).
The Rav concluded that honor is a positive trait only as long
as kavod is bound within its
etymological root - kaved, heaviness.
When one feels God's charge as a sort of burden because the imperative of his
assignment is constantly on his mind, always yearning to accomplish an exalted
objective, then kavod is indeed a
fulfillment of imitatio Dei.[18]