Why does asking for respect make people respect you less?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau teaches that “the more you need respect, the less you're gonna get it.” He tells of a man who came to him and said, “Rabbi, my wife doesn't respect me. I asked her, ‘Do you respect me?’ and she didn't answer.”
Why didn't she answer? “Because you already lost,” he says. “Respect is not a request, it's earned.” The moment you need her respect, “you just told her how small you are. You made her your judge, your mirror, your king.”
And here is the twist: when someone feels you are not dependent on their respect, “suddenly they respect you more.” This is the law of kavod: kol haborei'ach min hakavod, hakavod rodef acharav. “Run from honor and it chases you. Chase it and you lose it.”
Related concepts: Marriage and the steering wheel · Relationships
In A Soul at Peace: Running from Honor
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
The more you need respect, the less you will get it.
Fear, vulnerability, or tension
Asking for respect hands the other person the power to decide your worth. You make them “your judge, your mirror, your king.”
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that chasing honor comes from a narrow state of mind, where a person looks for himself outside himself.
Deepest human truth
Respect is sensed, not requested. Whoever runs from honor, honor chases him.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Marriage, Love, and Sacred Partnership · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz