Two things fall together: my reading of Shakespeare and the High Holidays.
Honor is one of the main themes in Shakespeare's plays, especially as the duty a person has to self-image. A noble person is expected, and expects himself, to behave nobly. Honor is worth more than life itself - or at least that is how the ideal is presented in the plays. Betrayal is both of the trust placed in one by others and of the standards to which one holds oneself.
Honor is not a particularly Jewish value, at least as it plays out among the European aristocracy. If you insult a rabbi, he's not going to challenge you to a duel.
But the theme of the High Holidays is not unrelated to the idea of honor: we are deeply aware that we have sinned, we promise to better ourselves, and we ask God for forgiveness. A Jew who takes her identity seriously sets high standards of behavior for herself. Failure to live up to those standards is almost inevitable, but one has the duty of trying.
The sense of duty applies in almost every area of life. One has duties toward one's family, one's friends, one's community, one 's employer, and oneself. The sense of duty is both contractual and emotional, to the letter of the law and to its spirit.
In my work as a translator, I often have no personal connection with my clients. I have never laid eyes on some of them. My obligation to them is strictly professional. Yet I feel a personal obligation to them - to do the best work I can, on time, even to do things that aren't expected of me like checking the spelling of authors' names. I try to live up to what I see as professional standards, and it's always a pleasure to encounter someone else who has that attitude.
Recently Dror Ben-Gur, a musician and saxophone repairman, told me about the Japanese repairman who instructed him in New York. Dror once arrived a few minutes early for a session and found a flute lying on the repairman's table, completely in pieces.
"How are you going to finish putting that together in time?" Dror asked.
"Watch this," said the repairman, and in five minutes he had assembled the flute down to the last screw and spring.
"How did you do that?" asked Dror.
"In Japan," the man replied, "we learn to work in the dark!"
Honor is one of the main themes in Shakespeare's plays, especially as the duty a person has to self-image. A noble person is expected, and expects himself, to behave nobly. Honor is worth more than life itself - or at least that is how the ideal is presented in the plays. Betrayal is both of the trust placed in one by others and of the standards to which one holds oneself.
Honor is not a particularly Jewish value, at least as it plays out among the European aristocracy. If you insult a rabbi, he's not going to challenge you to a duel.
But the theme of the High Holidays is not unrelated to the idea of honor: we are deeply aware that we have sinned, we promise to better ourselves, and we ask God for forgiveness. A Jew who takes her identity seriously sets high standards of behavior for herself. Failure to live up to those standards is almost inevitable, but one has the duty of trying.
The sense of duty applies in almost every area of life. One has duties toward one's family, one's friends, one's community, one 's employer, and oneself. The sense of duty is both contractual and emotional, to the letter of the law and to its spirit.
In my work as a translator, I often have no personal connection with my clients. I have never laid eyes on some of them. My obligation to them is strictly professional. Yet I feel a personal obligation to them - to do the best work I can, on time, even to do things that aren't expected of me like checking the spelling of authors' names. I try to live up to what I see as professional standards, and it's always a pleasure to encounter someone else who has that attitude.
* * *
Here's a great example of high professional standards:Recently Dror Ben-Gur, a musician and saxophone repairman, told me about the Japanese repairman who instructed him in New York. Dror once arrived a few minutes early for a session and found a flute lying on the repairman's table, completely in pieces.
"How are you going to finish putting that together in time?" Dror asked.
"Watch this," said the repairman, and in five minutes he had assembled the flute down to the last screw and spring.
"How did you do that?" asked Dror.
"In Japan," the man replied, "we learn to work in the dark!"
* * *
Some people appear to have no sense of duty, while others suffer because their sense of duty is exaggerated. On Yom Kippur you're really not supposed to say to God, "I did the best I could," but for the sake of sanity, while it's a good idea to aspire to improve, one must be aware of one's limitations and accept them.
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