Rebuke thy neighbor

There is what to say against the opening on Shabbat of a coffee shop in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem. First, there is a municipal law forbidding it. If we lived in a law-governed country the coffee shop would not be able to be open on Shabbat.

Secondly, a significant proportion of the population of Nachlaot is Orthodox. There are more fitting neighborhoods for a Shabbat coffee shop in Jerusalem, if it must be. In Leviticus 19:17 we are told:  “You shall surely rebuke your neighbor.” This is a codified law which requires one to rebuke another Jew if the latter has violated or is violating a requirement of the religion. You must point out to them their unfavorable behavior and rebuke them for it. Now, a group of very pious Jews has for six consecutive shabbatot conducted loud demonstrations against the coffee shop being open on shabbat. (Based on video recordings of the events.) They, I assume, see themselves as involved in a very holy mission, rebuking other Jews for their desecration of shabbat.

However, already in the time of the Mishnah, in Talmud Arakhin 16b Rabbi Akiva declared “I wonder if there is anyone in this generation who knows how to give rebuke!” Knows how to give rebuke??? That’s easy! You get a bunch of guys together, you go to the place, yelling curses and insults, and when it is all over you go home to eat cholent. But that does not fulfill the requirement of rebuke. As Reb Nachman of Breslav teaches, rebuke must be given from a feeling of love, it must be phrased in such a way that it does not arouse antagonism in the one being rebuked, especially not making the person rebuked defy by stengthening her or his resolve to continue in the sinful behavior. Finally, the rebuke must have a reasonable chance of improving the behavior of the rebuked. Rabbi Akiva understood the great difficulty of fulfilling these conditions of rebuking a fellow/sister Jew. As a result, we who do not know how to properly rebuke are exempt from performing this mitzvah since we cannot fulfill its conditions. This mitzvah is as far from us as is our bringing a lamb for sacrifice in the Holy Temple.

Yet, there is still a way to rebuke another Jew, a way I learned from a story about the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the saintly one. The story is that one Friday evening at a shabbat event at Lubavitch, a young man approached the Rebbe and said to him: “Rebbe, I want you to know that I drove here in my car on Shabbat.”  On hearing that, the Rebbe hugged the young man and said to him, “You are to come here whenever you want and however you want.” Afterward, the young man related that the Rebbe had disappointed him. The young man had come to make a final break with anything having to do with the religion. He had been hoping the Rebbe would berate him in no uncertain terms. He had come to make a clean and total departure from Judaism. The Rebbe had let him down.

What the Rebbe told him was really a strong rebuke, but of a different color entirely. In effect, the Rebbe was telling him, “You think you do not belong here. You think that this is not your place. You are wrong! You do belong here. This is your place. You are wrong. You must change your thinking.”  Rebuke with a chance of success. Rebuke shaped by a hug. Rebuke of love.

The Leviticus verse I quoted earlier follows with this: “and you shall not bear a sin on account of him.” Perhaps one of the ways of understanding this is that if you do not know how to rebuke and do it anyway, you will surely incur a sin of your own on account of rebuking him or her in a damaging way.