What does it mean to be tolerant?
We have it all fumble-jumbled.
Saying "it doesn't bother me" or "it doesn't affect me" is just indifference.
Tolerance really means "I have strong feelings about something, and yet I can accept you."
I accept that he lives in a way that I do not approve of.
Tolerating those that you don't agree with - that's a talent.
Indifference just means living in a closed world. You're tiny, petty-minded.
Some people have to reject the bible to accept someone.
A mother discovers her son murdered someone.
What does the intolerant mother do? She says, "it wasn't murder." That's the only way she can continue to accept her son.
The tolerant mother says, "My son did something wrong. Now what?"
The tolerant mother says, 'My son the murdered. But my son for better or worse."
The tolerant mother turns her son in, and then visits him in jail.
The mother who says "this is not murder" is essentially saying that she would otherwise hate her son.
But condemning evil is important.
We need to be intolerant of sin, but tolerant of the sinner.
While a sin may be evil, the sinner may not be.
This is a talent. This is tolerance.
This is why we have to know who we are and what we're made of.
If I don't know what makes me ME, how can I be tolerant of YOU?
Live from the Hilltop
- Mimi
- From Seattle to Tzfas to, Crown Heights
- North of the promised land, the Tanya danced in my mind, visions of a mission took no search to find. When the truth just couldn't sit, I said this is it, get this out, give a shout to the world and make a vessel of the crowd, say it loud and clear. The Rebbe's thoughts as the face of this journey, so it's burning inside, yearning not to hide, to say it live. Here I am, there you are, no two Jews are too far - so let's go, are you in? Let's take it for a spin, the deepest wellsprings, Chabad philosophy and me - from the Hilltop.
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3 comments:
As always your point is clear and correct BUT there are limits to tolerance. There ARE people who are evil out there, and there are people who so identify with their aberrant behavior that they cannot coexist with us. We do not and should not tolerate the in your face gay activist who fights against all we hold dear and has no problem flaunting his sick behavior in front of our children, let alone the street criminal who endangers our lives or even the haimish white collar criminal who makes us all look bad.
Good point, Mim. One of my Rebbeim once explained tolerance in similar terms, and said that protesting against people who engage in things we see as wrong is not intolerance. Hurting or physically attacking the people themselves, however, would be.
tolerance is tolerating ants in your kitchen. or the bug bite that really stings.
when dealing with people, we need more than tolerance. we need respect, goodness, and kindness.
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