Part II. Make Your Name Great
Crowning Achievements
In Pirkei Avos (4:17) there’s a mishnah as follows: ה≈ם יםƒָ ר ̇¿ּכ ָׁ ה ֹ̆ú ¿ׁ ̆– There are three crowns that a person can wear; it means three crowns that will bring him glory. A crown is something that makes you taller – you put it on your head and it makes you taller than anybody else; it distinguishes you from others.
What are the three kinds of crowns?
Number one is kesser kehunah, the crown of priesthood. If your name is Cohen, Kaplan, Kahan, Kahana, other names that designate a family as kohanim, be proud of it. Don't say, “I can't be proud. I did nothing to earn it – I was born that way.” Don’t be humble now! Be proud that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has placed this crown on your head. Don't talk about democracy or chauvinism. Forget about that garbage. Hashem has spoken and His word is not to be revoked from now until the end of time: He has bestowed the kesser kehunah on the head of Aharon Hakohen and his seed forever and ever!
The second crown, the mishnah says, is called kesser malchus, the crown of royalty. Only the House of Dovid has been granted this privilege, no one else. It was given away forever to Dovid and his family, and so, no matter how good you'll be, no matter how many votes you'll get, nothing will help — the kesser malchus is not for everybody.
The Available Crown
But there's another crown in that list that is ֹלּלַכ כָןּמוּו „עוֹמ≈¿ו נָּחּמו≈ל‡רָ¿ׂ ̆ƒי – it’s available for anybody to take (Rambam Hilchos Talmud Torah 3:1). That's the kesser Torah, the crown of Torah. That’s a crown that anybody can get. Anybody! Just start a career learning one line of Gemara a day and reviewing it. One line a day! Soon you’ll know ten lines and then twenty lines and then a whole page you’ll know. A whole daf! That’s already a crown on your head! Of course, there are all types of Torah crowns. There are big crowns and there are small crowns, but a little crown is also something.
Of course you have to aspire to the kesser Torah – if you're not interested in it, you won't get it. But if you start and keep going, there's no question you're going to gain a crown of Torah; I guarantee it.
And so, these are three great crowns that Pirkei Avos tells us about – the crown of Priesthood, the crown of Royalty and the crown of Torah. And if you put them side by side, you'll see how important they are – they stand as three great distinctions and it doesn’t seem like anything could rival such crowns.
The Crown of a Good Name
But along comes the mishnah and says a big chiddush. Rabbi Shimon says there's a crown greater than all of these, and that’s the crown of the shem tov: ∆ם≈יהַּבּ‚ ﬠַל עו ֹל∆ה טו ֹב ׁ≈ ם ̆ ∆ ר ̇∆ּכ¿ו – The crown of a good name rises above all of them.
That’s our subject tonight, the kesser shem tov. But first a little grammar, some syntax. What does the word shem mean? It's from the word shamoa, to hear. Here’s a man named Chaim. You don't know him but the first thing you hear about him is his name. That’s shem; the sheima, the first report about him, is Chaim. So shem is what you hear about a man – a name means what people say about you, the impression that you give off.
And so we understand that when it says that the crown of a good name is bigger than anything else, it means that you should try to get people to say good things about you. And if you do, then you have achieved a success which is oleh al gabeihem, which is bigger than all forms of success – bigger than the kesser kehuna, bigger than the kesser malchus and even bigger than the kesser torah. Achieving a good name is the crown of all crowns!
What’s In a Name?!
Now a big question arises. Because actually it doesn’t make sense. After all, how do you achieve the crown of a shem tov? By means of good character and good deeds; by means of being polite and considerate and treating everyone with respect. And so why shouldn't we call it rather the “crown of good character” or the “crown of maasim tovim,” something like that. That’s what it is after all. The “good name” is only what is created by a man's behavior, so let's go straight to the source and say a “crown of middos tovos.” That’s what counts anyhow.
And so we must say: the answer is that it’s not talking about good character here! It's a good name that we're talking about! Of course it's a very great thing to have good character and it's worth spending your life working to acquire that. There are places where people do that. In the Novardoker Yeshiva everybody worked on their character. Every day a certain amount of time was set aside for what they called the ‘burjza’. Burjza means the exchange, the stock market, only they were taking stock of something more important.
They used to come together and talk to each other and criticize each other; they would offer suggestions on how to improve. They gathered in the beis medrash, in groups, and they discussed their problems; how to control anger, how to guard their tongue, how to learn to be more tolerant and charitable. The burjza – it was a remarkable thing that the Am Yisroel once possessed.
And so it’s certainly a great thing – good character is a tremendous crown. But that’s not what the mishnah is speaking about here. We’re speaking here about creating a good name for yourself, getting people to think well of you, that’s all. That’s the crown that rises up above them all. It doesn't say you have to be good. It doesn't say the kesser of being a tzaddik, the kesser of being a righteous man. A crown of shem tov means that people think you’re good. That's what's important because that’s how you’ll bring glory to Hashem. What you are really, that’s not the intention here – your mark of success when it comes to the mitzvah of kiddush Hashem is what people will think about you.
Don’t Be Natural
So you can’t say, “I don't care about what people think; I just want to find favor in the eyes of Hashem.” Oh no! Hashem says, “If you don't care about people I don't care about you either.” ּה≈ ימ ∆נּו נו ֹחָ ה ̇וֹּיƒר¿ּהַב חַּׁ∆ רו ̆ ָלּכ – If people are satisfied with you, ּה≈ ימ ∆נּו נו ֹחָ ה וֹם ̃הַמָּ חַּרו – then Hashem is satisfied with you (Avos 3:10). You hear that? A tremendous statement! Hakadosh Baruch Hu is actually insisting that you have to exert yourself that people should like you – even though you're not so likeable. Hashem Himself knows you're not likeable but He wants people to like you anyhow.
And so your job is to be a cunning fellow and not follow your nature. You have to be artificial all the time. You hear that word? Artificial. Not to be natural. Natural means you get down on hands and feet and you'll eat from a plate on the floor — why bother to sit at a table? And you don't need a spoon. You'll put your face into the plate and you'll lick it up. That's natural.
Natural means you’ll sit in public and put your fingernail into your ear or your nose and then take it out and inspect the results of your mining expedition. Many years ago I was saying a shiur in the yeshivah and I saw a young man do that, so I decided that being natural is not the way to go.
Deceive Everyone
A person has to be unnatural if he’s going to succeed at living a life of kiddush Hashem. No matter what he’s feeling, he continues to maintain the proprieties, the derech eretz, that cause people to think well of him. He knows that he’s always on display and that he’s making a show for Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Now, I understand that there were falsifiers who popularized theories about natural behavior. There was a man Jean-Jacques Rousseau — I have a special grudge against him because he was an anti-Semite but most people don't know that and therefore they're taken in. They're bamboozled by his theory of naturalism. Now it could be some aspects of his teachings had practical value — right now I'm not ready to say that, but still it could be — but the general attitude that people gathered from his words was that what's natural is the criterion of proper behavior; and the plain truth is that it’s a big lie!
It’s sheker v’chazav! We are not born in this world to live a natural life. We're here to live an unnatural life. The Torah wants you to deceive everybody else into thinking you’re better than you are and therefore no matter what you actually are, you have to put on an act and pretend that you’re somebody very good.
Aim for Praise
Now, we have to pay good attention to the words of the Rambam because the Rambam’s language is always precise. The Rambam says there that a man should continue going in these good ways ‡ָˆ ¿מƒּׁ∆ י ̆ „ﬠַוֹ ̇וֹ‡ יםƒס¿ַּ ל ̃ ¿מ ֹלּהַכ – until the result is that everybody praises him. You hear that chiddush? If you'll read these words carefully it means you must behave in such a way that will lead people eventually to praise you. That’s your goal here – that people should speak well of you even if you know that you're not so deserving of praise. The mitzvah of kiddush Hashem means that you’re working hard to get people to think well of you; that you’re living in such a way that you're gaining the crown of a good name.
And you must know it's not a small achievement; it’s a crown of glory on your head. And not just any crown – here you are standing next to the kohanim with their crowns and next to the beis Dovid wearing their crowns and next to the gedolei haTorah with their crowns and your crown is taller!
Now it doesn't mean you're a great Torah scholar. No, it doesn't say that. Just like you're not a kohen and you're not a melech, you're also not a Torah scholar. And still the crown of a good name ascends higher above all of those crowns together. Your crown, the crown of a good name, is oleh al gabeihem because you’re a living display that brings glory to Hashem.
The Big Condition
Now all this needs one condition; whatever we’re saying here should always be done under one condition. You're doing it because it's the will of Hashem. Otherwise, you’ll just be like one of the students of Dale Carnegie. Dale Carnegie wrote a book – an interesting book by the...
