Why does needing respect make people respect you less?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau explains that this saying is a law of the human heart, which he calls 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.”
He explains how it works between people. “Someone feels you're not dependent on their respect, suddenly they respect you more.” But the moment you need their respect, you have made them “your judge, your mirror, your king.”
That is why, he says, “the more you need respect, the less you're gonna get it.” Respect, as his caption puts it, isn't requested. It's sensed.
Related concepts: Relationships · Selfawareness
In A Soul at Peace: Running from Honor
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
Honor follows the one who doesn't chase it.
What may be behind it
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that this is not just good advice but a law built into the human heart, like the laws of physics in the material world.
Deepest human truth
Respect is sensed, not requested.
More questions from this teaching
More answers: Marriage, Love, and Sacred Partnership · All questions · Questions about Rabbi Landau and Rivnitz