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Be a Mensch

September25

by Dean Sluyter

*This excerpt was taken from one of those mass subscriptions, which I’d never subscribed to but somehow I got spammed at my work email and I can’t unsubscribe since I don’t have internet access at work. But I thought it was rather interesting so here goes…*

I’ve got a photograph, somewhere in the clutter of my desk, that is one of my very favorite pictures. I clipped it out of the newspaper several years ago, and it is a picture of a convocation of seven winners of the Nobel Peace Prize at a university in America. What it shows is Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa seated in a chair, and standing behind him is the Dalai Lama. Both of them are laughing uproariously because what had just happened in the moment before the picture was snapped was that the Dalai Lama had tried to snatch Desmond Tutu’s hat. Just a couple of saints fooling around.

Now, to me, this sums it all up. This picture sums up how to live your life, which is, address yourself to the most pressing problems, do what needs to be done to improve the world, and then sit back and have a good laugh. Be a mensch and enjoy the joke.

Now this word “mensch” is a favorite Yiddish word. Literally, it means “man,” but the implication is something much more than that; it has nothing to do with gender. It means a solid citizen, a conscientious person, the opposite of a flake. Probably every culture has some such word. In some cultures, this type of person would be referred to as “noble.”

The true quality of being “a noble one” is inner. It’s a matter of the development of one’s awareness. But that inner development necessarily takes outer expression — not necessarily in big, dramatic ways; it can be in the smallest, most mundane tasks. You know, the little things are where we live our life. Do you signal your turn when you get to the corner so that the other drivers don’t unnecessarily wait for you because they think you’re going straight through? Do you put the new roll of toilet paper on the holder when the other one is winding down? Do you, when you think you’ve finished a job, look around to see what you’ve missed and then really finish it? Do you pay your bills on time? Do you give full value for every job that you’re paid to do?

There’s a wonderful story about the great blues singer Joe Williams. He once found himself performing in a nightclub, and there were only three couples in attendance because there was a heavyweight title fight that night somewhere else in that city. Most people were elsewhere watching “the greatest” Muhammad Ali boxing. Nevertheless, Williams just sang for all he was worth. And afterward, someone asked him about it, and he said as a child he learned to do everything as if it’s the last thing you’ll ever do. And as a matter of fact, it might be. Who knows? So, the lesson here is be a mensch.

Part of being a mensch is taking responsibility, is not putting things off. I used to have a dentist whose sort of motto was See me now or see me later. And seeing him now meant getting a filling. Seeing him later might be a root canal. Problems that are ignored, problems that are shrugged, fester, become worse. A mensch, a conscientious person, knows that, takes care of business.

It doesn’t mean that you have to make impossible demands on yourself, which will just lead you to make impossible demands on others. You understand your own weaknesses. I saw a T-shirt once with a wonderful motto on it. It said, “I may not be perfect, but parts of me are excellent.” Well, if that’s good enough, that’s good enough. But know which parts of you are excellent and play to your strengths. Know what your weaknesses are and come up with compensating strategies for them. If you know that you’re always 10 minutes late for everything when you thought you were going to be on time, plan to be 10 minutes early, and it’ll work out.

Movies are always trying to portray menshes in some outward way. My favorite example is Gary Cooper in High Noon. He knows that the killers whom he sent to prison have now been released and they’re coming to town on the noon train. He tries to recruit a posse, tries to get the cowardly townspeople to join him in standing up to these people. And eventually he realizes it’s just going to be him versus the killers. There’s a point at which he’s going to have to take his stand. And there’s a wonderful shot where he finds himself standing in the middle of the dusty main street of the town looking around. It’s just him, seeing how utterly alone he is, as the camera pulls up and back, emphasizing his isolation.