My Values are My Sword

Sometimes someone does something to us that makes us soooo mad!!  And man, we are ready to let them have it!  We are ready to teach them a serious lesson!  We don't have to put up with their garbage! And so we plan how to get even.  Or maybe we just lash out in the moment without any restraint.  Maybe we scream.  Maybe we do something worse, like hitting or really humiliating them.  But hey -- they deserved it.  I mean really, you should meet this guy -- he really had it coming.  People will actually thank me!  I did the world a favor by finally putting this person in his or her place! But now let's think about this scenario a little more.  OK, so here is this person who is not so nice, or not so careful in how he or she treats other people.  And now you just humiliated him or her in front of everyone in the room.  Do you think that this person is thinking about the deep lesson you taught them?  Or are they actually just now thinking about how much they hate you and everyone else who just stood there and did nothing while you lashed out in return? Think about your own self in a similar situation: When someone starts yelling at you or screaming at you or embarrassing you -- do you keep listening to them?  Or are you just wishing for the terrible moment to end so you can get the heck away from them? On the other hand, if the person spoke gently to you and with love -- even if you had been bad to them -- you would not be able to help but hear them (even if you pretended to roll your eyes...).  Love and softness penetrate where violence and anger only crash into walls of steel. But we forget this Truth when we are dealing with others.  And so we take the short path of an emotional outburst of our anger, and ultimately face the longer path of not having actually done anything to improve our relationship and situation with the other person. Attached please find a Shu-Shine for the Torah portion of 'Vayishlach': "My Values are My Sword". May we all be blessed to have the strength to suppress the initial rage and anger we sometimes feel towards another person, and replace our desire to lash out -- with words of love and wisdom, thereby bringing the world we live in one step closer to being a world of peace, harmony, and understanding. With Love and a Smile, ~Shu