By Avi West,
Director of the Shulamith Reich Elster Resource Center of the
Partnership for Jewish Life and Learning
Published in the Washington Jewish Week, 2/3/11

Visit www.pjll.org/content/thankamensch and download a mensch card to send to those "honorable menschen" who made a difference in your life.

Believe it or not, there is actually one thing that even three Jews would agree on: that the most popular desired result of a Jewish education at home and in school is to produce a “mensch.”  Definitions abound, but one that I love because of its reflection of a mensch's impact on others, and its source in general business literature, is by Guy Kawasaki in “Rules for Revolutionaries.”  Kawasaki, looking for a term that defines people who want to help others, came up with the following definition of mensch: “…a person who is admired, respected, and trusted because of a sense of ethics, fairness, and nobility.”  He goes on to illustrate what a mensch does: “Mensches do not put personal self-interest above doing what is right.  Mensches are not only looking out for Number One.  Mensches admit when they are in the wrong, and they acknowledge talent and skills in others, even if it exceeds their own.  Mensches are friendly and good people who wish others well.”

Kawasaki’s definition gives us a sense of how a mensch behaves, but that universal definition needs more specific illustrations to help a family and community produce one.  There is nothing wrong with a universal mensch, but there must be something to the particular brand of Jewish menschlechkiet that helps answer an oft asked question, namely “Why be Jewish [in a world that is increasingly globalized, where religion seems to cause conflict, and individuals can choose multiple identities]?  The key to understanding the Jewish brand is in the unique vocabulary we use to describe the virtues of mensch behavior.  Each word contains a root that resonates in stories from Jewish texts, prayers, Jewish biographies, and cultural references from 3,000 years of wisdom.

In “Being Jewish in a Christian World,” Dr. Ron Brauner reminds us that Christianity has played an enormous role in the development of western civilization.  The English language has been the source of transmission for many concepts and values that are actually divergent from the “Jewish brand” of values.  The most popular example is the difference between charity, with its Latin root caritas, love and affection, with the mandate to give tzedakah, with its Hebrew root tzedek, implying that one must act with equitable justice, whether or not it flows from or engenders feelings of love and affection.  Similarly, the Hebrew word for love, as used in the parts of the Bible that describes relationships between people and between a person and God, is ahava.  This takes a relationship away from mere sentiment, and places it within the loyalty relationships that are found in ancient treaties, or covenants.  And so it continues; words and Jewish contexts creating a list of Jewish terms that describe the behaviors of a Jewish mensch.

In a family, in a community, and in the world at large, a Jewish mensch:

Gives righteously (tzedakah), pledges devotion (ahava), shows gratitude (hakarat haTOV, with tov reminding us of the potential for goodness in creation), takes responsibility (achrayut, with its root in caring for the other, acher), deals in loving kindness (hessed), behaves ethically (musar), embodies truth (emet, pervasive truth, whose root aleph/mem/tet come from the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet), shares generously (nediv lev), reflects dignity (kavod), supports community (kehillah), repairs the world (tikkun olam), displays modesty (anavah), and demonstrates courage (amitz lev).

How can we encourage the continued production of "menschen?"  In home and educational settings, we should learn and use the unique Jewish values-vocabulary with all their links to Jewish wisdom, culture, and religion.

But we can also practice the art of gratitude.  If you have encountered a mensch in your life - a parent, a teacher, a coach, relative, friend, or neighbor, doing some act great or small that made a difference in your life…you should thank them.  Of course, a real mensch didn't do it for the recognition; but our response can reinforce mensch behavior in ourselves and others.  Many Americans in mid-February send cards to others to express their love.  Why not declare that date "Value-Time Day," an opportunity to say thank you to those people who act upon their values?  Visit www.pjll.org/content/thankamensch and download a mensch card to send to those "honorable menschen" who made a difference in your life.