Another important principle: When people ridicule you about your worship, whether it be with regard to prayer or other matters, do not respond. 1 Do not reply even in a positive way, so that you will not be drawn into quarrels or into haughtiness which causes one to forget the Creator, blessed be He. 2 Our sages said that “man’s silence leads him to humility.” 3
Footnotes
1.
“The practice of the righteous is to suffer insult and not to insult, to hear themselves reviled without answering.” (Maimonides, Hilchot De’ot 2:3, based on Shabbat 88b.)
2.
Haughtiness leads to forgetting your Creator, as it is written “Your heart becomes haughty and you will forget God, your God” (Deuteronomy 8:14; see Sotah 5a).
3.
See R. Chaim Vital, Sha’arei Kedushah II:5.
Published and copyright by Kehot
Publication Society, all rights reserved.
