I’d like you to complete this phrase. Ready? “The lost art of…” If you’re a baseball fan like me, you might have immediately said “bunting.” But you also might have said, “letter writing” or “conversation” or “customer service.” Or maybe even something like “calligraphy” or “blacksmithing.”
Turns out that “lost arts” have been a thing for a really long time. Socrates complained that people learning to write would mean that they wouldn’t remember things. (Dude, hold my beer: have you met AI?).
In Jewish life, one of the most famous “lost arts” is tochacha, often translated as rebuke. Today we might call it “delivering negative feedback.” It’s a mitzvah, right there in Leviticus 19:17 . But already in the time of the Talmud, the Rabbis lamented that no one knew how to properly give it or receive it. So if you feel the same way, you’re in good company.
As we start episode 8 of our ten-part series on interpersonal or ethical mitzvot, I think this is a super important place to spend some time, because I think so many of us struggle with it—both giving negative feedback and accepting it. And our lives would be a lot better if we could do both better.
I wonder if you can think of a time you received negative feedback in a good way. What happened? What did the person delivering the feedback do that made it work? What was it about you, and perhaps your relationship, that enabled you to hear and accept the feedback?
I’ll tell you what works well for me (if you want to give me some feedback, take notes). First, I prefer to receive feedback 1 on 1 and in private, not in a public setting. Why? Because if someone is telling me about how I could have done better in front of other people, it feels like shaming—and, among other things, I’m more likely to focus on the feeling of embarrassment than on what they’re saying.
Second, I prefer to hear about something specific, not a generalization. For instance, a colleague of mine recently did a fantastic job telling me about a specific thing I’d written that caused some pain. It was totally unintentional, and it came about because I just wasn’t aware of how the particular words I had chosen could be received by someone with a different experience from mine. My colleague didn’t say, “Man, sometimes you say stuff that hurts my feelings.” Instead they said, “You wrote this specific thing, and it caused me to feel this particular way, and here’s why.” That specificity helps me to learn.
That reflects a third and final aspect of feedback-giving, which is that, over time, I’ve learned to really value receiving negative feedback. There’s a verse in the Book of Proverbs that says, “Rebuke a wise person and they’ll love you.” I’m not going to call myself a wise person, but I certainly try to live like one. As a mentor of mine told me once, Every complaint is a gift. It’s how we become aware, how we learn, how we improve. So if you want to become a wise person, it seems like learning how to embrace negative feedback is key.
If you want to do a better job delivering tochacha, there are lots of articles out there to read. (And yes, you can just ask AI about best practices for negative feedback and it will probably give you a good guide.) So for our practice today, I want to focus more on how we can welcome tochacha and learn from it. To do this, you’ll need a quiet place–which could be sitting, but also could be walking on your own. Just some place where you can really be attentive and not distracted.
Begin with a few good deep breaths. Try to calm your body, calm your mind.
With each exhalation, see if you can bring a little more relaxation and settling.
And now, I want to bring us back to something we worked on at the beginning of this series: Reminding yourself that you are made b’tzelem elohim, in the Divine image. You are absolutely unique. You are infinitely valuable. And you are equal to everyone else.
As you breathe in, imagine yourself imbibing that sensation—taking in that godliness.
As you breathe out, imagine that you’re blessing other human beings with the same thing, the same divinity.
In and out. In and out.
Now, imagine that someone you know and trust is coming to tell you about something you did that caused some harm. It wasn’t your intention—it was just something you didn’t know, or weren’t aware of.
Maybe you feel a little resistance mounting. A little defensiveness. Because you feel like, on some level, they’re attacking you.
Now see if you can let that defensiveness soften a bit. Maybe set down that feeling of distrust. Because you know they’re coming to you to help you be better. They’re telling you this so you can be wiser, so you can be even more the image of God that you inherently are.
How does that feel? Maybe now the feedback doesn’t feel like a threat, but feels more like an opportunity. A gift, even. Because that’s what tochacha can be—a gift. The most precious gift of all, maybe: the gift of becoming aware, of becoming even more of who we know ourselves to be.
Blessings for the journey. Know that I’m on it with you.