By Rabbi Yossi Bensoussan
I coined what I like to call the “Bubby System.” My grandmother was living years ago in a nursing home in Brooklyn, and one Friday afternoon, my sister went to visit her. As she walked into her room, surprisingly, she noticed my father was already there. My father, a Torah scholar in his own right, was seated near my grandmother, who in her later years had trouble seeing and would often have tremors in her hands. But he wasn’t there to just say hello or catch up with her and tell her how the family was doing. He was there putting on her makeup for Shabbos.
My sister, seeing this, was taken aback. If you knew who our father was to us, the last thing we’d expect was to catch him putting makeup on someone. “Abba, what are you doing?” asked my sister.
“She’s Not Meeting the Shabbos Queen Looking Like This”
“This is a dignified woman. She’s not meeting the Shabbos Queen looking like this,” he said. He then continued applying her makeup.
My grandmother was a woman who lived and breathed dignity. She wasn’t someone who wanted to put makeup on for Shabbos because she needed to look dazzling for others. Real dignity isn’t about external appearances and impressions at all. It’s when you do something that is perhaps uncomfortable, difficult or you are bound to be made fun of, yet you still do it because it needs to be done.
The Beit Yosef, cited at the outset of the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 1:1), writes that there are times when exhibiting boldness is necessary, and those times are when you are being mocked in the performance of mitzvot, of G-d’s commandments. Dignity leverages you above those petty comments, it raises you a notch above what people think about you to do what you know needs to be done.
Knowing What It Means to be Special
My other grandmother too was an exemplary model of dignity. I met her in Israel when she was older, and not once would you find her—even when she was sick in the hospital—not looking her best. Her mitpachat (headscarf) was always situated just right. She understood what it means to be a dignified woman; what it means to be special.
Every time Rav Shlomo Freifeld, zt”l would talk to his rebbe, even on the phone, he would talk standing up and be wearing his jacket. He knew that it meant to act with kavod, honor, toward others. What about the fact that his rebbe wasn’t around to see him standing up for him? How is it showing respect if his rebbe couldn’t see the respect being afforded him?
It's Not About Being Dignified in Front of Others
Dignity of oneself and respect of others is far bigger than acting a certain way around and toward other people. It’s about ourselves. It’s not about being dignified in front of others. Rabbi Yitzchak Berkovits has said more than once that you can discover the spirit of human dignity from the fact that even a person who is alone in his home still closes the door when he uses the restroom. No one may be around, but that doesn’t matter. It’s about dignity, and dignity needs no other people to shine.
We stand a certain way, we carry ourselves as we do, and yet we don’t need the world to know who we are. We don’t need the world to know who we are from the way we dress. We affect the world who we are through the way we dress. And there’s a very big difference. Dignity is about oneself; no one else.
Whether you are away from home or in the privacy of your room, dignity comes down to yourself. It’s a personal decision, and one which hallmarks the Jewish soul and spirit.
Reprinted from the Parashat Tazria 5784 edition of the Torahanytime.com Newsletter.
