Vayishlach 74 Autonomy – the Key to Character Education

During the night preceding the meeting between Jacob- Ya'akov and his brother Esau, a confrontation takes place between Jacob and Esau's angel guardian. The verse Genesis 32:25 says that Jacob remained 'alone' - le'vado' and he wrestled with a man until the outbreak of dawn. The Medrash commentary notes that in Isaiah 2 – and on that day G-d ' alone' –le'vado will be exalted, the same word, a G-dly attribute  le'vado= alone is also ascribed to Jacob. On that night Jacob achieved the G-dly attribute of le'vado.

Le'vado =alone cannot be talking about being hermits and   independent , as human beings are interdependent, supporting each other to create caring communities. Rabbeinu Yeruchum says that le'vado =alone means man using only his intrinsic qualities, in an autonomous and self directed way. A teenager can react to parental control by seeking independence. This is a reaction and not an autonomous decision by the teenager. It is not something that originates within himself. The teenager is reacting to his parent's agenda.  Rabeinu Yeruchum then shares Ethics Of our Fathers =Pikei Avot 4:1 as examples of a person's expression of his ' autonomy and intrinsic value'. This is based on the Marahal from  Prague 's  understanding of the Mishnah.

The Mishnah says – who is a wise man – he who learns from every person. Who is a strong person – a man who subdues his evil inclination, who is rich – a man who is happy with his lot, who is honored – he who honors other people.

 In the Self Esteem essay I described 2 types of people. The ' To have ' people who are concerned with achievement and having. They see' the self 'as an object and their self esteem is usually contingent on how  others  see them and their achievements. They usually suffer from what Brene Brown calls the scarcity syndrome of not being good enough, not perfect enough or being  just ordinary. The 'To Be' people focus on experience and the process. They see the self as a process and their self esteem is something deep and constant.

The 'To Have' person defines a wise person as having  much knowledge, the strong person as having much strength, and the rich person – as having all the money and things that are entertaining and can make a person feel rich and  happy. A person who is honored is one for eg is honored by many people and whom the government honors. The wise person has more knowledge, the   rich person has more wealth, the honored person has more honors and awards, in comparison with others. But this is all extrinsic and external to the person and becomes important only when we are able to compare to others. 'Having' does not say anything about your attributes or character nor does it change you. Honoring a person, does not intrinsically change them- they remain the same. Winning a lottery does not turn a miser into a 'giving' person, or exercising in a gym cannot transform one into a person of character and therefore become a ' To Be 'person. It can just give a person a distorted sense of self esteem and self worth.

The To Be person is not concerned about achievement but the process. He is a wise man because he has a passion for learning, he is a life- long learner who is continually active learning from all. He is not an 'object ' dependent on a teacher and focused on quantity of knowledge and achievement.

He is a strong person not because he can lift 200 kg , but he is able to subdue his evil inclinations and use them positively. The battle against the ' Yetzer Ha'ra is a life-long battle so he needs to have strength of character to be self –directed and not be subject to his passions and inclinations . The truth is that dealing with the evil inclination has more to do about having a clever plan to outwit the evil inclination and less about grit, self control  and self discipline.

He is a rich person because he is always happy and content with his lot – whatever it is. His happiness comes from his intrinsic passion for life and making meaning from everything he does and learns. He is self-directed, competent and a builder of relationships. He acts wealthy and ' being wealthy ' he is not attached to his money and possessions and expresses this by giving of his wealth to more needy people. New wealth may lead to a feeling of being wealthy in the short-term but people soon get used their new standards of living and the feeling dissipates.

 The respected and honored person is one that honors others. Being honored by others does not say anything about the person – he may be worthy or unworthy of the honor given. But the person who honors others is giving expression to an intrinsic part of his personality – he is somebody who has the attribute of honor.

 Being wise, strong, rich and honored means 'acting' as a wise man continuously learning, acting as a rich man, being happy, content and 'giving', acting as a strong man means giving expression to your strength of character and an honored man –acting as one who gives expression to his attribute of honor.

The goal of education and character education is to help kids become passionate life-long learners, people who honor others and can build relationships, have strength of character to become caring and competent people, happy, content, intrinsically motivated and giving.

This can be done addressing the 3 needs of people vital to their happiness and development. The 3 needs according to the ' Self –Determined theory are autonomy, competence and relatedness=belonging. When kids feel they are self directed , competent and have a sense of belonging to people they will become life-long learners who have strength of character, are happy, content and giving and  who honor the needs of others by being caring and respectful.

Chayei Sarah-74 Self Esteem or Self Compassion

In our Parasha Chayei  Sarah , Abraham buys a field and the cave below to bury his wife. Rashi quoting the Medrash on  verse 23:20 -  the field stood up-  literal translation - when it became the part of Abraham's estate as a burial site says that the field acquired a new status as it previously belonged to an ordinary man and now it belonged to a king. Rabbi David Lapin says' that great people give status to their possessions   while ordinary people derive their status   from their possessions.' It is not only status which is affected by possessions but often peoples' self worth and self esteem.

 In the last of his 10 trials – the A'kei'dat Yitzchak – the binding of Isaac on the altar, Abraham had not only to sacrifice his emotions for his son but also his cherished values in order to display his complete obedience and attachment to the divine will. There was a complete negation of the ' self' in order to attach to something higher and bigger than the 'himself'. This seems to contradict the popular notion that we should nurture our ' self esteem and 'self concept'

It is generally accepted that a negative self esteem and self concept gets in the way of a person dealing with setbacks and failure, but the research shows that also  high self esteem does not buy very much and can be very problematic. Despite the research the belief in ' self esteem ' is so engrained. Teachers and parents are told to praise and compliment kids and help their   ' self –esteem ' by reflecting on all their positive attributes. So why is ' self esteem ' problematic and what can be done instead to foster success?

The problem with fostering self esteem with praise is not because kids are over –praised or don't deserve praise – it is praise itself. Praise is a way of getting kids to experience success as a reward and esteeming of the self. Instead kids should experience success and failure as information they need to make changes or  become even  more successful. The problem with self esteem is the focus on the ' self'.

The SDT – Self Determination theory  talks about 2 types of self esteem. Contingent self esteem is experienced by people who are preoccupied with questions of worth and self esteem and are strongly motivated by the desire to appear worthy to self and others. Their worth is seen as dependent on ' achievement ' and appearing in certain ways. Whether such individuals come away with positive or negative conclusions, the very fact that one's self esteem is in question suggests a psychological vulnerability. Non- contingent self esteem characterizes people for whom self-esteem is not a concern or issue. Success and failure is experienced as information and does not implicate self –worth ,even when they lead to a reevaluation of their actions and efforts. These people experience themselves on a fundamental level as worthy of esteem and love.

The psychologist Eric Fromm talks about 2 types of people -   the ' To have '  people whose self worth and esteem depends on their 'having' .It leads to people being overly attached to possessions, achievements , and relationships. ' To be '  people focus on how they experience the world rather than on having.

'To have '  people view the ' self ' as an 'object' which needs to be appraised , judged and evaluated, the more positive , the better. In contrast SDT and religion see the Self as a process where a person makes meaning of experiences and integrates and assimilates them into his personality.

The research shared by Kelly Mcgonigal  

describes what helps people to deal with setbacks and change and what gets in the way.

The first experiment she shares deals with people who are dieting and are invited to participate in an experiment testing the effects of food on mood. Each person chooses their favorite donut, eats the whole donut and is given a big glass of water which leaves a full and uncomfortable feeling. This triggered feeling of guilt amongst the dieters. The question was would the feelings of guilt help dieters resist subsequent temptations.?  In order to test this , the dieters were given a ' taste experiment '  - to eat as much as they needed to,  from a  wide choice of candy  (so everyone had something they liked) in order to evaluate the taste of the candy. One of the test groups was exposed to the following message. In a very by the way fashion , they were given a 3 point message -  they were made aware of their guilt feelings of indulging in the donuts , they were told that it is human to error , it does not so that there is something wrong with you , everybody indulgences here and there and thirdly – so don't be hard on yourself. The group that was exposed to the   message calling for self-compassion ate 40% of what the group not to exposed   to the self- compassion message ate. People who are hard on themselves and have guilt feelings end up despairing, saying can never change and what the heck and then indulgence even more .

In another study shared by  Heidi Grant Halvorson  participants who failed an initial test were given a chance to improve their scores. One group were encouraged to boost their self –esteem by affirming and validating positive qualities. Another group was encouraged to exercise self –compassion and not to be hard on themselves. Those who took a self-compassionate view of their earlier failure studied 25% longer and scored higher on a second test, than the participants who focused on bolstering their self-esteem.

Self compassion is effective because it is non-evaluative. It allows people to look at their mistakes and flaws with kindness and understanding. People then focus on the self as a process and not as an object. You don't judge   yourself harshly nor feel the need to defensively focus on all your positive qualities in order to protect your self-esteem. Setbacks and mistakes are part of being human and essential to the learning process. When the focus is on the process, rather than achievement, the journey rather than the destination you are more likely to be more accurate in assessing your abilities and coming up with a better plan which will help you reach your destination.

People who view the self as an object react by saying ' How could "I"  ( capital I )  do that ?  have feelings of guilt and shame which get in the way, while people who said '  How could I do THAT, did not focus on the self but on their  actions and were successful in changing.

The problem with sin, falling or failing is not in the sin, falling or failure but what happens afterwards – not getting up. Guilt feelings get in the way of recovery and getting up. The verse proverbs 24:15 says that   7 times a saint falls and then he gets up.

Self compassion leads to higher levels of personal well-being, optimism and happiness less anxiety and depression.

Mindfulness and promoting the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness help people and kids focus on the self as process.

 Mindfulness is an open non-judgmental awareness of what is happening in the present. Self esteeming and the focus on ME are just   mental constructions of the mind. In mindfulness and SDT there is no fixed concept of the self to protect or enhance, all facts are friendly and inform one's experiences and behaviors.

According to SDT , people with low self esteem are lacking in supports for and satisfactions of one or more of the basic needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. They don't feel worthy as they are missing a sense of love, authenticity, or effectiveness. People with high contingent self esteem seek behaviors that support and reassure them that they are worthy in their eyes and others.

The paradox of self esteem of self –esteem ' If you need it , you don't have it and if you have it , you don't need it .

See my blog post on  Motivation and Bob the builder 

on the effectiveness of different types of self talk. A statement -  I can or will do it as opposed to asking a question will or can I do it ?

Ki Tavo 73 Happiness and Intrinsic Motivation

The portion of Ki Tavo, from the Book of Deuteronomy/Devarim speaks of the blessings and curses that will come to the Israelites, either as a result of observing or not observing the commandments. Blessings create conditions where it is easier to observe the commandments and then get reward in the world to come and curses make it terribly hard to observe the commandments.   

 Verse 28:47 says that the terrible curses come as a result of you not having served the Lord, your God with joy and good spirit – b'simcha u'v'yuv leivav – when everything was abundant.

This statement raises the following difficulties.

The Torah has already said that if you listen to God and do his commandments you will have endless blessings, but if you do not listen to God to do his commandments then endless curses will pursue you and overtake you. Now the Torah seems to be contracting itself by saying, that the curses come not because of the lack of observance of the commandments, but rather how the commandments are performed - without joy and good spirit, not in the proper mood.

The commentaries explain that the ' Tochacha'  = the rebuke and the curses from the book of Leviticus refer to the destruction of the first temple and the subsequent Babylonian exile while the curses in book of Deuteronomy – Devarim  refer  to the destruction of the second temple and the exile to the present day. The Sages tell us that the reason for the  destruction  of the second temple were poisonous relationships between people based on baseless hatred –' sin'at chi'nam. The Torah here is saying the problem is =' not performing the mitzvoth with joy and good spirit' , and not baseless hatred – sin'at chinam as explained by the Sages.

The third question is that parents and teachers justify the use of rewards and competition to promote learning and the observance of mitzvoth- commandments - that in time the sanctity and intrinsic value of the mitzvoth will cause kids to learn and do the mitzvoth with joy and good spirit. We see here that ' mi'toch she'lo lishma , ba lishmah , that starting out for the wrong intentions and reasons did not lead to people learning and observing the mitzvoth for the right reasons and  with joy and in good spirit.

The Torah is explaining the underlying reason= lack of joy - for not learning ,not observing the mitzvoth, and the baseless hatred – sin'at chinam in relationships. If people are not doing mitzvoth out of joy and good spirit, it means they are not intrinsically motivated, so they do the mitzvoth like 'automats ' in a rote way – mitzvat a'na'shim me'lu'ma'da. This  impacts in a negative way on relationships because people don't have purpose and meaningful  fulfillment in their lives and are not truly happy. The only way they feel alive and making progress is to feel superior to others by 'having'   more wealth than them and by   putting them   down if they get in their way or would make demands of their wealth. Ultimately people also stop doing the mitzvoth or do it by feeling compelled to do the mitzvoth as it they were serving the gods of their  enemies.

The question is how can we help kids and our ourselves become  more intrinsically motivated, do things out of joy and good spirit and be appreciative of God's blessings and gifts of life to us.

Eric Fromm talks about 2 kinds of people -  ' to have '  - those people who get status and feel alive because of something extrinsic to them –for eg wealth . So what's important for them is ' achievement ' , measuring how much money they have made, how many paintings or cars do they own , how well they have done in school – grades, awards, honor rolls or how many mitzvoth they have done or pages of Talmud- Gemorrah they have learned. So they are the center of their worlds, preoccupied with the ' self' and the ' I'.

Then, there are the – To be – people. They focus on experience, and relationships. They are self- directed, intrinsically motivated,  absorbed with the process itself rather than being preoccupied with their performance. They are truly happy, do things out of joy and in good spirit and  lose themselves in what they are doing . They are giving and happy people totally unconcerned with the self or the I.

We can help kids be happy and intrinsically motivated if we apply the 4 C's of motivation to their academic and socio-moral and emotional growth.

Choice - kids feel   self –directed or autonomous because we not only give them choices but they can ' generate ' choices   and participate in decision making on matters important to their lives.

Collaboration- be related to others and to be part of a social world can be achieved when there is cooperative learning and activities in the context of a caring and supportive learning community.

Competence – to have a sense of oneself as competent and effective , not because of grades and praise but by making a contribution to the learning community.

Content- We have to make sure that their learning and social interactions have purpose, are meaningful, engaging and relevant.

The blessings and curses depend on our intrinsic motivation and happiness. When we do the mitzvoth with joy and good spirit, we are connected to the divine presence – shecinah that resides within us and we are blessed. But when we are sad – ' u'tzuv' or not fulfilled the divine presence is in exile – galut.