Peace and Arguments

When God created the world during the six days of creation, He said at the end of each day, “It was good,” except for Monday. That was because, on Monday, the bottom waters, oceans, and rivers were separated from the top waters, as well as the heavens and atmosphere. Since there was division, this could not be described as good. If this is true of a division performed for the world’s benefit, how much truer when an argument brings misunderstanding and discord? This is certainly not good.

Arguments and fights are considered so severe that while the tribunal in heaven punishes those over the age of 20, and a tribunal of Judges judges a person at age 13, when it came to the squabble caused by the cousin of Moses, Korach, even little children were punished.

Arguments are many times and are mostly the byproduct of an over-inflated ego, where one person is unable to tolerate another person for no other reason but that the other person has an opinion different than his own. Unity is possible when one can respect life from the opposite position of where he finds himself at a given moment.

The impurity of discord is so great that arguing, fighting, and quarreling dulls the vision and mind of even the greatest people, and robs them of their common sense.

An argument made for Godly, constructive purposes is guaranteed to bring positive results, but when the arguing serves only the ego, it never brings any good. How can a person know what the real motivation is for his arguing? We must judge the way we feel toward the other person. If we can love him entirely, disagreement notwithstanding, it is most likely for good intentions.

The Talmud says that when discussing the Torah, people can appear as fierce opponents of each other, yet they bear no hard feelings, and in the end, they reconcile. The house of Hillel and Shamai intermarried and lived peacefully with each other, even though they strongly disagreed with each other on most things.

Peace is so great that, regarding idol worshipers who live peacefully, God says it is as if he cannot touch them. There is a Chassidic saying, “Better to be with friends in hell than to be all alone in paradise.” In the generation of King David, although his soldiers were great men, they would fall in battle because of the arguments they had with each other, whereas in the time of the wicked King Achav, they succeeded in battle because there was unity. A house of argument and discord will eventually be destroyed.

Before Jacob passed away, he said to his children, “Gather, and I will tell you what will happen at the end of days.” He was telling them to ensure they were always gathered together, which would prepare them for the end of days, the ultimate good.

When a person is tempted to argue, he must consider what he is arguing about and whether it is worth it since argument is such a severe initiator of major evil.

Rabbi Ilo-o said, “The world exists in the merit of a person who closes his mouth during an argument.”

Chapter 41 www.aspiritualsoulbook.com
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