Writings from Rabbi Glickman

Thou shalt be nice, for I, the Lord your God, am nice. I rarely getteth angry, and in the few cases when I do, I always remaineth courteous. Thou shalt never rocketh the boat, nor interfereth with thy neighbor’s attempt to have a nice day. Verily, thou shalt reproacheth thy neighbor, but mindest thy manners as thou doest it. And most important, when thou hath nothing nice to saith, then don’t saith anything at all!

Guess what. Those words don’t appear anywhere in the Bible. The Bible does tell us, of course to be good, kind, generous, just, and compassionate, but nowhere in scripture does being nice appear as a religious virtue.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Here we have the code by which we are to organize our society and bind it together, and nowhere does etiquette appear at all. Could it be that there are virtues more important than being nice? Is it possible that manners matter less than we might think? The answers from Judaism seem to be yes, and yes.

What does it mean, after all, to be “nice”? As commonly understood these days, being nice means doing kind things for others, minding one’s manners, and helping people feel good about who they are. It is “nice” to open doors for people; it is “nice” to give gifts on special occasions; it is “nice” to greet those we encounter with a cheerful smile.

Being nice, in other words, means helping other people feel good. We enjoy being with nice people because they are pleasant and affirming, and because they do favors for us.

However, in Judaism and in other religions, a far more central religious obligation is to be holy. Being holy demands that we be compassionate, considerate, kind, and that we make a habit of saying please and thank you. But only to a point. We are also told to reproach our neighbors when they do bad things, and not necessarily to use our “nice words” when we do. Classical Judaism teaches that arguing is a good thing, provided that the argument is “for the sake of heaven.” Religious laws draw lines that distinguish the good and ungood from one another; cross those lines and you are in big trouble. Punishment isn’t very nice, but it does help us become holy.

Perhaps the most “impolite” human activity is war. Nonetheless, Jewish law mandates that we go to war when national survival or a significant ethical principal is at stake.

In other words, don’t hold the door open for the Wicked Witch of the North, don’t send a birthday present to Attila the Hun, and don’t tell Saddam Hussein to have a nice day. Doing so might be nice, but it sure isn’t holy.

Of course, we teach our children to be nice, but let’s face it - we’re not talking to people at those moments, but rather to little bundles of walking, unregulated id. When kids say, “Wow! That woman sure is fat!” or “What’s that big, yucky sore on your nose?” it is perfectly appropriate that we tell them to be nice. The problem arises when we realize that there are some people to whom we don’t want our kids to be courteous at all - the drug dealer, the grownup who touches them inappropriately, the neighborhood bully, and others. Since our kids see things in black-and-white, we tend to avoid the grays and err on the side of niceness.

Thus, generations of young people have grown up with a stifled moral spirit. Things happen around them that are both wonderful and horrible. The voice of righteousness and holiness screams at them to respond with gusto - to celebrate the good and to fight the bad. Alas, so afraid are they of making a scene, of being impolite or hurting someone’s feelings, that all they can do is smile and say “Have a nice day.”

A friend of mine worked as an airport security-checkpoint guard when she was 19. Once while doing a random check of a man’s suitcase, she found it filled to the brim with marijuana. “I could have had him arrested,” she told me, “but I was young and timid, and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I just looked up at him and said, ‘Have a nice flight, sir.’”

When we see people doing rude and obnoxious things, we respond with an eye roll. An eye roll! Do we tell them to stop behaving like jerks? Do we jump to the defense of the victims? Of course we don’t, for that would be impolite.

When my wife sees moving automobiles carrying young children who are not in car seats or wearing seatbelts, she rolls down her window, glares at the driver with her terrifying “angry eyes,” and yells at him to buckle the kids up like they are supposed to be. I love it when she does that. Nice it ain’t; holy it is.

There are those who are nice not for the sake of others, but for selfish reasons. “Look at how kind I’m being,” they try to tell us. “I’m just great! Remember that on my next birthday…or else!” Sometimes, being nice isn’t very nice at all.

When the Bible tells us (in Leviticus 19) to be holy, it immediately tells us how to do it - we are to care for the poor and hungry, deal honestly in business, refrain from gossip, build a just society, read people the riot act when they do evil or morally stupid things, and much more. We become holy, in other words, not only through ritual, but more importantly, in the way that we relate to other people. Sometimes holiness calls us to help people feel good about themselves, and sometimes it calls upon us to push them to be better.

When we are nice, we make other people happy. When we are holy, we please God.

Centuries ago, they worshipped the golden calf. Today we worship the Warm Fuzzy, and there is still long way to go before we reach the Promised Land.

So let us treat people with dignity and respect. Let us be kind and compassionate, generous and thoughtful. Let us also remember that holiness trumps courtesy, and that sometimes doing the right thing isn’t very nice at all.

And have a nice…uh, I mean, holy…day.

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