04 Mar KI TISA: FEEDBACK

The Torah in Parashat Ki-
Tisa makes the following

brief comment about
Yehoshua, the closest disciple
and trusted attendant of
Moshe Rabbenu: “…and his
servant, the young lad
Yehoshua bin Nun, did not budge from inside
the tent” (33:11). Yehoshua remained in
Moshe Rabbenu’s tent, his study hall, at all
times, without ever leaving.
One of the commentators takes note of the
fact that Yehoshua is referred to here as a
na’ar, a term that normally denotes youth. If
we make the calculation based on what we
know about Yehoshua’s life, it turns out that
Yehoshua at this point was actually 56 years
old. Why would a man this age be called a
na’ar?
The answer is that the Torah here refers not to
Yehoshua’s age, but to his humility and desire
to learn. Yehoshua was always learning from
Moshe Rabbenu, even at an advanced age. He
didn’t grow “old” and set in his ways. He was
open and receptive to new information, to
criticism, to feedback, to challenges to his old
assumptions. This is what made him Moshe’s
greatest disciple, and what made him suitable
to succeed Moshe as the next leader of Beneh
Yisrael.

To see just how important a quality this is,
let’s go back several parashiyot, to Parashat
Yitro.
That parashah tells of Matan Torah, Hashem’s
revelation to our ancestors at Har Sinai, but
before it does, it first relates a story involving
Yitro, Moshe’s father-in-law. Yitro had
belonged to a different nation, the nation of
Midyan, but after hearing of the miracles that
Hashem performed for Beneh Yisrael, Yitro
came to join them. The Torah tells that Yitro
observed how Moshe Rabbenu sat the entire
day tending to the people’s issues,
singlehandedly resolving all their conflicts.
Yitro urged Moshe to appoint other judges to
shoulder this burden with him, so he would
not have to deal with all the people’s problems
by himself. Moshe accepted Yitro’s advice,
and right away appointed a network of judges.
The Torah presents this story before the story
of Matan Torah to explain why Moshe was
chosen for the role of bringing the Torah from
the heavens to Beneh Yisrael – because he had
the humility to listen, to accept feedback even
if it was not pleasant – and even from an
outside – to acknowledge that he could do
things better. This is what made him the
outstanding leader and teacher that he was.
We naturally hate hearing negative feedback.
We get very defensive when people criticize

us. The reason is that we don’t want to
acknowledge that we do things wrong, that
we have a lot to learn, that we need other
people’s advice and guidance. And so we
reject it, convincing ourselves – and trying to
convince the person giving the criticism – that
we were right and they were wrong.
But if we are going to excel, we need to be
open to feedback, even negative feedback.
Whether it’s from a friend, a spouse, a parent,
a coworker, or even, at times, a child, we
mustn’t be so quick to reject criticism. To the
contrary, it is precisely by being humbly
receptive to criticism that we can grow and
improve ourselves.
Many years ago, my father gave me one of my
first speaking jobs, asking me to speak at
se’udah shelishit every Shabbat during the
summer in his shul in Deal. I was young and
inexperienced, and I was very nervous. But I
thought I did the job fairly well, and I received
a good deal of positive feedback.
But one Shabbat, after se’udah shelishit, a
man – who was a prominent member of the
community – asked me to sit down with him.
He told me that my speech was one of the
worst he had ever heard. He threw in a very
nice compliment, but he went on and on about
everything I did wrong. He said that I tried to
be funny, but I wasn’t, that the devar Torah

was not relatable, and that I kept talking about
“the good old days” which was insulting. He
went on and on for about ten minutes.
When our meeting ended, I was almost in
tears. I couldn’t function for the next three
days. I was so pained by his critique.
Looking back many years later, I realize that
most of what he said was correct. True, he
spoke too harshly, and could have and should
have done this differently, in a less brutal way.
But in retrospect, I realized that I gained a
great deal from his critique. It made me a
better speaker.
Let’s not be afraid to be wrong. No person is
perfect. No person gets everything right. It’s
ok if our spouse, our boss, our coworker, our
friend, or somebody else finds fault in
something we said or did. Instead of rejecting
it, we should give the feedback serious
consideration, take it to heart, and turn it into
a learning experience – because this is exactly
how we will grow and become greater.