Rabbi Pesach Krohn tells a story about a guard who worked in a slaughterhouse. When he was about to lock up the facility at the end of the day, he realized that one of the shochtim had not come out. They went inside to look for him and found that the shochet had gotten locked in one of the freezers. He was slowly freezing to death, but the guard were able to revive him. How did the guard know that this shochet had not left yet?
“Every morning when that rabbi comes in, he says hello,” said
the guard. “He makes me feel like a person. And every single night when he
leaves, he says, ‘Have a pleasant evening.’ He never misses a night – and to
tell you the truth, I wait for his kind words. Dozens and dozens of workers
pass me every day, morning and night, and they don’t say a word to me. To them
I am a nothing. To him, I am a somebody. I knew he came in this morning, and I
was sure he hadn’t left yet, because I was waiting for his friendly good-bye!”
As one of the
publishers of the Where What When,
people sometimes tell me about a problem they see in the community in hopes
that by writing about it, the problem will be solved or at least discussed.
Awareness sometimes brings a change! This week, Mr. P approached me and told me
that he had walked somewhere on Shabbos and said good Shabbos to 14 people;
twelve of them did not respond to his greeting. He was upset and could not find
any way to justify this seemingly rude behavior.
Returning a
greeting is common social decency and to be expected. This expectation spans
all places and all eras. In fact, it says in Gemara Brachos that if you know
that a person usually greets you, you should greet him first, and if a person
greets you and you do not respond to him, it is as though you are stealing from
him.
Someone in Israel wrote to me about a similar
experience over Shavuos: “Just this week I was in a quaint neighborhood called
Nachlaot for Shavuos – very old-time Sefardim,
many wearing what resembled white pajamas. As I passed one man, I wished
him a Gut Yom Tov. He stopped in shock and asked me why so many others – people
who wear layers of ‘black coats’ – don’t say Gut Shabbos or Yom Tov.” And he
added, “This [to greet your fellow man] is the entire Torah. He spoke with such
feeling that I saw this was a sore topic for him.”
Why Not Respond?
There is no
question that we all want to live in a world where people care about each other,
so why would seemingly nice, normal people not respond to a greeting, whether
on Shabbos or during the week? The subject interests me, and I decided to see
if I could shed some light on the topic.
It seems to be
simple enough to respond to the greeting of a passerby! What excuse could a
rational person have for ignoring the greeting of another? I asked this question
to my “team of advisors” (members of an
email group), and I got some surprising answers.
One person had a unique perspective: “My particular pet peeve is when people do things
ostensibly because they are caring people and then turn that gesture into
another way to criticize others and make themselves feel
superior. Examples include the candy man in shul who complains that kids
don’t say thank you; the gemach owner
who complains about people who call at the wrong hours or who don't return
things; the person who invites lots of guests and then complains that
they don't offer to help – and yes, the person who says good Shabbos to people
and gets annoyed at them for not answering.
“Giving is meant to be with no strings
attached. If you don’t have an ayin tova, and a loving,
accepting attitude towards the people you are giving to, then it is clear
that you are not giving for the other person. You are giving for yourself –
which is okay. We all do that, but at least be honest with yourself about it.
“I am handing out candies not only because I
love children and want to make them happy but because, for whatever reason it
serves my purpose (gives me something to do in shul, makes me feel important, affords
me a sense of purpose). Or I am having guests not only because I care about
their need to have a place to go but because it makes our Shabbos more
interesting, or I say hello to people because I am trying to make a point, or I
feel it’s my life duty to be mechanech (teach) others, etc.
“To me it seems clear that if you were saying
hello to people because of your overwhelming ahavas Yisrael or sense of kavod
habriyos, you would not have a hard time giving someone who doesn’t answer
the benefit of the doubt.
“If people don’t respond to a greeter’s
greetings, maybe they think the greeter is being rude by inserting himself into
their private space, when they just want to walk along thinking their own
thoughts and not be accosted by ‘friendly’ point-makers.”
Mr. T from Monsey had a different perspective: “For introverts
like myself, the hardest time of the month is kiddush levana when I have
to greet three people and wish them shalom. – so awkward. Saying good Shabbos?
Forget about it!”
Too Many People
Greeting people in
the street or not can be a part of the culture of a city. When I go for my
two-mile walk in the morning, I meet perhaps one or two people on my whole
excursion. That includes men fixing the street and people walking their dogs. In
some cities, you may pass 50 people on one block. It would be quite
inconvenient to greet everyone, but if you and the other person are the only
people around, it seems kind of rude to pass each other without acknowledging
the presence of the other human being! Yet attitudes carry over. For people who
come from big cities, it was so uncommon to talk to strangers that they feel
weird doing it in Baltimore.
Religious Sensitivities
For other
non-greeters, it is an issue of religious sensitivities. Men may feel it is not
proper to greet a woman, and women may be uncomfortable greeting a man. When I
took my grandchildren visiting from Lakewood to the playground, they were
horrified when I nodded good Shabbos to a passing gentleman. They assured me
that I would be considered really odd in Lakewood!
I was told that
some people do not greet people before davening Shacharis. This halacha does
not really refer to greeting a passerby in the street, but some people may
interpret it like that.
Dovid, who lives in a big city, said, perhaps tongue in cheek, that he
would be so surprised if somebody greeted him that he would assume it was a
case of mistaken identity and probably would not respond. Rivka related that she said hello to a lady
when walking in Israel and the lady turned around in surprise and said, “Do I
know you?”
Greeting Is a Good Thing
Of course, we have
all heard many stories about the importance of greeting people. I searched for examples
on aish.com, like the one about the
beggar in Shaarei Chesed who sobbed in anguish when Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach passed away,
“Now who will say good morning to me every day?”
An article by Rabbi Jack Abramowitz talks about a simple way
to change society: Don’t ignore the people who are fixtures in your life, whom
you see every day, like the mailman, the garbage collector or the cashier in
the supermarket. He writes, “Ordered
my decaf coffee, waiting for the person I’m meeting with to get here. Then I
said, ‘Good morning, how are you doing today?’ to the woman taking the order.
She stared at me blankly for a moment, and then said, ‘Wow, nobody ever asks me
that.’”
When a person has a routine, they tend to meet the same
people every day, and greeting them makes a connection blossom without any
effort. I often pass a neighbor who puts out crumbs to feed the birds every
morning and then sits on her porch watching them land in her yard. By greeting
her as I pass by, we have become friendly.
Non-Responders
I
am bringing up this topic in the WWW as Mr. P suggested. I
hope that by writing about it, people will become more aware and make more of
an effort to respond to greetings and to be the first to greet others. The
bottom line is that, like Mr. P, many people take offense when people do not
answer their greeting. But Mr. P clarifies, “I don’t take it personally when no
one responds, and I give them the benefit of the doubt. But I think that not
greeting people is wrong; it is not putting Torah into our daily lives. Saying
hello is hardly the most difficult task that we observant Jews can take on. As
individuals, families, and institutions, we all need to teach most basic
actions in being a mentsch. As my dear father used to say that the
benefit of behaving like a mentsch, is that you get to be a mentsch.”
