Where Does Self-Esteem Come From?

My mother wanted us all to have positive self-esteem.  So she separately told me and my sisters that we were each her smartest child. 

That worked reasonably well, I suppose, until one evening when we were all together and we compared notes. 

We confronted her with it, and she said, “alright, you got me.  But it’s good to know that at least you’re talking to each other.”

Generally speaking, positive self-esteem is something we want our children to possess, something we want to possess ourselves; but self-esteem is elusive.

I believe that appropriate positive self-esteem – not arrogance, but self-esteem – is a cornerstone of family, community and society.

And I want to speak about three pillars of self-esteem which, I believe, emerge from the Biblical tradition.

Complex Religion for a Complex World

De and I saw the Book of Mormon this week.  For those who may not know, it’s a highly irreverent musical comedy that takes a wickedly funny look at the role religion plays, and might play, in society.

We ran into De’s cousin before the show and afterward, her husband asked, “So how are you going to use this in a sermon?”

He was kidding, but the truth is that while I laughed and even shed a few tears at what I thought was a great show and a raucous meditation on what religion might be, I spent Act II working out the sermon in my mind.   I know it’s a professional hazard to think about work during a show, but here goes. . .

Marching Toward Freedom

At the recent Celebrate Israel Parade, Dr. Ruth Westheimer was interviewed for Channel 9.  She graciously thanked the anchors for their time and reminisced about her role as a sniper in the Hagana around the time of Israel’s independence.  She observed how the parade demonstrates support for Israel within and beyond the Jewish community.  She also spoke about how parades like this one reveal the pervasive blessing of freedom in America.  How fortunate we are, she remarked, that Jews, Latinos, Indians and others can march proudly up “fancy Fifth Avenue,” fully integrated into American society while able to embrace the unique aspects of their respective cultures.

Bravo, Dr. Ruth.  You always seem to find the right words for the occasion.  Indeed the Celebrate Israel Parade is not only about Jewish support for Israel, it’s about world recognition. Moreover, it is one of many ethnic parades that convey an important message about our country, namely the freedom and equality that every group deserves.

Unfortunately, in the State of Israel, religious freedom still eludes many Jews as the Conservative and Reform denominations of Judaism do not receive equal treatment under Israeli law.  Recently, an important development took place that will hopefully begin to change that reality. 

Writing Each Other Off

Twenty-five years ago, I had my first introduction to my wife’s extended family.  The occasion was her cousin’s Bar Mitzvah.  I was asked to read Torah and although I had a fair amount of experience, I was a little nervous.

Before the Bar Mitzvah, I had a chance to meet De’s cousin.  He came across bright and personable.  His family was concerned because he had some learning issues which made reading a challenge for him.  English was hard enough, and now he had to work backwards and navigate the Hebrew.  He worked extra hard to prepare for his Bar Mitzvah.

I did my reading and the bar mitzvah boy did just fine. And then the rabbi got up to speak and he spoke about how the boy had gotten kicked out of Hebrew school classes again and again due to poor behavior and how disappointing his Hebrew school performance was.  And I was waiting for him to say, “but look how well you did today and we are going to make sure you continue your Jewish education” but he never said that or anything like it.  He spoke about the grandfather of the bar mitzvah and his involvement in the synagogue and then the speech just ended.  I was kind of surprised, to say the least.  I didn’t know the family well enough at the time to ask them about their reactions.

The Limits of Outsourcing

We’re familiar with the scene in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer where Tom is given the task of painting the picket fence.  A boy comes by, says he’s off to go swimming.  Too bad Tom has to work.  Tom says, if you call this work.  And starts talking about how much fun it is and yet how not everyone has what it takes to paint it in a way that would satisfy Aunt Polly.

Before long, the boy starts painting, Tom starts to watch. 

Here’s the way Mark Twain describes the action:

And while the [boy who had pretended he was] late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tom Sawyer didn’t invent outsourcing, but he took it to new level.

I want to talk about outsourcing – its benefits, but mostly its limitations.

Curious Minds

Last week, I asked the third and fourth graders in our Religious School to imagine that they could ask God a single question and that God would answer it.  What might they ask?  Here are a few of the questions they shared:

Who created you? Are you a boy or a girl?  What happens after we die?  Are there aliens somewhere on another planet?   Will anything really sad happen to me?  Can I have 50 more questions?

It didn’t take long at all for our children to come up with these questions, which suggests that they had already been thinking about them.

We’re a contemplative species, as our tradition has long recognized.  Every morning we recite the words, “A person has many thoughts.”  In the words of Ecclesiastes (3:11), God puts eternity in our minds, “but without man ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass.” 

Don't Judge Me

A few weeks after Rosh Hashanah, a few years ago, someone in the congregation came to talk to me in my office.  He said that he felt like his life wasn’t going in the direction he wanted, and he wondered if maybe it was because he’d made what he considered a few mistakes.  He wondered if he was being judged in some way.   I asked what he meant and he said, ‘well maybe this is God’s way of telling me I messed up.’

He then told me that he also felt like other people were judging him negatively for what he’d done.  I’ll come back to what I told him at the end.

The more I thought about the conversation, the more I considered the issue of judgment.   This person is not alone in feeling like he’s being judged, either by God or by other people.

My sense from my professional and personal interactions with people is that judgment is something we often think about and worry about.   And while the feeling of being judged by God is important, I somehow feel that for most of us, it’s the sense that others are judging us that is more persistent. 

How do I look to my friends?  How did I come across in that conversation?  What did my friends in social studies class think of my speech?  Will my child think I’m too strict?  Will my spouse think I’m being annoying?  Will the people at work think I’m a team player?  

And if we consider our own feelings of wondering if and how we’re being judged, we may want to think about the extent to which we judge others and thereby contribute to the reservoir of discomfort that so many of us feel.

I want to say that while some situations call for our judgment, more often than not, what we need from each other is not judgment.  We need something else.   But I’m not there yet.