The Importance of Interacting with People of Other Faiths

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” This was one of the important things I learned from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. I surpringsly have never heard of this verse from the Hebrew bible or from any bible for that matter. I myself am not very religious, but I thoroughly enjoyed what Rabbi Joseph Telushkin had to say during his lecture. Many of us have are too modest to ever fully accept a compliment that we receive. I find myself doing this quite often. It’s very hard for me to understand that people do actually enjoy my company or admire what I do sometimes. I do know that I could work on my self-esteem, but at the same I feel almost embarrassed to really love myself because then I’m seen as too self -absorbed and I would never want to be seen as that kind of person. I learned that sometimes you have to love yourself as much as you adore or love those around you. It’s appropriate to give yourself the credit you deserve. If you truly do something good, be proud of what you did. Take pride in it because although it’s important for you to know your weaknesses, it’s important to know your strengths as well because you have to have pride in what you do well in. Ultimately, you will grow from those strengths. If you constantly demoralize yourself or focus on your weaknesses all the time, you will never be motivated to better yourself, you will limit yourself, and give up. Rabbi Joseph really made me think about the fact that if you feel good about yourself and forgive others, that the goodness you feel will spread to others. To truly be intelligent you must forgive those that have wronged you and move on, but it’s still worth telling them that they hurt you because they might not know what they have done or how it affected you., but don’t hold a grudge because remember that with forgiveness comes bliss. Mr. Telunski brought up the holocaust and although there were many intelligent Nazis, there wasn’t enough goodness during the holocaust, but many Jewish people have learned to forgive. I think it truly takes a strong and intelligent group of people to find forgiveness from such a terrible event. It’s truly amazing to know that throughout all of the terrible things that have gone wrong in this world, it’s always the good that outweighs the bad. Every one of us should be willing to learn from all other human beings because you can acquire so much wisdom from people of different cultures, backgrounds, and religions.