Friday, May 17, 2019

The Mirror



The defects that you notice in someone else are the parts of yourself that still need fixing.

The world is a mirror ..... many people don't understand this.   Whenever you notice a particular character trait in another person..... that is the part of yourself that you need to work on.  If you think you have already fixed that trait in yourself, then why does it affect you so much when you see it in someone else?

The one who aggravates you the most, is most likely the one who possesses your own bad middot, but it's easier for us to criticize others than to work on ourselves.

If you can't see that trait in yourself, look harder. 

You can learn a great deal about someone by listening to what they say about others.  Most of what they say about someone else, applies to them !  They probably don't realize this.... and it's a good way of working out just who somebody really is.

The world is a mirror, you see your own reflection in other people.


The following is extracted from "Not Just Stories" by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski M.D.

Denial is a psychological term referring to a person's inability to see reality. Denial is a frequently occuring phenomenon, and is one of the many psychological defense mechanisms, whose function is to shield a person from an awareness that would cause him distress.

A very common form of denial is a person's inability to see his own character defects. The reason is obvious: awareness of the presence of this defect in oneself is too much for a person to bear. Yet unawareness of these defects will result in one's doing nothing to improve upon them. Even a dedicated soul-searching may fail to reveal one's own shortcomings, since denial obscures their existence from him.

The Baal Shem Tov said that G-d provided a way to circumvent this denial: "The world is a mirror" said the Baal Shem Tov. "The defects you see in others are really your own."


While denial prevents a person from seeing his own character defects, it does not prevent him from seeing defects in other people. Quite the contrary, we are experts at detecting faults in others. All we need to do, then, said the Baal Shem Tov, is to realise that these are but a reflection of our own shortcomings. We do not see defects in others that are non-existent in ourselves.

"Love covers all offenses" [Proverbs 10:12] has filtered down to the colloquial aphorism that "Love is blind". It is common knowledge that we may be oblivious to defects in someone we love, although they may be blatant to other observers. Just as we may not see that which we do not wish to see, so it is conversely true that we only see something which, for some reason, attracts our attention. The Baal Shem Tov states that when we see defects in others, the reason for this recognition is that, in one way or another, they represent our own defects.

This principle is a major dynamic in the effectiveness of group therapy. In treatment of some types of emotional disorders, group therapy may be far more effective than individual therapy. A therapist pointing out a particular character defect to a client may be rejected, with the patient's denial preventing the necessary insight. In a group session, the client is very likely to note this very defect in another group member, and the group may then help him realize that he too has this particular characteristic, and this is extremely effective in overcoming one's denial.

It is the persistence of denial that constitutes a major obstacle to therapy and corrective action.

Rabbi Dov Ber of Lubavitch was receiving his chassidim, when he abruptly told his assistant to close the door and not allow anyone entry. Some of the chassidim, eager to understand the Rabbi's sudden desire for solitude, put their ears to the door and heard the Rabbi reciting Tehillim with heartrending tones.

The Rabbi later explained that whenever a chassid asks him for guidance to do teshuvah for a transgression; he immediately searches for that transgression within himself, according to the Baal Shem Tov's teaching that the world is a mirror, and had he not been guilty of the same thing, even in a much more diluted form, it would never have come to his attention. The discovery of an analogous defect within himself then allows him to make the necessary amends.

"When one chassid told me about something he had done wrong, I promptly began searching for a similar shortcoming in myself. However, I was unable to find it. This meant that I was deceiving myself, and that somewhere there was a dereliction of which I was unaware. Being oblivious of this would preclude my taking any corrective action, and I therefore had to pray intensely for Divine guidance to help me discover this defect in myself."

What a wonderful world it would be if every time we saw some defect in another person, we would do some soul-searching, and take corrective actions for self-improvement, rather than being critical of others and denoucing them.

5 comments:

Rachel said...

There is only one small part of this that I disagree with: when we have worked hard to combat a defect, and then we see it in others and it bothers us, I don't think it's because we haven't entirely eliminated that defect in ourselves. I think it bothers us because we feel, "hey, I used to also do that disgusting thing and if I worked on myself and overcame it, why can't they?" Granted, this view is not without a certain amount of arrogance. We can tend to look down even more on others who are exhibiting behaviors we no longer exhibit. Perhaps it is even a bit of nostalgic jealousy, that they are still "free to do" that which we have worked so hard to stop doing.

Devorah said...

Rachel I agree with you, but then again, if we re-read what Rabbi Twerski has written about the Tzaddik Rabbi Dov Ber, how can we mere mortals say that we have entirely eliminated that defect in ourselves? We think we have, and we know we've done a lot of work and improved ourselves immensely.... but if a tzaddik can do such soul searching to find a negative trait within himself, then I think we also have to. I guess it's a lifetime's work and even then can we absolutely sure that nothing of it remains? If you are severely tested... and I hope you're not.... but unfortunately life throws us tests here and there, just to see where we're holding.... and I know that I sometimes pass and sometimes fail. But then I come back to the words at the head of my blog, from Rebbe Nachman: ''if you believe you can damage, then believe you can fix.... if you believe you can harm, then believe you can heal...'' that is the code I live by.

But I know exactly what you're saying, and you made me think about it, and come to my conclusion, so I thank you.

Mushka said...

Quick question. You wrote:

"I just want everyone to ''wise up'' and not fall for the tricksters that exist in our society."

How does the fact that you are seeing tricksters and religious charlatans on the internet 'reflect' the message you are giving in this post, that:

"The one who aggravates you the most, is most likely the one who possesses your own bad middot, but it's easier for us to criticize others than to work on ourselves."

Thanks for your awesome wisdom and devotion to Am Yisrael.

Devorah said...

Very good question Mushka. Apart from the fact that we are not talking about such dreadful things as murderers and thieves... obviously we can recognise these people and we are not either a murderer or a thief [generally speaking that is]... I actually did a whole blog on this subject which you can read here: Mind Games

Devorah said...

Actually there's another answer to your question as to how I can see it in someone else: it's because I've been scammed several times in my life, and every time it happened I was in shock for a long time afterwards, mostly because it came from a person I trusted and respected. I wasn't expecting it. So I'm on my guard now, and I can see straight through people, straight through the mask. Once bitten..... no three times bitten ! And that's how we learn. Only through our own experiences.